Work Text:
Logan knows he needs time to cool off. He knows he should just find some place to sit, take a breath, and calm down. He doesn’t know why he’s so worked up. Well, maybe he does.
He knows it’s the jealousy. Something about seeing Rory with this guy she used to date in high school just got him so worked up. And then Rory coming back in and trying to throw it all on him—not just tonight, but everything—he couldn’t stop himself from blowing up on her.
It felt very final, storming out like that. Like throwing her some money and walking out that door was the point of no return. It felt like a breakup.
Logan’s first real girlfriend, and now his first breakup too. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. What do most people do when they break up with someone? He doesn’t really have any experience.
He quickly, impulsively, whips his Porsche into the nearest restaurant parking lot.
He’ll cool off here. That way, he can eat, get his head on straight, and figure out where to go from here. Does he go back to how it was before Rory? When he could get with a different girl every day of the week, and scarcely bother about calling her back? Or is he suddenly a Boyfriend guy now?
He walks into the restaurant. It’s not really his usual sort of place. Some family-owned diner that’s generally pretty empty. Logan figures they must be close to closing up for the night, and he turns to go, but not before his eye catches a light blue shirt in the corner.
And before Logan knows what he’s doing, his feet are carrying him over to that corner table.
“Jake!” he says, sitting down in the seat in front of the guy—Rory’s old guy—and giving him a friendly hit on the shoulder. The guy looks up from the book he’s reading and glares. “…Jack?” Logan tries. “John?”
“Jess.”
“Right. Jess,” Logan says. “This seat taken?”
“Fuck you,” Jess mutters.
“Okay, I deserved that,” Logan admits. “But is it?”
“Literally almost every other table is open,” Jess says.
Logan gestures, like And? waiting for a better argument.
Jess sighs. “Fine.” He looks back at his book, the hand not holding it open absently picking at the french fries on his plate.
Logan just watches him—the way his eyebrows furrow as he concentrates, flipping through the pages—until the waitress shows up and startles him back to reality, asking him what he wants.
“Oh, uh, just whatever he’s having,” Logan replies. “The… burger. That’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Look who has manners after all,” Jess says under his breath. Logan didn’t even think he was listening. He never even looked up from his book.
He could choose to ignore it, of course, or, he could…
He puts his hand on top of Jess’s book and slides it away from him, keeping it open, but turning it upside down and putting it on the ground beside him.
“What the hell is your problem?” Jess demands.
Logan doesn’t answer this question. Instead, he says, “Guess you and me are the same now, Jess. We both lost the great Rory Gilmore.”
Jess frowns. “She broke up with you?”
“Not in so many words,” Logan replies. “It was kind of like a… mutual… break.”
Jess snorts. “Okay.”
“Guess she’s all yours if you want her back,” Logan continues, feeling himself starting to just spew words again. “Since I assume that’s why you came here in the first place. To come in and sweep her out from under me.”
“Unbelievable,” Jess mutters. “If you’re here to be an asshole, just give me my book back, and go.”
Is that why Logan’s here? Is that why he turned back around when he saw Jess, and stayed at this little diner? Is that why he sat down? To be an asshole?
“What, you don’t want her back?” Logan asks.
“Two people can catch up without the intention to hook up.”
“Ah.”
“Can you give me my book back now?”
Logan purses his lips. No. He doesn’t think he will. Not yet, anyway. “So, how come you ended up here?” he asks, glancing around the diner.
Jess looks unimpressed and uninterested. “Diners are kind of homey to me.”
“Really?” Logan asks. “You don’t seem the type.”
“Too bad.”
Logan studies him closely. Jess is… fascinating. In a way that’s almost alluring. Maybe that’s why Logan’s here. Why he turned around and sat down. And maybe it’s why he was so jealous in the first place. He could recognize what Rory saw in Jess and he felt threatened by it.
The waitress returns, bringing Logan his burger. He flashes her a smile and thanks her.
“How come you ended up here?” Jess asks, filling the silence.
Logan shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “But I’m beginning to wonder if it was fate.”
Jess scoffs. “Jesus Christ.”
Logan smiles, genuinely, for the first time since he pulled into the Gilmore driveway, and takes a bite of his burger. “Not a believer in destiny, are you?”
“Not when it comes to idiotic privileged blonde boys that have been deliberately harassing me all night conveniently showing up in the diner I chose to eat at, no,” Jess replies.
“Someone knows a lot of words.”
“It’s kind of my job to.”
“Right,” Logan says. “Right, you’re an author. That’s right.”
“Not this shit again,” Jess mutters.
Logan grins. “Got any more words to describe me?”
“Conceited. Infuriating. Or… Ooh, jackass is a good one.”
Logan laughs. “Ouch. Any nicer ones?”
Jess narrows his eyes at him, like he’s sizing him up. He bites his lip as he thinks, and Logan feels electricity surge through him.
“Persistent,” Jess says finally. “Impulsive. And… Fascinating.”
“Yeah?” Logan smiles and picks up a french fry. “I think you’re kinda fascinating too.”
Jess raises an eyebrow at him.
Logan picks Jess’s book up off the floor, hoping that maybe he’s “fascinating” enough for Jess to not immediately abandon the conversation again. “Where are you staying, Jess?” he asks, floating the question across the table as he slides the book to Jess.
“Wherever,” Jess replies. “I’m only in town a couple of days, so I figured I’d just sleep in my car and save myself the hotel money. You don’t make a lot off a first book, especially when you’re still trying to convince stores to carry it at all.”
Logan nods. “Huh… Well, screw that. You know, my bed’s huge, and Rory’s definitely not coming home tonight, so it’s yours if you want it.”
Jess frowns. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” Logan promises. “Just trying to prove I’m not just the… How did you put it? Blonde dick at Yale?”
“Oh, so you remembered that, word for word, but not my name,” Jess says.
Logan grins. “Kind of hard to forget.”
“If it pertains to you, I’m sure,” Jess says. “Can I add egotistical to the list?”
Logan laughs. “Come on, Jess. What do you say?”
Jess looks like he’s mentally weighing his options, in a manner that seems a little over-exaggerated to Logan, which is probably payback of some kind.
“Alright. Fine,” he says finally. “Your place it is.”
“Great!” Logan says. “I’ll let the butler know.” And when Jess opens his mouth to protest, Logan adds, “I’m kidding.”
Jess puts his hands up innocently. “How am I supposed to know that?”
Logan just grins and picks up his burger again. Turns out maybe he’s figured out where to go from here after all.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jess follows Logan’s stupid fucking Porsche back to his apartment, against his better judgment.
Is he a hypocrite for this? For going home with the same guy he just gave Rory shit for associating with, barely more than an hour ago? Maybe. Probably. Whatever. A free bed is better than the backseat of his car. That’s his reasoning. He’s going to stick with that.
Parking in the lot, he gets out of his car, and catches up to Logan, who’s waiting for him by the entrance. And then he follows Logan to the elevator, and up to his room—which is huge, of course—and the whole time, he just tries to remind himself that he is not a shitty person for this.
Immediately, he finds himself gravitating towards the bookshelf. He can’t help it. He wants to see what Logan keeps on hand. Jess has found he can judge a lot about someone from their personal library. He runs his hand across the spines of the books, noting the titles in Logan’s collection. It’s respectable. Jess will give him that. Granted, he doesn’t have any idea if Logan actually ever touches these books, or if they’re here mostly for show.
Logan, who had disappeared into the bedroom, re-emerges while Jess’s hand is lingering on the Hemingway section.
“What do you think?” Logan asks, coming up beside him.
Jess shrugs. “I expected worse.”
“I go to Yale, you know,” Logan reminds him.
“Yeah, on daddy’s dime,” Jess shoots back.
Logan laughs a little bit. “Touché.” He holds up some clothes. “Assuming you’d want to borrow something more comfortable for the night.”
Jess takes them from him. It’s a faded Yale t-shirt and some sweatpants.
“You seem like you run cold at night,” Logan explains.
“Fuck you,” Jess says. He’s right, unfortunately.
He steps past Logan to get to the bedroom. It’s a big bed, as promised. It’s weird to think of Logan and Rory sleeping here probably practically every other night. Jess wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, trying to get the thought out of it. He tosses the book he brought onto the bed, and locates the attached bathroom, shutting himself in.
Weird night. He had known it would be a little weird, catching up with Rory after all this time. And then when Logan showed up, he’d known it would be much weirder. But now, as he brushes his teeth in Logan’s apartment, wearing Logan’s clothes, he truly processes just how securely the level of weird has surpassed his expectations.
Well, if there’s anything Jess has learned in his life, it’s to roll with the punches.
When he’s done getting ready for bed, he picks his book back up, and finishes it while Logan is taking his turn in the bathroom.
Logan walks out of the bathroom in nothing but his underwear, and proceeds to take the empty half of the bed.
Jess blinks. “Um…?”
He had been under the impression that the whole bed was going to be his for the night. Evidently only Rory’s side. Awesome. Wonderful. Weird.
“Oh yeah, sorry. I run hot at night,” Logan says, like that’s the primary confusion here. He slips under the covers, meeting Jess in the middle of the bed, their shoulders knocking into each other. He nods at the book on the nightstand. “You finish already?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jess replies. “Just now.”
“Damn,” Logan says, smiling. “How fast do you go through books?”
“Depends,” Jess says.
Logan nods. “I do want to read yours,” he says.
“Really?” Jess replies, unbelieving. “Thought writing books was so easy, and it’s just random thoughts and conversations, with ‘he said’ ‘she said’ in between.”
Logan laughs. “Alright, so maybe I was a little minimizing.”
“A little?”
“A lot,” Logan corrects. “And I’m sorry. I’m sure if I ever tried to write a book, it wouldn’t be half as good as yours, and I don’t even have to read it to know that.”
He looks earnest, and Jess is struck with the contrast between this version of Logan, and the one he was first introduced to. How much of each version is Logan’s true character?
Logan reaches up and pushes a stray hair out of Jess’s face that Jess hadn’t even noticed was there. “My turn on the adjective game.”
Jess frowns. “Okay…”
Logan purses his lips. “I’m going to say… Unexpected. Intelligent… Gorgeous.”
And then, he’s kissing Jess. He’s still got a hand on the side of Jess’s face, and he’s kissing him. Startled, Jess pulls back.
“Whoa,” he says. “I don’t know what you thought this was, but it’s not that.”
Logan’s face falls. “It’s not…?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve never… I’ve never kissed another guy before. I think I thought about it, but I never actually…” His face flushes. “Fuck. Sorry. I’m making it weird. Shit.”
“No, it’s fine.” Jess sighs and leans back against the headboard. “I’m not going to have sex with you so you can get over your breakup with Rory,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I get that,” Logan replies. “And I don’t need you to. I think I just thought…” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m probably not going to have sex with you, period,” Jess continues. “So go ahead and get that idea out of your head now too.”
“Don’t swing that way?” Logan asks.
“Don’t really swing either way,” Jess replies. “So, it’s nothing against you.”
“Ah.” Logan nods. “I… think that’s nice to hear. I’m starting to think maybe I swing… both?”
“Certainly seems like it,” Jess remarks.
Logan buries his head in his hands. “Fuck. I’m sorry. This is kind of a mess. My fault.”
“It’s fine,” Jess says again, because he really truly has reached that point in his life. It’s the whole rolling with the punches thing. “Let’s just go to bed.”
“You’re not kicking me out?” Logan asks.
“Of your own bed?” Jess replies. “No, as long as we’re on the same page now.”
Logan nods. “Okay.”
Jess reaches over to the lamp and turns it off, plunging them into darkness.
“You are kind of gorgeous, you know,” Logan says quietly, sounding like he half-isn’t expecting a response.
Jess just sighs and turns to face him, kissing him a final time here in the dark. “I thought maybe you needed that.”
“I did,” Logan breathes. “I really think I did.”
Jess rolls his eyes and lays down. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Logan echoes, from the opposite end of the bed.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jess wakes up in the middle of the night, burning up. As soon as he properly comes to, he realizes exactly why. Logan has somehow managed to migrate towards him in his sleep, wrapping himself around Jess like a koala. And apparently, he wasn’t kidding about running hot.
Jess makes a slight move to attempt to dislodge himself, but Logan makes an upset sound in his sleep, and Jess resigns himself to this being where he’s stuck the rest of the night.
This may as well happen at this point. Who even really cares? Rolling with the punches.
~~~~~~~~~~
The next time Jess wakes up, the sun is just barely beginning to peek through the slivers in Logan’s blinds.
Logan is still cocooning him, one leg thrown on top of both of Jess’s, one hand barely touching Jess’s waist, and the other resting on his upper back.
Jess is ready to force himself to go back to sleep when he swears he hears the click of a key in the front door.
He can almost convince himself he just imagined it, until he hears footsteps moving around the kitchen and living room outside the door. Someone is definitely here. And Jess can only pray they leave now, without coming in here, because he doesn’t want to imagine what would happen then.
To feign sleep, just in case, Jess tucks his face into the crook of Logan’s neck. Logan responds to this by somehow getting closer to Jess, to the point where Jess wonders if they may as well be one person at this point.
The bedroom door handle clicks, and Jess feels himself tense.
The light flicks on, and the person in the doorway gasps.
“Oh my god.”
It’s Rory. Fuck. It’s definitely Rory.
Jess knows better than to think this is going to just blow over. Broken up or not, there’s going to be a fight, and he personally wants nothing to do with it. Logan’s relationship, Logan’s problem.
Jess pulls himself into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes against the light, and once they adjust and he makes eye contact with Rory, it immediately feels so much worse. Here he is, sitting in her freshly-ex-boyfriend’s bed, wearing his clothes, with him practically naked beside him. God, he’s so shitty. Fuck.
“Logan,” he says, quietly, gently pushing at his shoulder to try to wake him up. Logan groans, and Jess tries again. “Logan.”
“Why’re you getting up so early?” Logan asks, his words slurring a little bit with his grogginess. He sits up too, pressing several kisses into Jess’s neck. “Come back to sleep.”
Jess squeezes his eyes shut. This is not happening. This actually cannot be happening right now.
“Logan,” he says again.
Logan stops kissing him, though his hand remains comfortably placed on the other side of Jess’s neck, his thumb resting on Jess’s jawbone. He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
Jess merely nods in Rory’s direction, where she remains standing completely still, wide-eyed in the doorway.
Logan is completely awake now. “Shit,” he hisses, throwing the covers off of himself and scrambling out of bed, as Rory quickly spins on her heel and leaves the room. “Rory, shit. Wait.”
Jess watches him follow her, shutting the door behind him.
Well, there goes any semblance of a friendship with Rory he may have retained after all this time. Years of history thrown out the window for some random night in the apartment of some guy he just met yesterday. God, he’s such a shitty person.
There’s shouting going on outside the door, that Jess tries to ignore with everything in him. He wishes he hadn’t finished that book last night. Then at least he’d have a distraction.
He reaches for it anyway, and flips it open to a random page, rereading to give himself an opportunity to tune out the argument happening on the other side of the door.
After about seven pages, he hears the front door open and slam shut again, and half a page later, the bedroom door opens. It’s Logan, looking exhausted.
He climbs back onto the bed, his head hitting the headboard with a small thud.
“Apparently we were not on the same page about the status of our relationship.”
Jess sets his book aside again. “Oh?”
“Rory was under the impression we had a fight and were taking a break, not breaking up,” Logan continues. “So she came by to try to talk things over.”
“Well, from what I could tell, it wasn’t really the volume of talking,” Jess says.
Logan laughs. “No. Not quite.”
“I take it you’re broken up now?”
Logan looks over at him. “Definitely. Definitely broken up now.”
“And you had that entire fight in your underwear,” Jess remarks. “Impressive.”
Logan’s face flushes. “Whoops?” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Jess shifts. “It’s okay.”
Logan offers him a small, apologetic smile. “When are you leaving?”
“My schedule’s kind of flexible. Depends how many bookstores are in the Hartford area.”
“Hm.”
Jess bites his lip. “Well, I’m a shitty cook, so…”
Logan smiles. “You want me to make you breakfast?”
“I mean, I figure it’s the least you can do after giving me sweatpants, but proceeding to transfer all of your body heat to me overnight, to the point where I was sweating more than I have since I was forced to participate in gym class.”
Logan laughs, and he kisses Jess, quickly and lightly. “Consider it done.”
He gets back up out of the bed and heads into the kitchen.
Jess follows him. “Still in your underwear,” he comments.
Logan gets a pan out and grins. “You’ll find out I can comfortably accomplish most tasks in my underwear.”
“Not sure what to think of that,” Jess replies.
Logan shrugs. “Take from it what you will.”
Jess wanders to the other side of the counter, to watch Logan cook more closely.
“Not bad for a rich kid who probably grew up with private chefs,” he remarks, as Logan expertly cracks an egg with one hand.
“You don’t know my life,” Logan replies, defensively. He turns his head and winks at Jess. “But, okay, maybe I did.”
“See, this is why I didn’t know if I could believe you about the butler thing,” Jess says.
“Alright, whatever.”
Jess returns to the bookshelf as the eggs cook, pulling out a book he hasn’t read yet, and taking it back to the counter with him.
Logan glances over at him, and nods at the book. “You can take it if you want. It’s yours.”
“No, I’ll just borrow it,” Jess replies, absentmindedly flipping through the first few pages. “I can just return it next time.”
Logan flips the eggs and leans on the counter so he’s right across from Jess. “Did I hear that there’s going to be a ‘next time’?”
Jess shrugs, playing it cool. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On if you want there to be a next time, and if you don’t overcook my egg.”
Logan grins. “Well, then it looks like there’s going to be a next time.”
He finishes the eggs and pops a few pieces of toast out for them, before sliding into the seat next to Jess at the counter. And for only knowing each other for less than a day, it feels oddly familiar. Easy. Like they’ve been doing this their whole lives. It’s weird, but maybe the weird is a good-weird.
“Adjective game,” Logan says. “Go.”
Jess rolls his eyes. “This is so fucking stupid,” he says. “I can’t believe you’re making this into a recurring thing.”
Logan shoves him lightly. “Go.”
Jess sighs. “Okay, um… Insistent. Very insistent. Charming, and… Surprising.”
“In a good way?” Logan asks.
“Definitely a good way.”
Logan smiles. “You’re surprising too. In a very good way.”
He kisses him, and Jess decides, yes. Good-weird.