Landslide | John Logan
summary: The thing about Logan is that he always knew what to say. He just kept finding reasons not to say it.
or: the five times Logan almost confessed and the one time he did.
notes: hii!! lazy sunday inspiration, this one is like sabrina short and sweet, hope you guys like it! enjoy your reading!!
warnings: childhood friends to lovers, fluff, happy ending.
word count: 4k
I've been afraid of changing because I've built my life around you
You had met Logan at a rink.
This was, in retrospect, the most inevitable thing about you, that two people who had built their entire lives around ice would find each other on it. You had been eleven, in the middle of a spin sequence that wasn't working, frustrated enough that you had stopped and put your hands on your hips and glared at the ice like it had personally wronged you. He had been eleven too, sitting in the penalty box with his helmet off, watching you with the focused attention of someone who had forgotten he was supposed to be somewhere else.
"Your left shoulder drops," he said.
You had looked at the penalty box. At the boy in it. At the hockey gear he was still wearing.
"Did I ask?" you said.
"No," he said. "But it does."
You had glared at him for a long moment. Then you had tried the sequence again with your left shoulder deliberately up and it had been better. Significantly better.
You had not told him that.
You had skated to the boards and looked at him.
"Why are you in the penalty box?" you said.
"Coach," he said, simply.
"What did you do."
"Argued a call."
"Was the call wrong?"
"Obviously," he said.
You had looked at him for another long moment.
"I'm (Y/N)," you said.
"Logan," he said.
Ten years later you were still talking.
one â the competition february, sophomore year
The thing about watching you skate was that it was completely impossible to be indifferent to.
Logan had been to enough of your competitions by now that he had developed what he privately considered a professional appreciation for figure skating, he understood the technical elements, the edge work, the difference between a clean landing and one that cost points. He had opinions about judging. He had once gotten into a fifteen-minute argument with Tucker about the scoring system.
He was, in other words, not watching you the way a normal person watched figure skating.
He was watching you the way he had been watching you for approximately five years without doing anything about it, which was with focused attention of someone who had accidentally learned the exact shape of their own feelings by observing them in a controlled environment and then never done anything with the information.
You were in the middle of your free skate program.
The arena was quiet, something that happen only when a competition in progress, a few hundred people all holding the same breath and you were in the center of the ice in a deep red costume that caught the light when you moved, and you were moving the way you always moved when you were doing this properly, like you were constantly sure of all the decisions and it was up to everyone else to accept it.
The triple axel was coming. Logan knew your program better than his own game tape.
He watched your set up for it and then you were in the air and rotating and landing clean, one blade, no stumble, the crowd exhaling around him in something close to relief.
Logan exhaled too.
You finished the program and stood in the center of the ice with your arms out and your chest heaving and your face doing something close to relief and the thin line with triumph.
He knew that face. He had photographs of that face going back five years.
Logan was completely gone.
After the scores were posted â first place, which was not a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention â Logan found you in the corridor outside the changing rooms, still in the costume, skates exchanged for boots, medal around your neck that you kept touching like making sure it was real.
You saw him and couldn't help but to smile.
"You came," you said.
"I always come," he said.
"I know." You were smiling the real one, not the competition smile, not the public smile. "How was the axel?"
"Perfect," he said. "Clean landing, good height, the rotation was exactly right."
"You sound like my coach."
"Your coach is correct."
You laughed and walked toward him and he opened his arms because that was what happened after competitions you walked into them and he held on and you smelled like the rink and some body lotion that he has been trying to steal for a long time, he had his chin on top of your head and everything was exactly the same as it always was.
Except that his heart was doing something extremely inconvenient.
"I have something to tell you," he said, into your hair.
"Mm?" You didn't move.
He had the words right there. Had been carrying them for approximately two years, which was when he had stopped being able to pretend to himself that what he felt was just friendship, had been practiced and ready and â
"You dropped your left shoulder in the step sequence," he said. "Third section. It cost you."
You pulled back and looked at him. "You can not be serious right now, Johnny."
"It's a small thing, but â"
"I just won," she said.
"I know. You also dropped your shoulder."
You stared at him for a long moment with a watchful expression.
"I hate you," you said.
"No you don't," he said.
"Maybe I do" you looked at him "No I don't," you confirmed.
You took his hand and pulled him toward the exit to find the others, and Logan walked behind you and thought about what he had almost said and hadn't. Logan had decided for once, to store away this information, maybe soon would come in handy.
two â the lazy day april, sophomore year
It was a Sunday in April, a Sunday that had decided to be warm for the first time all year, and you were lying on the floor of Logan's room with your legs up on his bed because the floor was cooler than the bed and you had been at the rink since six in the morning and every single part of you ached.
Logan was on the bed, technically reading something for class, practically staring at the ceiling.
You had been in this exact configuration approximately four hundred times over ten years. The comfortable silence of two people who had run out of things to say and were fine with that.
"My coach wants me to change the music for nationals," you said, to the ceiling.
"What's wrong with the current music?"
"She says it doesn't show enough range."
"What does she want instead?"
"Something more emotional apparently." You paused. "She used the word vulnerable which made me want to scream."
Logan made a sound that meant he was listening.
"I'm not un-vulnerable," you said. "I'm just â I show it differently."
"You show it on the ice," Logan said. "Anyone paying attention can see it."
You turned your head to look at him. He was still looking at the ceiling.
"That's a nice thing to say," you said.
"It's a true thing to say." He turned his head and looked at you. From this angle, floor to bed, you were looking at each other sideways, and there was something about the afternoon light coming through the window that was doing something to his expression, making it more open than usual, less managed.
"I've been thinking," he said.
"About what."
He looked at you for a moment. The open expression doing something more complicated.
"About â" he started.
Your phone went off.
The ringtone you had assigned to your coach, which you had made deliberately annoying so you couldn't ignore it. You grabbed it off the floor and sat up and mouthed sorry at Logan and answered.
Your coach talked for eleven minutes about the music change.
When you hung up Logan was reading again, or pretending to, and the afternoon light had shifted, and whatever the moment had been it had passed.
"What were you thinking about?" you said.
"Nothing," he said. "Doesn't matter."
You looked at him for a second longer than necessary.
Then you put your legs back up on his bed and went back to staring at the ceiling.
three â the boys september, junior year
The thing about you was that you were, objectively, extremely easy to be around.
Dean had arrived at this conclusion independently and over time, through the accumulated evidence of approximately a year of you being at various team events and group hangs and spontaneous Malone's trips, and it was not a controversial conclusion, Tucker had said the same thing, Garrett had nodded in agreement.
You were funny and direct and had opinions and didn't perform interest you didn't have, which was rarer than it should have been. You also had the unselfconscious ease of someone who had been comfortable on a competitive stage since you were fourteen, which meant you walked into rooms the same way you walked onto ice like you had already decided you belonged there.
Dean had been thinking about this for approximately three weeks when he cornered Logan after practice.
"Your figure skater friend," he said.
Logan looked at him over his equipment bag. "Her name is (Y/N)."
"Is she single?"
The locker room continued around them. Tucker was unwrapping tape. Garrett was checking his phone. Nobody appeared to be paying particular attention.
Logan's jaw did something.
"Yeah," he said. "She's single."
"Nice." Dean leaned against the locker with the easy confidence of someone who had made a decision. "Do you think she'd be open to â"
"She's focused on skating," Logan said. "Nationals are in February. She doesn't have time for â"
"I'm not talking about anything serious," Dean said. "Just â"
"She's busy," Logan said.
Dean looked at him.
Logan looked at his equipment bag.
"Sure," Dean said, slowly. "Right. Busy." A pause. "You sure you don't have a â"
"She's my best friend," Logan said. "Can you just â not."
Dean looked at him for a long moment with the expression of someone doing math.
"Okay," he said. "Sure."
He went back to his own locker.
Tucker caught his eye across the room and raised his eyebrows. Dean gave the smallest possible shrug, which in their particular shorthand meant: you are seeing what you think you're seeing.
Tucker looked at the ceiling briefly and then went back to his tape.
Logan texted you that night.
logan: what are you doing
yn: stretching. my hip flexors are staging a revolt. what's up
logan: nothing. just checking in
yn: at 10pm on a tuesday
logan: is that suspicious
yn: a little
logan: go stretch your hip flexors
yn: i am. you could come over and suffer with me
A pause. Longer than usual.
logan: be there in twenty
He showed up with food and sat on your floor and watched you stretch with the expression he sometimes had when he was thinking about something he wasn't saying. You didn't push. You had learned, over ten years, the difference between Logan processing something and Logan ready to talk about it.
You stretched your hip flexors.
He was quiet beside you.
It was, somehow, exactly enough.
four â the party november, junior year
Hannah had a very simple theory about Logan and you that she had shared with Allie approximately four months ago and had been collecting evidence for ever since.
The theory was: you were both completely in love with each other and were going to keep not doing anything about it until one of them finally cracked or they both graduated and went their separate ways, which would be a tragedy.
Allie's theory was identical, arrived at independently, and they had spent four months running what amounted to a covert observation project with no intervention component because, as Allie had said, correctly , very time anyone said anything to Logan he went quiet and every time anyone said anything to you, you laughed and changed the subject, and the only thing that was going to fix this was one of them actually doing something.
The party was in November, someone's house, the kind that happened naturally when enough people were in the same place with nothing specific to do. Allie and Hannah had come together. Logan and you had come separately and found each other within four minutes, which was, Hannah noted, always how it went.
You were in the corner of the living room now, in the configuration you always occupied at parties, close enough that yourshoulders touched, talking in the way you talked when you were somewhere loud, which was slightly lower and slightly more direct, leaning in.
"He's doing it again," Hannah said.
Allie, beside her, followed her eyeline. "The shoulder thing."
"He always does the shoulder thing when he's about to say something."
They watched. Across the room, Logan's shoulder had indeed done the thing, a slight forward tilt, the specific posture of someone turning toward something rather than standing beside it.
You were looking up at him with the expression you had when you were actually listening to someone, which was different from your polite listening expression and your processing expression and was reserved for maybe three people in your life.
"He's going to do it," Hannah said.
"He's not going to do it," Allie said.
"He's leaning in â"
"He never does it."
"There's always a first time â"
Someone across the room called Logan's name. Loudly. Urgently. Something about a game in the kitchen that required his participation immediately.
Logan closed his eyes very briefly.
Then he straightened up and said something to you â one second probably, or back in a minute â and went toward the kitchen.
You watched him go with an expression that lasted approximately two seconds before you reorganized it into something neutral.
Allie looked at Hannah.
Hannah looked at Allie.
"I'm going to lose my mind," Hannah said.
"Same," said Allie.
They looked at each other.
"We're not intervening," Allie said.
"We're absolutely not intervening," Hannah agreed.
They watched you drift toward the snack table looking slightly like someone who had been about to hear something and hadn't.
"We're not intervening," Allie said again, more firmly.
"Right," said Hannah. "Definitely not."
allie: okay so
hannah: i KNOW
allie: the shoulder thing
hannah: and her FACE when he left
allie: someone needs to do something
hannah: we said we weren't intervening
allie: i know what we said
hannah: allie
allie: i'm just saying
hannah: we are not telling them
allie: fine
hannah: fine
allie: ...fine
hannah: goodnight allie
allie: if they're still doing this at graduation i'm saying something
hannah: GOODNIGHT ALLIE
five â the almost january, senior year
You found out about the Dean thing entirely by accident.
You had been in the kitchen at the off campus house, making tea because it was January and you were cold and your coach had banned coffee during competition prep, and Tucker had come in and started making a sandwich and you had been coexisting peacefully until Tucker said, entirely unprompted and clearly without thinking:
"By the way, for what it's worth, I told Dean not to."
You looked at him. "Told Dean not to what."
Tucker looked at his sandwich. Then at you. Then at his sandwich again with the expression of someone who had realized, too late, that they had said something.
"Ask about you," he said finally. "Like â ask Logan if he could pursue you. I told him it was a bad idea."
You put down your tea.
"Dean asked Logan if he could pursue me," you said.
"Back in September. Logan said you were busy with skating." Tucker picked up his sandwich. "Which was â I mean, you are busy. But also â" he stopped. "I probably shouldn't have said anything."
"Probably," you said.
Tucker took a bite of his sandwich and left the kitchen with the energy of someone removing themselves from a situation.
You stood at the counter with your tea and thought about September and Logan showing up at your apartment at ten on a Tuesday for no reason, sitting on your floor, being quiet beside you in a way that had felt like something without ever becoming something.
She's busy, he had apparently said.
You looked at the doorway Tucker had disappeared through.
You looked at your tea.
Hm, you thought.
Logan found you twenty minutes later in the living room, already in his jacket, apparently on his way out.
"Hey," he said. "You good?"
"Fine," you said. "Where are you going?"
"Skate rental shop. I need new laces." He paused. "Do you want to come? We can get food after."
You looked at him.
"Sure," you said.
You got your coat.
one â the one time he did january, senior year.
The skate rental shop was quiet on a January afternoon, the mundane warmth of a place that smelled like rubber and old equipment, and Logan found his laces in approximately four minutes and then stood in the aisle for another ten not moving, which you had learned to recognize as Logan making up his mind about something.
You looked at a display of blade covers that you did not need.
"Tucker told me," you said, to the blade covers.
A pause.
"Told you what," Logan said.
"About Dean. In September."
The aisle was very quiet.
"She's busy," you said. "That's what you said, apparently."
Another pause. Longer.
"You were," Logan said. "You were in nationals prep."
"Logan."
"What."
You turned to look at him. He was looking at the laces in his hands with the expression he got when he was trying to decide something and hating that he had to decide it.
"Why did you say she's busy," you said. "Instead of â anything else."
He looked up. His jaw did the thing.
"Because," he started.
"Because why."
He looked at you. Really looked at you, the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention, except you were paying attention and he knew it and he still wasn't looking away.
"Because it's you," he said. "And I couldn't just â I didn't want Dean to â" he stopped. Started again. "I didn't want anyone to."
The skate rental shop was very quiet.
"Okay," you said.
"Okay?" he said.
"That's â I needed to know that." You looked at the blade covers. You looked at him. "I also needed you to know that I'm not busy. I mean â I am. But I'm not. Not for â not for this."
Logan looked at you for a long moment.
"Not for this," he repeated.
"Not for you," you said, which was the more honest version, which you had decided to say because you were twenty-two and you had been doing this for five years and Tucker had accidentally said something in a kitchen and it was January and you were tired of not saying things.
The laces in Logan's hands had been thoroughly analyzed.
He put them back on the shelf.
"I was going to tell you after your competition," he said. "In February. Your sophomore year."
"You talked about my shoulder."
"I know," he said. "I know I did."
"And on the Sunday in April â"
"Your coach called."
"And at the party in November â"
"Dean," he said, simply, and you almost laughed.
"Five times," you said.
"Probably more," he said. "I stopped counting."
You looked at him. This person who had been in the penalty box when you were eleven and had told you your shoulder dropped and had come to every competition and had stood in a locker room in September and said she's busy when what he meant was something else entirely.
"So say it now," you said. "We're in a skate rental shop in January. There's nobody here. Say it now."
Logan looked at you.
"I love you," he said. Not dramatically just simply, the way he said true things, like it was information that had been waiting a long time to be delivered and was relieved to finally arrive. "I've loved you since you told me I didn't ask and then tried the spin again anyway. I love you and I'm sorry it took me this long."
The blade covers blurred slightly.
You reached up and took the lapel of his jacket in your hand.
"You talked about my shoulder," you said.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I'm going to bring that up for years."
"I know," he said. "I deserve that."
You pulled him down by the jacket.
He kissed you in the skate rental shop in January, between the blade covers and the laces display, with nobody watching and nothing to interrupt, and it was warm and unhurried and tasted like something that had been a long time coming and had finally, simply, arrived.
When you pulled back he had the expression you had been trying not to notice for five years â open and certain and entirely unmanaged.
"For the record," you said, "my shoulder doesn't drop anymore."
"It really doesn't," he said. "You've completely fixed it."
"I know," you said. "I'm very good."
He laughed and pulled you back in, and the skate rental shop continued to be entirely quiet around you, indifferent and perfect.
You told Allie and Hannah together, which was the only way to do it.
You had barely gotten the words out before Hannah made a sound that could only be described as vindicated, and Allie said I told you to Hannah at the same moment Hannah said I told you to Allie, and then they looked at each other and then at you and both started talking at the same time.
"The shoulder thing at the party â"
"In sophomore year when you called after the competition â"
"The thing in September with Dean â"
"We knew," Hannah said. "We have known for so long."
"How long," you said.
They looked at each other.
"Since the first time we saw you two in the same room," Allie said.
You looked at them. "And you didn't say anything?"
"We said we weren't going to intervene," Hannah said, with the dignity of someone honoring a commitment.
"You could have said something to me," you said.
"We said we weren't going to intervene," Allie said, equally dignified.
You looked at them both.
"I cannot believe," you said.
"You're welcome," they said, simultaneously.
Logan told the team at dinner.
Or rather, Dean asked where you were and Logan said she's coming later and Tucker said she's coming? is she â and Logan said yeah in the even tone that contained a lot of information, and Dean looked at Tucker and Tucker looked at Dean and Garrett looked at his food and the table continued exactly as it always had except that something had shifted in the specific, settled way of something that had always been heading here finally arriving.
When you got there Logan moved over without being asked and you sat beside him and his shoulder was warm against yours and everything was exactly the same as it had always been.
Except that his hand found yours under the table.
And this time he didn't let go.
allie: so
hannah: SO
allie: we called it
hannah: from the beginning
allie: the penalty box story is the most romantic thing i have ever heard
hannah: RIGHT
allie: eleven years old
hannah: her shoulder dropped
allie: her SHOULDER DROPPED
hannah: i'm going to think about this forever
allie: same
allie: we did good
hannah: we didn't do anything
allie: we observed supportively
hannah: that's true
allie: that counts
hannah: it really does
















