Big Time Rush fic: So Precious, Together (Logan/Guitar Dude)
Yeah. Yeah, I wrote it.
SOMEBODY HAD TO AFTER THAT LAST EPISODE. I'M TAKING IT FOR THE TEAM.
The title's from John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over," and it's messy and unbeta'd and completely ridiculous and all that.
so precious, together
PG
2500
Big Time Rush
Logan/Guitar Dude
Guitar Dude shares an apartment with four other guys. Nobody has any idea why they're at the Palmwoods, and, when Logan asks, Guitar Dude just shrugs and murmurs, "They're living, my man," and aimlessly pats at Logan's shoulder like that's even an answer. The part of Logan's brain that loves logarithms and having everything in alphabetical order should be screaming at him to get away from this kid, but he's already kind of far gone. Mostly, he wants to get closer, get hands on bony wrists and maybe pull his hair, and it would be weird. Only it isn't.
Once they ban Joan Baez music and everything hemp-infused from the apartment, Logan moves pretty seamlessly back into his wholesome Minnesota self. Sometimes, though, he's drawn in by Guitar Dude's smooth jives and has a relapse, a fitful bout of Hollywood fever, but it's okay as long as nobody knows about it. He figures it's even okay if he sometimes finds himself lying in the dirt behind the bushes in the park, getting a contact high from breathing in the sharpsweet smell of the joint between Guitar Dude's fingers, because it's not like he's smoking. Logan's pretty sure that Kendall's mom would know the minute he touched it, because she's got those senses, the eyes in the back of her head and don't even think about it, young man kind of senses, and, anyway, he knows all the horror stories about kids who do drugs and then end up pregnant, jonesing and selling pencils on a street corner. He's smarter than that.
Even if he occasionally leans into it when Guitar Dude gets kind of handsy and didn't fight it that one time they ended up making out in a supply closet after Bitters broke up one of Guitar Dude's impromptu hallway concerts (the ones he lazily introduces as Love Sessions to whoever happens to stay and listen).
It's not like it isn't nice. Also, he totally didn't get slapped afterward.
*
Guitar Dude shares an apartment with four other guys. Nobody has any idea why they're at the Palmwoods, and, when Logan asks, Guitar Dude just shrugs and murmurs, "They're living, my man," and aimlessly pats at Logan's shoulder like that's even an answer. The part of Logan's brain that loves logarithms and having everything in alphabetical order should be screaming at him to get away from this kid, but he's already kind of far gone. Mostly, he wants to get closer, get hands on bony wrists and maybe pull his hair, and it would be weird. Only it isn't.
When they can get into one of the bedrooms alone, Guitar Dude smiles a lot, and Logan fidgets and blushes until they're finally sitting with their knees pressed together and sharing breath. When all of this started, they tried to pass it off as spending Platonic Guy Time together, but since it always end with no shirts and a lot of cuddling, Logan has cautiously begun to label them as "dates." His previous dating experiences have always involved spending too much money on food that he doesn't even like and 10:00 curfews and cheesy Sandra Bullock movies, so he feels like they're skipping all kinds of bases that he could never keep straight and going straight to heavy petting.
And now, right now when he should probably be stopping Carlos from trying to dive from the roof into the pool or reassuring James that he really is the prettiest one in the band, he's really enjoying the heavy petting.
*
"You're secretly dating Camille," Kendall says, pointing a finger at him when Logan wanders into the living room early one morning, still mostly asleep.
He tilts his head and asks, "What?" into a yawn.
"You, Camille, doing boy-and-girl things in secret," Kendall says. "I can see it. In your eyes."
"That's seriously creepy," Logan says, making a face at him as he goes for the coffee. He grumbles, "In my eyes, honestly," but starts to blush once he's turned away from him, trying to distract himself by making toast. Kendall's always been able to tell when he has a crush on someone, ever since he used to express affection by pushing girls off swings on the playground. It's some kind of secret BFF power that Logan never developed, and he's bitter about it.
"Just because Camille is maybe actually a crazy person," Kendall says, coming up behind Logan just to steal his toast when it pops up, "doesn't mean that you can't tell us you want to have her babies."
Logan considers his options. He could either give up and tell Kendall everything, just like he normally does, and hope that nothing changes and maybe that he can bring Guitar Dude back to his own room for once. Or, or, he could convince Camille to team up with him in an elaborate, sitcom worthy ruse to keep everyone from finding out that he's a little bit in love with a guy who doesn't appear to even have an actual name. Kendall is raising an eyebrow at him, his confessconfessconfress eyebrow, with the combined I have ways of making you talk squinty glare. Logan digs his fingers into his coffee cup and says, "So, about that secret dating thing. . ."
*
"Guitar Dude," Camille says.
Logan nods.
"Guitar Dude," she repeats. "Dude. This is a new and interesting development, Logan."
"It is," Logan says, "it is that."
"And you want me, the last girl you loved, to pretend to be dating you so that you can have sexy alone time with a boy who owns more than one Grateful Dead t-shirt?"
To be fair, Logan actually never loved Camille. Or, like, dated her at all.
"Yes," he says, dutifully. "Because you're such a talented actress."
She stares at him.
"And, also, stunningly beautiful." She makes an unimpressed noise, and he adds: "And I'll pay you? A lot?"
"There you go," she says, sweetly. "Let's discuss my hours."
*
Logan tells Guitar Dude about the system, and he laughs this slow, lazy laugh that Logan can feel all over, just from where their bare feet are touching on the floor. He waits for him to say something, but Guitar Dude just slides fingers against his palm, squeezing his hand. He's got long fingernails, a little sharp, and Logan likes the way they drag across his skin. He leans his forehead against Guitar Dude's shoulder and breathes in. The smell is familiar already, sweat and incense and all of these things that make Logan's stomach do weird, amazing things. He says, "I wish I could tell everyone, but I'm afraid they'll tell me I just have Hollywood Fever," and Guitar Dude hugs him. It's a good hug, the kind that lasts just the right amount of time, and Guitar Dude says, "I hope I make a cool fever dream," when he pulls away.
Logan says, "The coolest." He kisses the corner of his mouth. He's almost afraid that this is too much, or maybe that Guitar Dude doesn't realize that Logan sometimes can't breathe when they're sitting this close and thinks they're just messing around. It's hard to tell, because Guitar Dude is really, really open with the touching. He's always giving everyone high fives and ruffling their hair and kissing their foreheads, and it doesn't even make Logan jealous, just paranoid.
They stay together, still holding hands, until Logan has to leave to get back to the studio. Camille is supposed to come in and make a scene about him forgetting their anniversary, and they're going to "passionately make up" and "tenderly clutch hands" in front of everyone. Both of them agreed that they shouldn't kiss, because Logan is scared of Camille, and also because Camille says that she's afraid she'll somehow indirectly end up smelling like weed, and it's too early in her career for people to assume she has a drug problem.
He doesn't feel anything when he's holding Camille's hand later, but his smile is real when she leans in and whispers, "I think we've got them fooled. You can probably go play with your boyfriend now."
*
"Hey, so," Guitar Dude says, "I wrote you something."
They're sitting in the park, after the sun has set. His band thinks he's at the library.
"A song?" Logan asks, quietly. He's laying on his stomach, and Guitar Dude has his guitar in his lap, strumming aimlessly.
"Spoken word art," Guitar Dude says, seriously, "and an interpretative dance."
Logan's not sure if he's joking, but then there's a laugh and fingers running through his hair so Logan closes his eyes and pushes up into the touch. A few seconds later, he can hear the sound of him tuning his guitar, and Guitar Dude is looking straight at him when Logan looks up. The song he plays is soft, soft, soft, barely a whisper. Logan's never really heard him sing before, and his voice is rough, so it cracks and drags off at the edges. Gustavo would hate it. It makes Logan blush and catch a hold of the bottom of Guitar Dude's jeans, fingers brushing his ankle while he sings close by about summer and sunlight and what the word love means.
This is a really big moment; Logan can feel it, a warm flush all the way down to his toes.
They walk home with their shoulders touching, and Guitar Dude escorts him back to his front door. He kisses him with two hands framing the side of his face, and Logan kisses him back, and he doesn't even try to hold back the tiny noises that build up in his throat. He wrote him a song, and Logan murmurs, into his mouth, "I really, really like you," and Guitar Dude says, "Ditto," and doesn't stop kissing him until they hear James yelling something on the other side of the door. When he finally goes inside, they all stop to look at him, and Carlos says, "Are libraries in Hollywood more fun than the ones in Minnesota?" because, oh, right. The bruises and the swollen lips and the not-quite-sex hair are kind of a give away.
"Camille's keeping you away from your books with her lips," Kendall says, shaking his head. "Now who's going to be the smart one?"
Logan silently agrees. It's really not him anymore.
*
He sits with Camille by the pool, on the same deck chair, with an arm around her waist. From far away, it probably looks like they're talking about wedding invitations or what kind of puppy they want to buy, but Camille's actually telling him about the guy she's been actually dating. All Logan's learned is that the guy is taller and more attractive than him, and that he had a year-long stint on Sesame Street as a kid that's really defined the actor he is today. When she stops talking, she pokes him in the ribs and asks him, smiling, "How's it going with your secret lover?"
Logan tries to hold back. Then he tells Camille about having late night picnics and the different places they've found convenient for Alone Time and maybe he sings her part of the song that Guitar Dude wrote for him. It's definitely gushing, but he doesn't get to do that with anyone else. He doesn't get to be like Kendall, who's started covering his walls with pictures of Jo's face and discussing her various appealing features at length to anybody who will pretend to listen. Which means mostly Logan. So, he gushes to Camille about how much he's totally in like with him, and, across the pool, he catches Guitar Dude's eyes, and Guitar Dude salutes him. There's a smile there, and it looks like it might be smaller, less real than those big, slow grins that he usually gets.
His arm is around Camille's waist, touching the warm skin of her stomach below her bikini top, and Logan thinks about reading Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade and watching the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version with James at some point, and he remembers thinking how unromantic it was both times. Forbidden love isn't fun. It apparently mostly ends in suicide attempts and elaborate misunderstandings and not getting to hold hands in public. And then Camilla leans her head back against his shoulder, and Guitar Dude isn't looking at them anymore, but it seems like he's not looking with a purpose.
Logan sighs softly, a determined, love-stricken, Shakespeare worthy sigh.
He asks, "Would you be cool with being fired?"
Camille pulls away from him to turn in the seat, smirking at him.
"Are you saying that you're going to make Guitar Dude an honest man?"
"I'm saying that I'm going to go apologize for pretending like I don't want to jump him all the time," Logan offers.
"Then I formally resign!" she says, throwing her arms around her neck and making a high-pitched, happy noise that Logan kind of wants to make himself.
*
A couple of days later, he brings Guitar Dude back to officially meet his band, now that they're boyfriends or something. That's actually exactly what Guitar Dude had said when Logan had come up to him and pulled him into the men's bathroom in the lobby to pretty much confess his love, and after they kissed, he said, "So, I guess we're actually boyfriends or something." And Logan had nodded and beamed and held his hands way too tight.
Now, though, their fingers are laced loosely together, and it takes everyone about ten seconds to actually realize what's happening.
". . .okay," Kendall says, "I've obviously missed some kind of major event in your life."
Logan smiles weakly at him.
"Surprise?"
"Is Camille going to kill you?" Carlos asks, slowly. "Should we be barricading our door?"
"Camille was kind of in on it," Logan says. "When I was stupid and thought that you guys might have problems with the whole 'me liking a boy' thing. Stupid, right?"
He's being too cautious, because Kendall is smiling in a stunned kind of way, and Carlos is starting to look at them like they're a pair of adorable kittens holding hands, and James just looks really amused. When he looks up, Guitar Dude is smiling down at him, and he nudges him with a shoulder.
"So stupid," Kendall says.
"You're our Lance Bass," James says, looking delighted. "Which means I'm not our Lance Bass!"
Carlos slants an interested glance at him, and James coughs and busies himself getting the dishes ready for dinner, and Logan isn't going to touch that yet. He pulls on Guitar Dude's hand and leads him towards his bedroom. Kendall whistles suggestively, but Logan just wants him to see it, so he can get acquainted. He thinks he'll probably be spending a lot of time there.
-fin-
I really want someone to write Logan/Guitar Dude/Camille, now, jsyk ♥
SOMEBODY HAD TO AFTER THAT LAST EPISODE. I'M TAKING IT FOR THE TEAM.
The title's from John Lennon's "(Just Like) Starting Over," and it's messy and unbeta'd and completely ridiculous and all that.
so precious, together
PG
2500
Big Time Rush
Logan/Guitar Dude
Guitar Dude shares an apartment with four other guys. Nobody has any idea why they're at the Palmwoods, and, when Logan asks, Guitar Dude just shrugs and murmurs, "They're living, my man," and aimlessly pats at Logan's shoulder like that's even an answer. The part of Logan's brain that loves logarithms and having everything in alphabetical order should be screaming at him to get away from this kid, but he's already kind of far gone. Mostly, he wants to get closer, get hands on bony wrists and maybe pull his hair, and it would be weird. Only it isn't.
Once they ban Joan Baez music and everything hemp-infused from the apartment, Logan moves pretty seamlessly back into his wholesome Minnesota self. Sometimes, though, he's drawn in by Guitar Dude's smooth jives and has a relapse, a fitful bout of Hollywood fever, but it's okay as long as nobody knows about it. He figures it's even okay if he sometimes finds himself lying in the dirt behind the bushes in the park, getting a contact high from breathing in the sharpsweet smell of the joint between Guitar Dude's fingers, because it's not like he's smoking. Logan's pretty sure that Kendall's mom would know the minute he touched it, because she's got those senses, the eyes in the back of her head and don't even think about it, young man kind of senses, and, anyway, he knows all the horror stories about kids who do drugs and then end up pregnant, jonesing and selling pencils on a street corner. He's smarter than that.
Even if he occasionally leans into it when Guitar Dude gets kind of handsy and didn't fight it that one time they ended up making out in a supply closet after Bitters broke up one of Guitar Dude's impromptu hallway concerts (the ones he lazily introduces as Love Sessions to whoever happens to stay and listen).
It's not like it isn't nice. Also, he totally didn't get slapped afterward.
*
Guitar Dude shares an apartment with four other guys. Nobody has any idea why they're at the Palmwoods, and, when Logan asks, Guitar Dude just shrugs and murmurs, "They're living, my man," and aimlessly pats at Logan's shoulder like that's even an answer. The part of Logan's brain that loves logarithms and having everything in alphabetical order should be screaming at him to get away from this kid, but he's already kind of far gone. Mostly, he wants to get closer, get hands on bony wrists and maybe pull his hair, and it would be weird. Only it isn't.
When they can get into one of the bedrooms alone, Guitar Dude smiles a lot, and Logan fidgets and blushes until they're finally sitting with their knees pressed together and sharing breath. When all of this started, they tried to pass it off as spending Platonic Guy Time together, but since it always end with no shirts and a lot of cuddling, Logan has cautiously begun to label them as "dates." His previous dating experiences have always involved spending too much money on food that he doesn't even like and 10:00 curfews and cheesy Sandra Bullock movies, so he feels like they're skipping all kinds of bases that he could never keep straight and going straight to heavy petting.
And now, right now when he should probably be stopping Carlos from trying to dive from the roof into the pool or reassuring James that he really is the prettiest one in the band, he's really enjoying the heavy petting.
*
"You're secretly dating Camille," Kendall says, pointing a finger at him when Logan wanders into the living room early one morning, still mostly asleep.
He tilts his head and asks, "What?" into a yawn.
"You, Camille, doing boy-and-girl things in secret," Kendall says. "I can see it. In your eyes."
"That's seriously creepy," Logan says, making a face at him as he goes for the coffee. He grumbles, "In my eyes, honestly," but starts to blush once he's turned away from him, trying to distract himself by making toast. Kendall's always been able to tell when he has a crush on someone, ever since he used to express affection by pushing girls off swings on the playground. It's some kind of secret BFF power that Logan never developed, and he's bitter about it.
"Just because Camille is maybe actually a crazy person," Kendall says, coming up behind Logan just to steal his toast when it pops up, "doesn't mean that you can't tell us you want to have her babies."
Logan considers his options. He could either give up and tell Kendall everything, just like he normally does, and hope that nothing changes and maybe that he can bring Guitar Dude back to his own room for once. Or, or, he could convince Camille to team up with him in an elaborate, sitcom worthy ruse to keep everyone from finding out that he's a little bit in love with a guy who doesn't appear to even have an actual name. Kendall is raising an eyebrow at him, his confessconfessconfress eyebrow, with the combined I have ways of making you talk squinty glare. Logan digs his fingers into his coffee cup and says, "So, about that secret dating thing. . ."
*
"Guitar Dude," Camille says.
Logan nods.
"Guitar Dude," she repeats. "Dude. This is a new and interesting development, Logan."
"It is," Logan says, "it is that."
"And you want me, the last girl you loved, to pretend to be dating you so that you can have sexy alone time with a boy who owns more than one Grateful Dead t-shirt?"
To be fair, Logan actually never loved Camille. Or, like, dated her at all.
"Yes," he says, dutifully. "Because you're such a talented actress."
She stares at him.
"And, also, stunningly beautiful." She makes an unimpressed noise, and he adds: "And I'll pay you? A lot?"
"There you go," she says, sweetly. "Let's discuss my hours."
*
Logan tells Guitar Dude about the system, and he laughs this slow, lazy laugh that Logan can feel all over, just from where their bare feet are touching on the floor. He waits for him to say something, but Guitar Dude just slides fingers against his palm, squeezing his hand. He's got long fingernails, a little sharp, and Logan likes the way they drag across his skin. He leans his forehead against Guitar Dude's shoulder and breathes in. The smell is familiar already, sweat and incense and all of these things that make Logan's stomach do weird, amazing things. He says, "I wish I could tell everyone, but I'm afraid they'll tell me I just have Hollywood Fever," and Guitar Dude hugs him. It's a good hug, the kind that lasts just the right amount of time, and Guitar Dude says, "I hope I make a cool fever dream," when he pulls away.
Logan says, "The coolest." He kisses the corner of his mouth. He's almost afraid that this is too much, or maybe that Guitar Dude doesn't realize that Logan sometimes can't breathe when they're sitting this close and thinks they're just messing around. It's hard to tell, because Guitar Dude is really, really open with the touching. He's always giving everyone high fives and ruffling their hair and kissing their foreheads, and it doesn't even make Logan jealous, just paranoid.
They stay together, still holding hands, until Logan has to leave to get back to the studio. Camille is supposed to come in and make a scene about him forgetting their anniversary, and they're going to "passionately make up" and "tenderly clutch hands" in front of everyone. Both of them agreed that they shouldn't kiss, because Logan is scared of Camille, and also because Camille says that she's afraid she'll somehow indirectly end up smelling like weed, and it's too early in her career for people to assume she has a drug problem.
He doesn't feel anything when he's holding Camille's hand later, but his smile is real when she leans in and whispers, "I think we've got them fooled. You can probably go play with your boyfriend now."
*
"Hey, so," Guitar Dude says, "I wrote you something."
They're sitting in the park, after the sun has set. His band thinks he's at the library.
"A song?" Logan asks, quietly. He's laying on his stomach, and Guitar Dude has his guitar in his lap, strumming aimlessly.
"Spoken word art," Guitar Dude says, seriously, "and an interpretative dance."
Logan's not sure if he's joking, but then there's a laugh and fingers running through his hair so Logan closes his eyes and pushes up into the touch. A few seconds later, he can hear the sound of him tuning his guitar, and Guitar Dude is looking straight at him when Logan looks up. The song he plays is soft, soft, soft, barely a whisper. Logan's never really heard him sing before, and his voice is rough, so it cracks and drags off at the edges. Gustavo would hate it. It makes Logan blush and catch a hold of the bottom of Guitar Dude's jeans, fingers brushing his ankle while he sings close by about summer and sunlight and what the word love means.
This is a really big moment; Logan can feel it, a warm flush all the way down to his toes.
They walk home with their shoulders touching, and Guitar Dude escorts him back to his front door. He kisses him with two hands framing the side of his face, and Logan kisses him back, and he doesn't even try to hold back the tiny noises that build up in his throat. He wrote him a song, and Logan murmurs, into his mouth, "I really, really like you," and Guitar Dude says, "Ditto," and doesn't stop kissing him until they hear James yelling something on the other side of the door. When he finally goes inside, they all stop to look at him, and Carlos says, "Are libraries in Hollywood more fun than the ones in Minnesota?" because, oh, right. The bruises and the swollen lips and the not-quite-sex hair are kind of a give away.
"Camille's keeping you away from your books with her lips," Kendall says, shaking his head. "Now who's going to be the smart one?"
Logan silently agrees. It's really not him anymore.
*
He sits with Camille by the pool, on the same deck chair, with an arm around her waist. From far away, it probably looks like they're talking about wedding invitations or what kind of puppy they want to buy, but Camille's actually telling him about the guy she's been actually dating. All Logan's learned is that the guy is taller and more attractive than him, and that he had a year-long stint on Sesame Street as a kid that's really defined the actor he is today. When she stops talking, she pokes him in the ribs and asks him, smiling, "How's it going with your secret lover?"
Logan tries to hold back. Then he tells Camille about having late night picnics and the different places they've found convenient for Alone Time and maybe he sings her part of the song that Guitar Dude wrote for him. It's definitely gushing, but he doesn't get to do that with anyone else. He doesn't get to be like Kendall, who's started covering his walls with pictures of Jo's face and discussing her various appealing features at length to anybody who will pretend to listen. Which means mostly Logan. So, he gushes to Camille about how much he's totally in like with him, and, across the pool, he catches Guitar Dude's eyes, and Guitar Dude salutes him. There's a smile there, and it looks like it might be smaller, less real than those big, slow grins that he usually gets.
His arm is around Camille's waist, touching the warm skin of her stomach below her bikini top, and Logan thinks about reading Romeo and Juliet in ninth grade and watching the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version with James at some point, and he remembers thinking how unromantic it was both times. Forbidden love isn't fun. It apparently mostly ends in suicide attempts and elaborate misunderstandings and not getting to hold hands in public. And then Camilla leans her head back against his shoulder, and Guitar Dude isn't looking at them anymore, but it seems like he's not looking with a purpose.
Logan sighs softly, a determined, love-stricken, Shakespeare worthy sigh.
He asks, "Would you be cool with being fired?"
Camille pulls away from him to turn in the seat, smirking at him.
"Are you saying that you're going to make Guitar Dude an honest man?"
"I'm saying that I'm going to go apologize for pretending like I don't want to jump him all the time," Logan offers.
"Then I formally resign!" she says, throwing her arms around her neck and making a high-pitched, happy noise that Logan kind of wants to make himself.
*
A couple of days later, he brings Guitar Dude back to officially meet his band, now that they're boyfriends or something. That's actually exactly what Guitar Dude had said when Logan had come up to him and pulled him into the men's bathroom in the lobby to pretty much confess his love, and after they kissed, he said, "So, I guess we're actually boyfriends or something." And Logan had nodded and beamed and held his hands way too tight.
Now, though, their fingers are laced loosely together, and it takes everyone about ten seconds to actually realize what's happening.
". . .okay," Kendall says, "I've obviously missed some kind of major event in your life."
Logan smiles weakly at him.
"Surprise?"
"Is Camille going to kill you?" Carlos asks, slowly. "Should we be barricading our door?"
"Camille was kind of in on it," Logan says. "When I was stupid and thought that you guys might have problems with the whole 'me liking a boy' thing. Stupid, right?"
He's being too cautious, because Kendall is smiling in a stunned kind of way, and Carlos is starting to look at them like they're a pair of adorable kittens holding hands, and James just looks really amused. When he looks up, Guitar Dude is smiling down at him, and he nudges him with a shoulder.
"So stupid," Kendall says.
"You're our Lance Bass," James says, looking delighted. "Which means I'm not our Lance Bass!"
Carlos slants an interested glance at him, and James coughs and busies himself getting the dishes ready for dinner, and Logan isn't going to touch that yet. He pulls on Guitar Dude's hand and leads him towards his bedroom. Kendall whistles suggestively, but Logan just wants him to see it, so he can get acquainted. He thinks he'll probably be spending a lot of time there.
-fin-
I really want someone to write Logan/Guitar Dude/Camille, now, jsyk ♥