Set my heart awhirl. (1/3)
Title: Set my heart awhirl.
Rating: R.
Pairing: Logan Lerman/Nick Jonas
Word-count: roughly 22,000
Summary: Nick and Logan becoming friends under unusual circumstances. Nick feels strangely drawn to Logan, driven by a life-long mystery. Logan is keeping two big secrets, but he's not sure which one will freak Nick out more.
Author's notes: Despite the rather AU/mythological elements of this fic, it's actually stupidly detailed with canonical events in early 2010. I wrote this awhile ago and then somehow forgot to finish and post it. Whoops? The title of this fic is taken from "The Mermaid" by Great Big Sea. Don't worry-- Nick and Logan do NOT encounter The Mermaid Problem. Also, big thanks to insunshine and gigantic for encouraging this pairing and especially for reading this in the early stages and not telling me I was completely insane.
Through the halls flowed a broad stream, and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their own sweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs.
- Hans Christian Andersen
The Sirens by the melody of their singing enchant him.
- Homer
A small boy with dark brown curls sat on a crowded tour boat, lower lip quivering, envious of his older brothers and dad. They were getting outfitted with flippers and snorkels with some other tourists, while Nick had to stay in the boat and wait with their mother. They'd promised him there might be dolphins, and the ride out on the boat was pretty cool, but it just didn't seem fair. So what if they were bigger? He'd be seven at the end of the summer, which was totally old enough to go snorkelling, too. They weren't even paying attention to him-- Joe and Kevin were too busy bickering over who got the blue snorkel, not wanting to get stuck with the girly pink one, and Nick leaned over the edge of the boat to look at the water. It seemed bluer than the Atlantic at home in Jersey. California was weird. This whole vacation was weird. He missed his friends and his toys and Disneyland was cool but right then, he wanted to go home.
Pouting, Nick could see his own reflection on the surface of the water as the boat rocked slowly in the surf. He wouldn't cry. He didn't want to be the baby of the family anymore. He was a pretty good swimmer, and he wanted to snorkel. There were fish down there, and he could see them, and he wanted to touch them. He looked longingly down at the ocean.
And then, a face appeared, not his blurry reflection. It was a boy about Nick's own age. Nick recoiled in surprise, looked back at his family with wide eyes to see if they'd seen it too, but they were still busy ignoring him. Nick leaned back over the edge and looked into the ocean. The boy was still there, staring right up at Nick, no goggles or a snorkel to help him breathe, but he wasn't scared. The boy seemed friendly.
Nick then realized he could hear music, but not from the tinny radio on the boat, which was blaring some pop song that his mom seemed to like. Something else. It was like the music was coming from under the water. The boy was singing to him, but it wasn't a regular song. It didn't have words. His mouth wasn't even moving, but Nick knew that the boy was the source of the melody that swam into Nick's mind and swirled around.
The boy under the water smiled up at him, waved. Beckoned him to come for a swim.
The music got louder.
Nick reached a small pudgy hand out towards the surface of the water. Almost, almost. He slipped over the edge of the boat and into the ocean with hardly a sound.
The water was a lot colder than he'd expected. He'd taken a breath before he'd gone under but his lungs burned all the same. The salt stung his eyes when he opened them. Where was the other boy?
Then: "Hi."
Startled, Nick looked around wildly. He'd played "guess what I'm saying" enough times underwater with his brothers to remember that everything they'd said just sounded like noise and bubbles, and yet this greeting sounded as clear as if it had been said sitting safely on the beach.
"What's your name?" came the voice again, and Nick squinted through the water to see the face more clearly. A boy his age with dark hair, blue eyes and a wide, friendly grin. "I'm--"
Nick was suddenly yanked out of the water by strong arms, and found himself face to face with a scruffy-looking tanned man he recognized as the snorkeling tour guide. The music in his mind stopped immediately, replaced by shrieks of panic from the people on the boat, particularly his mother's. It was chaos on the catamaran; people in flippers, goggles and snorkels everywhere, all stepping back as far as they could to give them room. Nick coughed a few times, and the man laid him down on a padded bench seat. "You alright, little dude?"
He blinked and rubbed the saltwater from his eyes. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you."
The tour guide laughed, surprised. "Whoa. That's the most polite drowning victim I've ever had."
"I wasn't drowning!" Nick sat up in protest, and looked back over the edge at the water. The boy was gone. "I was just... swimming."
His family surrounded him, flippers and all. His mom was lecturing him on getting too close to the edge of the boat, but she still sounded relieved that he was okay, so Nick didn't mind getting chastised. Someone wrapped him in a large fuzzy towel, someone else handed him a juice box. The face of the boy in the water faded from his mind, as did the memory of his bell-clear voice. He leaned against his mother's side, and sighed. He wasn't as envious of his brothers anymore, Nick decided. He'd had enough of the ocean for one day.
Later, back on the busy beach, Nick saw a family huddled around a big red and white lifeguard stand. It was the same one that his mom had pointed out earlier as the place to go to if any of them got lost, and couldn't find their way back to the spot their family had staked out amongst all the umbrellas and blankets. Lots of people on the beach were shouting, looking for a missing boy named Logan. A couple of the lifeguards ran into the sea to search for him there.
The boy and the girl looked scared, just like Kevin and Joe had looked when Nick was first pulled out of the water, but the parents were calm and maybe a little embarrassed, not like Nick's parents at all. Like they knew the missing boy, Logan, was fine. He'd turn up eventually.
Nick thought that was weird. But the melody he'd heard underwater was still in his head, quieter and slower now, like the old music box he'd found in his grandmother's attic. Tinkling away.
+++++
Something Logan doesn't tell people in interviews: he's adopted, and his biological parents don't exactly keep in touch. He barely remembers his early life, like most human children, but there are certain major memories that stand out for obvious reasons.
1) Getting his legs.
2) Walking on them for the first time.
3) His first peanut butter sandwich.
Admittedly, the third item on that list shouldn't be all that remarkable, except that sandwich had been the first time Logan had even seen bread, or any non-sentient food, for that matter. It was his first non-aquatic meal and it was quite delicious, hence it makes the top three. He still craves raw seafood most of the time, though, and fortunately sushi is everywhere in Los Angeles.
The other two memories, okay, kind of a big deal. Humans are born with legs, and get to try walking on them over a period of time when they're small and not expected to do so with any particular level of skill, but that's not how it goes for children of the sea. They don't get theirs until they visit land for the first time, and even though Logan got to try walking much earlier than most of his people, things might have been easier had he been given legs before he was expected to know how to walk, and therefore able to blend in like any regular orphan child. He may have had magical legs, but they were also brand new, and previously untested.
Basically, his first few attempts at even standing up were pretty shaky. However, having adoptive parents who worked with orthotics was pretty helpful in the process, and Logan was in and out of his knee and ankle braces fairly quickly as he grew stronger and more sure of his legs and feet.
Granted, Logan looks like your average eighteen-year-old boy. Having grown up under the unforgiving scrutiny of a camera lens without any question about his humanity is a good sign that he's been passing as normal. Whatever enchantment was put on him as a toddler, when he was left crying and alone beside a tide pool at San Clemente, has held strong for nearly two decades now. But that's fish-magic for you.
The fact of the matter is, while Logan has everything below the waist that he's supposed to as a human male, he's still, genetically, a merman.
And up until recently, that hadn't really been an issue.
The Lerman family has been really great, totally accepting. It was something they'd always joked about, knowing that he was different from the day they brought him home from the foster care facility. Logan's an incredible swimmer and able to hold his breath underwater for frighteningly long periods of time. It always scared them how long he'd stayed down there, and so he would come up whether he needed air or not. But even still, Logan intentionally kept secret what hazy memories he had of his past, like having a fish tail for starters, worried about what the family might think, especially his brother and sister. Either they'd believe him and treat him like a freak (which he kind of is), or more likely, think he was completely crazy, and ship him back to Social Services... or dump him in the ocean itself.
On Logan's thirteenth birthday, he was given a letter from his birth parents. His mom and dad, the Lermans to be more specific, had received it forwarded from the adoption agency, and they gave him the choice of opening it or not. He was too curious. He had to know. Upon reading it, Logan knew that it was time he sat them all down and explained as best he could what he knew, and what had been confirmed by the mysterious letter. They've kept his secret ever since, and he felt they were even closer for it. There had been other people Logan had wanted to tell over time, particularly his best friend Dean, but somehow Logan felt that he couldn't trust his biggest secret to the kid who had gotten drunk off two beers and admitted to having had a crush on Spinelli from "Recess."
The letter itself wasn't particularly long, but later on Logan realized he was impressed that it was in English. He wasn't certain what language was spoken under the sea, but he just assumed he'd understood it as a baby. He also noted that it was written on paper, in ballpoint ink, and not on a seashell or something.
"To our son," it had read, "we hope this letter finds you healthy, happy, and successful. We have been coming to the Dry Land to watch you grow up, but this has been more difficult as we age. Someday, we will not be able to come at all, as we will be unable to transform. It is our wish that you come to visit some day. Dear boy, there is much to tell you about the world from which we come. It is unlike anything you have ever imagined, but we felt that the Dry Land was a better fit for someone of your distinct talents. We hope that you agree, and are not bitter about your place in life. Good things lie ahead, we are certain.
"We write this letter because we are uncertain how much you might even recall of your earliest years. Our kind has a different sort of memory, as we age faster than the humans that you walk amongst. WALK! Oh, how we have seen you walk! Do not be alarmed, the body you have is yours, we only made the necessary adjustments to allow you a normal human lifespan. But if you feel like you are wiser and older than your physical body suggests, it is because your mind and soul are still of our kind.
"You will read many legends, many stories of our people. Some of those stories are true, but most are false or imagined. We are not a malevolent kind. We are loyal to those who do us kindnesses, and any perceived violence is result of protecting our home from those who may intrude upon our territories. We are enchanting to those who see us for who we really are, and sometimes this can be overpowering. It is in our nature to attract others, both spiritually and physically. As you mature, please be mindful of this, as you may do so unwittingly with often-grave consequences. Because of your unconscious charms, people will be quick to confide in you and seek your attentions, and you must not abuse that privilege.
"Son, please know that you are not alone in the Dry Land. There are many of our kind who have chosen the life of adventure on the surface, as we chose for you. You may choose to seek them out, although such precious efforts are taken to hide that you may have difficulty spotting them amongst the humans, just as you will initially appear human to them. We have learned much about the world in which you now live, and have determined that you should not give out your true self to anyone but those you love and trust most deeply. We wish only for you to be safe.
"Know that we miss you, and hope you will study your ancestry and culture as best you can, as you have an estate as well as a legacy to inherit, if you so choose to return to us permanently. We will not live for many more of your years, as the sea is unforgiving even to its inhabitants. Please, do not forget yourself. Be well."
And that was it. No names, no address. Logan was comforted slightly by the idea that his birth parents had watched him from afar his whole life, and had his best interests at heart, but it was also somewhat unsatisfying. Did they have TV down there? Had they seen the movies he'd been in? Was his affinity for the performing arts so obvious as a baby (pup? calf? fry?) that he was sent to land to act?
And what the hell kind of a lame birthday card skirts around the Big Truth of his existence, suggesting instead that he consult his local library for more information?
+++++
It's stupid. Nick didn't really mean to break up with Selena the week before, but then it just sorta happened, and he doesn't regret it. Selena had been too busy for him, he was tired of not seeing her, and while he feels like a bit of an ass about it, Nick doesn't especially care. They'll still be friends. Probably. They won't even make a formal announcement or anything, because they hadn't even been all that serious, but word seemed to be getting out all the same.
Honestly, his love life is so much more interesting on a blog than it is in person.
On top of all that, he and Nicole are spending more time together this season, both on-camera and off, and he's not certain whether it's because he's newly single and she's interested, or just because she's easy to be around. Nick can't actually tell. But almost immediately, rumours begin to spread around the gossip sites about he and Nicole dating, and somehow that has ended up being the case for their characters, too, which in turn has led them out to this beach.
The weird thing about filming a sitcom is that even the exterior scenes are usually filmed indoors on a soundstage. So this whole move-JONAS-to-LA thing was kind of exciting, because even though they'd been filming in Hollywood all along, they now got to go outside. As Nick looks around at the crew standing around on a sunny closed-off section of a beach, he's fully enjoying being out in the sunshine. He can already tell that filming this season is going to be a lot more fun.
However, as much as he loves the change of pace, Nick isn't wild about the wardrobe change. He's standing around between takes in a very revealing wet-suit, and the costume supervisor is staring him now, clucking her tongue and wondering aloud if it isn't too scandalous for their target Disney audience. Nick blushes. It's not really his idea of comfortable beachwear, although if pressed he would admit that he didn't hate the admiring looks coming from Nicole and some of the female crew members. He's not really attracted to any of them, but it doesn't hurt the old self-esteem. He idly wonders if any of them remember he's only seventeen.
The trickier aspect of this particular scene is the actual surfing part. He's gotten a couple of lessons, but it just isn't really his strong point. He's more of a golf person. An on solid ground, sneakers-and-pants sports guy.
He really doesn't want to embarrass himself in from of the entire crew, not to mention the on-looking fans, photographers and tourists gawking on either side of them. Not exactly a secluded beach, although they'd paid to cordon off a decently sized section for the day.
Today's challenge: he had to paddle out, and then jump up and surf back to where Nicole was standing, all while staying within range of the camera. Nick even came out early to practice again with his coach this morning before everyone else showed up. He'd nailed it once, but wiped out twice. There were professional surfers hired to stay in the background as well as help Nick if he got into a jam, but still.
It's not like he's a stuntman; he's barely an actor. He's a songwriter first and everything else second.
Nick gets the cue from the director and starts to paddle out, but the waves aren't cooperating. He sits on his board, watching for what he'd been taught to wait for. Seabirds spin and dive above him, and he could feel his sunscreen starting to fail, the first prickle of a burn on the tops of his ears. An entire team of cameramen, lighting and sound guys, cast and extras... everyone just standing there, looking at him expectantly, and all he can do is stare back at them. He's ready, but the surf is not something Nick can control. Not like being on stage.
But, there! There's the wave he's been waiting for. Nick rises unsteadily to his feet just in the right moment, and immediately feels pretty proud of himself. He wooshes towards the beach, but groans when he realizes just how off-course he'd managed to get, missing his mark by over ten feet.
People rush towards him, fixing his hair and giving him pointers. He paddles out again, and once again misses where Nicole is standing. Nick wonders why they don't just move the damn camera, since that's obviously the direction the ocean wishes him to go. Instead he paddles out for the third time, and makes it much closer to where the camera needs him to be, but some damn seagull swept down and completely obscured his face, rendering the shot useless. More hair and make-up, a long drink of water, back at it. Next time he does it right, but the lighting is wrong.
Awesome.
As Nick begins to paddle back for yet another take, he has to force himself to smile. That feeling of excitement at the fresh air and sunshine is fading fast. The show is supposed to look a little shaky, but this is ridiculous. He wants to march right up to the director and demand the scene be changed, so they might use one of his crappier takes. Maybe it wasn't so much in character, but the writers tended to play fast and loose with how they perceived them on a daily basis anyhow, so Nick doesn't see the big deal. He is his character, isn't he? Maybe Nick-From-Jonas isn't always amazing at everything either.
Another attempt, and another. Neither was spectacular and his arms are getting tired from paddling out, but he's getting closer to the mark with each try, and so Nick vows he'll give it one more shot before suggesting they take it in another direction.
That was what Nick was debating instead of noticing the speedboat zooming into the shot, and heading directly for him. All he thought when the water began to swell beneath him quickly was "This is it! This is the wave! Go go go go go!"-- and as quickly as the thought shot across his mind, he was pulled off his board and underwater.
Nick finds himself upside down, thrashing about, immediately trying to determine which way is "up." He feels rather than really sees the boat crashing through the water above him. He squints through the water, trying to see clearly and not letting his mouth open and gasp for air, as terror streaked through his body. Something, someone, was gripping his ankle. And at the back of his head, buried behind all the fear and panic, was music. A melody he hadn't heard in over a decade.
He then promptly kicked Logan in the face.
+++++
Logan knows that swimming in the ocean alone, even on a crowded day, isn't always necessarily the best decision. His parents would worry a lot more about Lindsey and Lucas, though. He's more concerned about being recognized than any oceanic danger. There's some kind of TV show being filmed down the beach, and that seemed to be what most of the commotion was about. Nobody notices him.
Choosing a small, less-occupied portion of the beach, Logan drops a backpack holding his towel and water bottle onto the sand, and strips off his t-shirt, tucking it into the bag as well. His car keys zip safely into the pocket of his shorts, and he's ready to go.
He plans on being out there for a while. He's been busy with Percy Jackson press, and it's finally been in theatres for three weeks and doing okay. Not amazing, not wizard or vampire money, but definitely decently. Logan just can't handle the stress of following the box office any longer, and needs to get into the water.
Mostly he just tests to see how long he can stay under for. It's a game he's played since he was a child, like he supposed a lot of kids do, but he doesn't get the burn in his lungs, the pressure in his ears or the panic. It was getting up to ridiculous lengths of time. He was impressed with himself when he made it over 20 minutes, since that was longer than the world records, and longer than a manatee. But he could go for longer, and he knew it. His parents gave him a sweet diver's watch for his birthday last year so he could keep track.
Logan usually surfaces out of paranoia of being watched, rather than necessity. And sometimes he takes a snorkel or a scuba tank in deeper waters, just to look normal, but never the typical fins or goggles. He has perfectly clear vision, obscured only by shadows and shifting sand. If the whole acting thing doesn't work out, Logan could always have a career in ocean Search and Rescue, or maybe freelance hunting for sunken treasure.
He wades out, then takes a breath, and slips under. He takes a moment to adjust to the temperature, and then just starts swimming without a particular destination in mind. When Logan is underwater, he thinks about his birth parents, and wonders about merfolk. If he were to ever want to meet his true family, how would he go about it? Would they ever contact him again? Would he recognize himself in them?
The questions only give way to more questions.
Does he have siblings under the sea? How would he find them, if his parents died before he found them? And would he have to transform back to do it? Would it be permanent, or could he return to land if it turns out that being a merman totally sucks? Flippers or tail or two tails or a selkie skin or, fuck! There were too many options. At this point, Logan had read too many books and seen all of the movies, and there were so many conflicts between the legends.
He'd even seen a particularly cheesy 80s mermaid porn, which Dean had found online and insisted they watch one Saturday night, not realizing how appropriate the subject matter. It was basically "Splash", but with a lot more tits and awkward fucking, and no Tom Hanks. Logan knew he was supposed to get turned on, but instead he could only think about his mother.
Total boner-killer.
The letter said they often lived among people. Would Logan recognize one if he saw one? And more importantly, would they know him to be one, too?
So, yeah, he had dozens of questions and zero concrete answers. He still didn't know how to determine fact from fiction, either, since most stuff purported itself to be myth or legend anyway. It's been five years since he got that letter from his parents with no further contact, so they were no help. But all myths and legends had to be rooted in some kind of fact, right? It didn't seem possible to Logan that countries and cultures all over the world for thousands of years had been separately coming up with people-under-the-sea stories all on their own without some history of merfolk interacting with humans. Logan wants answers.
Except, hey, he's got school, at least for a couple more months, and he's got his career. It's not like he can fuck off and go hunting merfolk up and down both coasts, at least not yet. He'll have to start with the greater Los Angeles area.
He'd even checked out online how much manned submersibles cost, and while he's doing pretty well and has enough money tucked away from acting as a kid, he's not really ready to break into his college fund in order to go down in the ocean in one of those things. Logan figures he's got a better chance of befriending James Cameron and using his crew than Logan's parents ever letting him buy one on his own.
So, Logan goes to the beach.
He cruises around in the shallows for awhile, and does his best to avoid kids playing, but he always finds himself drawn farther and farther out to sea.
Logan knows that there's such a thing as getting too far from land, and he needs to be mindful of jet skis and larger watercraft. Too many close calls in the past, particularly with idiot college kids on spring break. Eventually, Logan turns back towards land, trying to guess without surfacing where he'd left his stuff. But despite his clear vision, Logan doesn't realize he's getting into a busier area until the colourful bottoms of surfboards rise above him, and he has to go deeper to avoid the dangling feet of people waiting for waves. He's lost in thought, wondering for the millionth time what might indicate his innate "mer"-ness to a stranger. How might his identity be given away, and could that be a way to identify someone else like him?
Surfers are harder to avoid generally because they don't splash around nearly as much, so when Logan makes his way towards where they're filming the TV show, it certainly wasn't intentional. He hears the boat's noisy motor getting closer, and it gets increasingly loud as it approaches him. He dives down to the bottom, looks up at the surfers, and realizes the boat's trajectory.
It was quickly closing in. Why wasn't that one surfer getting out of the way?
Pushing off from the sandy ocean floor and buoyancy doing its part, Logan moves faster through the water than he ever has before. He grabs the surfer by the foot, wrapping his arms around his calf, and dives down again as quickly as he could. Fuck fuck fuck, the boat is almost on them. The surfer is larger than Logan, stronger, but Logan holds on tight, pulling the guy down with him. The whole ocean seems to be churning and the boat crosses only a few feet overhead.
The guy, Nick, struggles, and kicks out hard. He connects.
Logan sees stars, and releases his grip.
Nick finally finds "up" and surfaces quickly then, spitting out water and looking around. He watches the boat turn and head back out to sea. People are screaming at the boat, and screaming Nick's name. He waves his arms and shouts "I'm okay!" to the crowd on the beach. He turns to look for his board, and spots it thirty feet away. The other surfers, the professionals posing as extras, are scattered around and collecting their own boards before presumably heading his way.
Logan pops up next to him, a hand pressed to his left eye. "What the hell, man?"
Nick snaps his head around, turning his body as quickly as one can in the waves.
"Why did you kick me? I was trying to save your life."
Nick just stares at Logan, salt water dripping from his thick curls. "Where the heck did you come from?"
"I was swimming under you guys. Saw the boat."
"Oh. Thanks, I mean. He would've smashed right into me. Asshole."
"No problem," Logan grins. "Right place, right time."
Nick offers Logan a half-smile in return, still a little stunned by the ordeal, then turns and begins swimming back towards the beach. "You scared me, though. The way you just grabbed me from down below, I thought you were a... I don't know what. A shark, maybe. Or some kind of sea-monster."
Pretty fucking close, Logan thinks, and kicks easily into a head-up breaststroke, keeping pace with Nick. "Sorry. There wasn't exactly time for introductions."
Nick stops swimming, realizes his born-and-bred manners. He doesn't offer a hand to shake but he does come out with "Right. I'm Nick. Nick Jonas."
"Hey." Jeez, of course he's Nick Jonas. They didn't exactly run in the same circles, aside from that really nice stuff Selena had said about him that time, but still, he should have recognized him at least through sheer pop-culture osmosis. "My name's Logan."
+++++
Nick gets a few days off from filming thanks to the Big Incident. They end up using B-roll footage of a stunt double, and the show continues shooting, but focuses on Joe and Kevin's storyline. Nick uses his free time to call Logan and invites him out to lunch. Logan is still attending high school during the day, so he suggests an early supper instead.
"It's a thanks-for-saving-my-life dinner," Nick explains. "I owe you. Seriously."
Logan accepts the invitation when Nick offers to pick him up. Logan insists on some kind of seafood, says it's only natural considering where they met, and they end up at Sushi Kiyono. It's so close to Logan's house that they probably should have walked, and Nick thinks that maybe next time, they will walk.
Nick's only known the guy for two days, they haven't even ordered their food yet, and already he's thinking about next time.
Japanese isn't really Nick's favourite, but he's learned that it's not just about sushi, and gets rice and a bunch of appetizers instead. Yakitori and tonkatsu-- meats and tangy sauce. Easier to pick up with chopsticks, as he's not really deft with them, and hopes that Logan doesn't notice when he fumbles even with his first piece. He gets the impression that Logan will be an expert with chopsticks, and really doesn't want to look like an ass.
He's right, of course. Logan digs into a plate of tuna rolls, mumbles something about trying to keep kosher, and smiles. Nick catches himself staring, and drops his eyes to his plate of yakitori. He concentrates on manoeuvring a piece of chicken off the skewer, and hears Logan chuckle.
"You can ask for a fork, or just pick it up and eat it, if that's easier."
Nick stabs harder with his chopsticks in one hand and pulls at the skewer with the other. "I can do it."
"Dude. I won't judge."
Of course he wouldn't. Nick can't even look up at Logan, meet those giant blue eyes. For some reason, he's incredibly self-conscious and finds himself wanting to surprise the boy across the table. Nick hasn't felt the need to impress anyone with his table manners so much in his life, and he's been to the White House.
Logan pauses, takes a drink of his lemonade, and Nick victoriously frees another piece of chicken, but it skitters across and off his plate. He studies Logan's hands, and how he grips his chopsticks. Logan notices, reaches over, and adjusts the top chopstick in Nick's hand. "Okay, try that."
"Oh, yeah. Huh." Nick scissors the chopsticks in the air, humming a little. Logan doesn't know the tune, but it's familiar somehow. Nick pokes at his food with renewed poise. "I think I've got the hang of it now. Thanks."
"I'm glad." Logan is studying him now, but it's actually pretty encouraging. Something about Logan made Nick feel like he could do pretty much anything. "They definitely take some getting used to. I promise it'll get easier."
Nick switches over to the much-easier-to-eat tonkatsu and feels like a total rock star when he picks up the pork with ease. "Dessert after this?" He's thinking something that involves real utensils, like pie.
Logan nods, and turns back to his own plate. "Absolutely."
+++++
Mrs. Jonas makes Nick blush to the roots of his hair when Logan visits their home for the first time, teasingly recounting how big a fan Nick was of Jack and Bobby, and how it helped build the family joke about Nick running for president some day. Logan just grins and thanks her, both for watching the show that basically gave him a career, and for the ammunition with which to tease the living daylights out of Nick. He stays for dinner and by the time people start getting up for seconds, Logan feels like he's part of the family.
If Logan had his way, he'd probably hang out with Nick every day, but the shitty part of having some fame is that they both work quite a bit and their schedules frequently conflict. Nick's got his music of course, but also the Disney stuff, filming and promoting the show, and their movie's sequel, and then he's leaving at the end of July for tour. Logan's got school for another two months or so before graduation, and then he'll go full-tilt into fencing classes and reading scripts. Dozens of them, as his agent keeps pushing things on him to look at, and he accepts them but then his parents remind him of a chemistry test or whatever and so they pile up. He wants to ride the Percy wave for as far as he can, and hopefully start working on something else as soon as Three Musketeers is wrapped. He's still hoping for Spider-man, but it's sort of a weak hope. He'd applied to a few universities and was accepted, but has decided to defer in favour of working for now. He can always go later.
Okay, no. He will go later.
It's hard enough balancing school and work, and the group of friends he's somehow maintained throughout lengthy breaks from classes to work on movies, and yet Logan doesn't mind shuffling things around to make room for Nick. He's fucking busy, and yet he finds himself making the twenty-minute drive up to Toluca Lake as often as he can. Loafing around the spacious home, watching movies and trading music, enjoying their relative free time between projects. Easy living. Logan's house is just as nice, but it's not nearly as spacious, and with Kevin married and Joe in the process of moving out, it's just Nick and Frankie left with a lot of room left-over. Nick's parents welcome his presence in their home gladly, their nest half-empty.
Figuring out how to tell people just seemed too complicated, so Logan doesn't mention his friendship with Nick to most of his school friends. Most of them have some connection to show business in one way or another, usually their parents rather than themselves, but it'd be too weird to roll up one morning to homeroom and announce that he's got a ridiculously famous new best friend.
Except, no, best friend is the wrong term for it. Logan wasn't looking for someone to replace Dean. Nick is something altogether separate, and the difference is striking; he feels a spark. They have a strange chemistry, and he can't explain it any better than that.
And he's pretty certain that it's not one-sided.
When Nick has to leave town for an appearance in Washington, Logan spends most of his time underwater, but he doesn't think as much about his heritage as he usually would.
Instead, he thinks about the way Nick looks at him.
See, Nick sometimes stops and stares at him for a long moment or two, staring like he's trying to work something out. Like Logan is a puzzle. Nick's eyes narrow slightly and Logan feels naked, scrutinized. He has to look away but can still feel Nick's eyes on him. He sometimes has to bite his lip to keep from smiling, and he's not sure why. He likes when Nick looks at him, but really, it makes Logan uncomfortable as well. He thinks back to the letter his parents gave him that insisted that while he appeared normal to humans, he also attracted them unwillingly, and wonders if that was always true. But it doesn't happen often or last long, so he never asks Nick about it, and Nick never says anything.
But Logan wonders, after another one of these moments, if he'll ever have to tell Nick the truth about who, or rather what, he is.
On top of all that, Logan feels guilty when Dean gets home from college for the summer because by that time he's already hanging out with Nick constantly. He feels like a shitty friend at first, like a kid with a shiny new toy who leaves the old one in the dust. Then again, Dean was the one who decided to go to college on the east coast and abandon him here in the first place, so maybe Logan doesn't feel all that badly about it.
Once or twice he tries to hang out with them at the same time, get them in the same room, but it doesn't feel the same. He wants Nick all to himself and he's not entirely sure why.
Logan hasn't been avoiding Dean, not necessarily, but he definitely starts to feel like an asshole when Dean calls him for the third time to hang out, and he's already over at Nick's place. He lets it go to voicemail, then feels even shittier.
"Hey, let's go out somewhere," he says as casually as he can. "See what people are up to."
Nick looks up from his laptop, and asks the only possible question: "Which people?"
Okay, so it's a little weird that they don't have any friends in common.
Nick folds his laptop closed and suggests they go bowling. Logan fucking hates bowling, but it was at least an activity where they could both invite other people to join.
He texts Dean back, trying to shrug off the lingering guilt of not picking up his calls, and then his brother, and a few kids from school. He'd missed so much of senior year, studying with tutors on set, that it was still a little awkward to scroll through the names of kids he was supposed to be close with, kids with normal lives. He'll be graduating with them, going to all the requisite senior parties, and he's even got a prom date lined up-- experiences that he was, by birth, never supposed to have.
Logan idly wonders if they have proms or even high schools where he's from, and if those dances have bullshit themes as well. He smiles a little at the idea of an "Enchantment ABOVE the Sea" dance. So many questions that he may never have answered.
Nick clears his throat in an obvious ‘penny for your thoughts' sort of way, and Logan jumps.
"Sorry, just thinking of who else I should call." He tries to cover but he knows that Nick knows him better than that by now. It's too weak an excuse. "Uh, I guess my social circle has narrowed pretty significantly over the last few years." He didn't expect to admit that out loud, and yet Logan still finds himself saying "You're probably the first friend I've made outside of work in a long time."
Nick gave him a peculiar sort of half-smile. "I guess I should be flattered."
"Don't be an ass." Logan frowns.
"No, seriously!" It's Nick's turn to make a confession. "I know exactly what you mean. It was getting to the point that I wasn't sure if I could trust anyone's intentions, like, with being a friend or whatever. It sounds so conceited, but we've had people come into our lives who weren't genuine, and it's so cool that you aren't like that."
Logan nods, glad Nick gets it. "Yeah. Like, it's important to have people around you who you can trust with, you know, personal stuff. Nobody who's gonna wind up as some ‘anonymous close friend' spreading lies about your life."
Silence falls between them.
Nick rolls his shoulders and sits forward, adjusting his stupid backwards baseball cap. "So, bowling?" he asks again, a hopeful tinge to his voice.
"Yeah, alright." Logan scrolls through his phonebook again, nobody else standing out. Nobody he really wants to share Nick with, anyway. Like Nick might possibly be interested in the girls from his high school. Girls Logan used to like, sometimes still does like when he's daydreaming in class. He reminds himself of the so-called normal life he was just congratulating himself on and sends an invite out to the girl he'd asked to the prom. He looks up at Nick and smiles. "We've gotta be on the same team, though. You'll just kick my ass, otherwise."
Nick nods, knowing it was absolutely true. "Just don't drag down my average, dude. I play to win."
+++++
There are times when Nick thinks he knows for sure that there's something different about Logan, but it's not something he can put his finger on. It's just this intangible difference that he can sense when they're alone.
At first, Nick just assumes that maybe it's just how Logan is. He's an artist, a real actor. Nick's got a lot of friends who act, but there's a difference between Disney Channel acting and the dramatic and serious roles that Logan has taken on.
He hopes that Logan will never ask if Nick's seen all the movies he's done, because Nick will definitely have to lie about watching Logan dancing around on-screen in ladies' lingerie. He'd had to shut his laptop really quickly when Frankie came barrelling in at that very point in the movie, and proceeded to badger Nick for a solid ten minutes, asking what he'd been watching and why his face was red. It wasn't even in a teasing way, he just honestly wanted to know, but Nick wasn't going to corrupt his little brother by showing him video of Logan in lacey panties.
Nick's pretty sure none of his Disney colleagues have ever filmed a scene like that.
He scraps the idea when he realizes that it doesn't really explain anything, anyway. Logan being an actor might be the reason why he's sometimes really serious or quiet, but it doesn't explain the way Nick feels drawn in, or the music that he hears. That's the really crazy part. He thought it was just a coincidence at first, or that he was just being inspired by him, but Nick's more and more convinced that he's actually hearing the melody, not just thinking of it when Logan's around.
Even the possibility of being in Logan's presence has messed Nick's life up. He'll know that he's got stuff he needs to be doing, like finishing up his own school-work or practicing songs for the Camp Rock 2 tour... but instead, he'll put it all aside to call Logan or see if he'd want to hang out. He'll even get the urge to call him in the middle of the day, when Logan is in school and every logical part of Nick's brain knows that nobody will answer if he called, but he'll absentmindedly reach for the phone all the same.
It's like he can't stop himself.
Nick's parents sat him down and talked to him about it the night before, asking if there was anything they needed to know about their friendship, if Logan was pressuring him to shirk his responsibilities in any way, and the whole thing has made him pretty uncomfortable. He felt like they were accusing him of something when all he was doing was being friends with someone new, someone outside of their usual circle. Nick didn't see anything wrong with that.
When Logan comes over that afternoon, Nick suggests they take Elvis for a walk around the block so he can talk about it without parental ears over-hearing.
They follow the big golden retriever slowly down the street, as Elvis sniffs at every tree, gate and mailbox in the neighbourhood. Logan's always had dogs as well, so he doesn't mind the slow pace of strolling around in the warm afternoon. They talk about maybe meeting up with their dogs at Runyon Canyon sometime, see if they'd all get along. Well, Nick thinks it's a good idea. Logan isn't much of a hiker but he seems pretty game regardless.
Eventually Nick bites the bullet, and changes the subject. "Do you think it's weird? Like, how much we hang out?"
Logan shrugs and glances over at Nick, apparently not fazed by the non sequitur. "I don't think so. I mean, it's not like I see you every day." He pauses, thinking. "I'm still getting everything done that I need to. I think."
Nick doesn't mention the history paper that he has due. He'd forgotten to write it on time, but he'd made some kind of excuse about writing their next big hit single and his mother had given him an extension, and now he's not working on it again. It wasn't like Nick to be this careless about his studies, especially when his correspondence school schedule was so much more relaxed. He scratches at his neck, feeling hot despite the cloudy weather. "Okay. I just, um, wondered."
Before Logan can respond, Elvis spots a squirrel farther down the sidewalk and takes off, jerking the leash, pulling Nick ahead. He breaks into a jog to keep hold of the dog's lead, and Logan runs a little to keep up.
Nick looks back at him and Logan is smiling, watching the scene play out. He's not weirded out by the questions or Nick's concerns, not uncomfortable. Instead, he's laughing a little, relaxed, easy.
Nick pulls on the leash a little more strongly, trying to rein Elvis back in so Logan can catch up and walk beside them again. Elvis obeys faster than Nick expected and he has to put the brakes on quickly so he doesn't trip over his dog, teetering wildly. Logan's reflexes aren't nearly as quick and he slams into Nick's shoulder, colliding on the sidewalk. Nick, still holding onto the leash with one hand, loses his balance for a second time and finds himself awkwardly half on the ground, half in a neatly trimmed hedgerow.
Logan, however, is sprawled out face-down on the the sidewalk ahead. While Nick dislodges himself from the prickly hedge, Logan is hissing in pain.
"You okay, man?" Nick drops the leash, as Elvis is now worriedly sniffing at Logan's face, squirrel forgotten.
Logan slowly props himself up on his elbows. "Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Caught myself before I smashed my precious face." He rolls over and turns his palms face-up. They're skinned and bleeding. "Minor flesh wound." He stands up carefully, wincing, and putting all his weight on his right side. Nick notices blood running down Logan's left leg.
"Dude, your knee." Nick crouches down and gingerly lifts the edge of Logan's black cargo shorts. It's a mess of torn skin, dirt, bits of grass and too much blood. "Oh, wow. This looks really bad. Like, maybe stitches bad."
Logan leans over, tries to bend it so he can see. "Oh, shit. That's... ow."
Nick stands up, grabs Elvis's leash again, and nudges Logan's elbow. "Can you walk back? It's just up and around the corner."
Logan nods, and leans a little on Nick, trying not to let his shredded palms bleed on Nick's pristine white polo. In a house of four brothers, Nick's been witness to (and the victim of) plenty of scrapes and spills, but somehow this felt different, with Logan's weight pressed against him. He's all lithe and light, not solid like Nick himself, and hardly a burden. And much less of a whiner than Joe. Logan was biting his lower lip so hard that Nick wouldn't be surprised if he broke the skin, but he didn't complain about the pain that was surely shooting through his leg with every step.
Nick resists the urge to suggest a piggyback ride. Although it'd be faster and easier than the slow and painful walk back to the house, it seemed undignified.
So, Logan limps along beside him, occasionally resting, but mostly just keeping quiet. Nick hustles them along as best he can, taking a shortcut through a friendly neighbour's yard to the back gate, where Nick keys in the code. They'd had girls sneak in through this entrance before and so even now a backyard gate needed amped-up security all the time.
The family had left by the time they reached the house, so Nick goes immediately into nurse mode, bringing out the first aid kit, preparing to clean the cuts on Logan's knee.
"Try not to bleed on the carpet," Nick suggests as they cross through the house to the kitchen. He heads towards the cupboard for supplies while Logan fumbles a little with the tap, running his hands under the cool water while he waits for Nick. It stings but his palms don't look nearly as bad once all the blood and dust is cleared away.
Logan shakes his hands dry and holds them up face out from his chest to make sure the bleeding has stopped. He looks like he's waiting to catch a dodge-ball and Nick surprises them both with a laugh, miming a toss.
"Don't throw me anything breakable!" Logan grins. "Unless you want it shattered on the kitchen floor." He flexes his hands a little, and his grin falls a little. "Okay, ow. I don't even know how I'm going to drive myself home with these." Nick presses big Band-Aids over each palm.
"It's a good thing your car isn't stick-shift, at least. Your hands might be okay, but I don't think you could work the clutch with that leg." Nick nudges him towards a chair and Logan sits with Nick kneeling down in front of him, studying his knee.
Nick wishes his mom was here, that she could take care of Logan, but then Logan gives him a lopsided smile and mumbles "Thanks for this." and immediately Nick's confidence is renewed.
Logan clenches his teeth and swears creatively when the cold cloth touches his skin. It's better than the sting of iodine, at least, but Nick still feels guilty, says "sorry" instead of "language", even though it needs to be done. He swipes carefully at the cut, biting his own lip hard, knowing how much it must hurt. He's not squeamish, at least. Sticking himself with needles all the time has gotten Nick quite comfortable with blood, but he's definitely not cut out for a career as a doctor. Too sympathetic.
The cut on Logan's knee isn't as bad as he'd originally thought, thank God, now that it isn't covered in bits of debris from the sidewalk. He works carefully to get every blade of grass clipping, every bit of dirt, until the wound is clean. It stopped bleeding for the most part, and Nick smooths another large adhesive bandage over the cut. He hesitates, resists the urge to jokingly "kiss it better" like he might with one of his brothers.
But rather than get up and put everything away, Nick glances up at Logan from his position on the floor. His face is blank, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Nick can't seem to move away. He's got Logan under his hands, quiet and somehow just completely appealing to Nick in a way that he never thought was possible.
Nick clutches the wet facecloth in one hand, dropping his eyes to Logan's knee again, and the line of blood that had run down his leg and into Logan's sock. Nick turns to an unused corner of the cloth and presses it to Logan's shin, humming quietly to himself the song that he can't quite work out.
The Logan song, he thinks. It's louder than usual, it might as well be playing on the stereo in the room, it's that hard to ignore.
He moves slowly, running the damp cloth up and down Logan's leg. He works his way down towards Logan's ankle, getting into a rhythm, making small circles. But when he reaches the thin skin near the ankle bone, Logan jerks his leg away, breaking the spell.
Nick snaps to attention, face burning. "Sorry, oh, um..." What the hell was he doing?
Logan is blushing, too, eyes open now. "No, it was, uh. I'm really ticklish there, that's all. It was nice, though." He leans forward slowly, but Nick is already moving, standing, gathering things into the first aid kit again and crumpling up the trash from the Band-Aids. The moment is gone.
Logan sometimes thinks having legs can kind of suck, like when he realizes that his skin is basically a layer of tissue paper, so easily torn by something as stupid as a patch of sidewalk. But there is absolutely nothing like the sensation of someone touching you unexpectedly.
Nick's hands on Logan's leg, prolonged contact between the two of them that definitely went beyond what Logan would have ever expected to come up in an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood. Nick humming quietly, focused on Logan's skin. In that moment, Logan loves skin and legs and shin bones and all those little nerve endings. Pressure points, friction and sensitive areas. Human contact.
Human. Logan is liking seeming human today.
Except, well, he's not. Not really, not at the heart of it all. And what Logan doesn't tell Nick is that all he really needed right then was a ride to the nearest beach.
Logan has to basically go on guess-work and he still has plenty to learn about what powers his people have, but one thing that he has learned quite accidentally is the healing qualities of salt water.
Historically, it had gotten some hype, such as the super-salty Dead Sea or the practice of "taking the water" in a Roman bath. But, as far as Logan can determine, those are really more homeopathic remedies for humans, whereas for merfolk, apparently, it was just standard health-care. They were surrounded by water all the time, so they're naturally healed just as soon as they're injured. He might have legs, but water still had the same effect. Cuts, scrapes, even blemishes-- Logan was proud to say that he was probably the only guy in his senior class to have flawless skin. A quick swim in the ocean after his crash-landing on the sidewalk, and he would have healed immediately.
But there was no way to explain that to Nick, not without giving away his secret. He allowed Nick to clean and bandage his knee, which pleasantly turned into something a little more than your average patch-up. But rather than take his usual route back to Beverly Hills, Logan heads to the nearest public strip of coastline, kicks off his shoes and socks, peels off the Band-aids, and wades into the ocean.
It isn't magic and it isn't science. It's just the way, he supposes, they've evolved. Merfolk managing to survive in modern times despite dangerous propellers and drills couldn't have happened with just luck and cleverness. The water sustains them, cures them, heals them. Logan might look like a human and walk like a human, but he is still a merman, and he still needs the water to survive nearly as much as any other aquatic mammal. The 3:10 to Yuma shoot was painfully dry, out in the desert of New Mexico for weeks, and his occasional dips in the Rio Grande on off-days were no substitution for the Pacific. He likes to think that it informed his performance, though: desperate and frustrated.
He even puts a bandage back on, just in case, so that he can avoid any questions about how the cut is healing the next time he and Nick hang out. But all that's left is a tiny scar, and maybe also the memory of how Nick's eyebrows knitted with concentration and concern before Logan's eyes slipped shut. Even the scar will be gone after another swim, but Nick's wrapt, careful expression... Logan would love to see that again.
Logan wouldn't go out of his way to hurt himself and let Nick play doting nurse for him again, but he thinks about it, just once or twice, his skin still tingling from phantom touches.
Part 2/3.
Rating: R.
Pairing: Logan Lerman/Nick Jonas
Word-count: roughly 22,000
Summary: Nick and Logan becoming friends under unusual circumstances. Nick feels strangely drawn to Logan, driven by a life-long mystery. Logan is keeping two big secrets, but he's not sure which one will freak Nick out more.
Author's notes: Despite the rather AU/mythological elements of this fic, it's actually stupidly detailed with canonical events in early 2010. I wrote this awhile ago and then somehow forgot to finish and post it. Whoops? The title of this fic is taken from "The Mermaid" by Great Big Sea. Don't worry-- Nick and Logan do NOT encounter The Mermaid Problem. Also, big thanks to insunshine and gigantic for encouraging this pairing and especially for reading this in the early stages and not telling me I was completely insane.
Through the halls flowed a broad stream, and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their own sweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs.
- Hans Christian Andersen
The Sirens by the melody of their singing enchant him.
- Homer
A small boy with dark brown curls sat on a crowded tour boat, lower lip quivering, envious of his older brothers and dad. They were getting outfitted with flippers and snorkels with some other tourists, while Nick had to stay in the boat and wait with their mother. They'd promised him there might be dolphins, and the ride out on the boat was pretty cool, but it just didn't seem fair. So what if they were bigger? He'd be seven at the end of the summer, which was totally old enough to go snorkelling, too. They weren't even paying attention to him-- Joe and Kevin were too busy bickering over who got the blue snorkel, not wanting to get stuck with the girly pink one, and Nick leaned over the edge of the boat to look at the water. It seemed bluer than the Atlantic at home in Jersey. California was weird. This whole vacation was weird. He missed his friends and his toys and Disneyland was cool but right then, he wanted to go home.
Pouting, Nick could see his own reflection on the surface of the water as the boat rocked slowly in the surf. He wouldn't cry. He didn't want to be the baby of the family anymore. He was a pretty good swimmer, and he wanted to snorkel. There were fish down there, and he could see them, and he wanted to touch them. He looked longingly down at the ocean.
And then, a face appeared, not his blurry reflection. It was a boy about Nick's own age. Nick recoiled in surprise, looked back at his family with wide eyes to see if they'd seen it too, but they were still busy ignoring him. Nick leaned back over the edge and looked into the ocean. The boy was still there, staring right up at Nick, no goggles or a snorkel to help him breathe, but he wasn't scared. The boy seemed friendly.
Nick then realized he could hear music, but not from the tinny radio on the boat, which was blaring some pop song that his mom seemed to like. Something else. It was like the music was coming from under the water. The boy was singing to him, but it wasn't a regular song. It didn't have words. His mouth wasn't even moving, but Nick knew that the boy was the source of the melody that swam into Nick's mind and swirled around.
The boy under the water smiled up at him, waved. Beckoned him to come for a swim.
The music got louder.
Nick reached a small pudgy hand out towards the surface of the water. Almost, almost. He slipped over the edge of the boat and into the ocean with hardly a sound.
The water was a lot colder than he'd expected. He'd taken a breath before he'd gone under but his lungs burned all the same. The salt stung his eyes when he opened them. Where was the other boy?
Then: "Hi."
Startled, Nick looked around wildly. He'd played "guess what I'm saying" enough times underwater with his brothers to remember that everything they'd said just sounded like noise and bubbles, and yet this greeting sounded as clear as if it had been said sitting safely on the beach.
"What's your name?" came the voice again, and Nick squinted through the water to see the face more clearly. A boy his age with dark hair, blue eyes and a wide, friendly grin. "I'm--"
Nick was suddenly yanked out of the water by strong arms, and found himself face to face with a scruffy-looking tanned man he recognized as the snorkeling tour guide. The music in his mind stopped immediately, replaced by shrieks of panic from the people on the boat, particularly his mother's. It was chaos on the catamaran; people in flippers, goggles and snorkels everywhere, all stepping back as far as they could to give them room. Nick coughed a few times, and the man laid him down on a padded bench seat. "You alright, little dude?"
He blinked and rubbed the saltwater from his eyes. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you."
The tour guide laughed, surprised. "Whoa. That's the most polite drowning victim I've ever had."
"I wasn't drowning!" Nick sat up in protest, and looked back over the edge at the water. The boy was gone. "I was just... swimming."
His family surrounded him, flippers and all. His mom was lecturing him on getting too close to the edge of the boat, but she still sounded relieved that he was okay, so Nick didn't mind getting chastised. Someone wrapped him in a large fuzzy towel, someone else handed him a juice box. The face of the boy in the water faded from his mind, as did the memory of his bell-clear voice. He leaned against his mother's side, and sighed. He wasn't as envious of his brothers anymore, Nick decided. He'd had enough of the ocean for one day.
Later, back on the busy beach, Nick saw a family huddled around a big red and white lifeguard stand. It was the same one that his mom had pointed out earlier as the place to go to if any of them got lost, and couldn't find their way back to the spot their family had staked out amongst all the umbrellas and blankets. Lots of people on the beach were shouting, looking for a missing boy named Logan. A couple of the lifeguards ran into the sea to search for him there.
The boy and the girl looked scared, just like Kevin and Joe had looked when Nick was first pulled out of the water, but the parents were calm and maybe a little embarrassed, not like Nick's parents at all. Like they knew the missing boy, Logan, was fine. He'd turn up eventually.
Nick thought that was weird. But the melody he'd heard underwater was still in his head, quieter and slower now, like the old music box he'd found in his grandmother's attic. Tinkling away.
+++++
Something Logan doesn't tell people in interviews: he's adopted, and his biological parents don't exactly keep in touch. He barely remembers his early life, like most human children, but there are certain major memories that stand out for obvious reasons.
1) Getting his legs.
2) Walking on them for the first time.
3) His first peanut butter sandwich.
Admittedly, the third item on that list shouldn't be all that remarkable, except that sandwich had been the first time Logan had even seen bread, or any non-sentient food, for that matter. It was his first non-aquatic meal and it was quite delicious, hence it makes the top three. He still craves raw seafood most of the time, though, and fortunately sushi is everywhere in Los Angeles.
The other two memories, okay, kind of a big deal. Humans are born with legs, and get to try walking on them over a period of time when they're small and not expected to do so with any particular level of skill, but that's not how it goes for children of the sea. They don't get theirs until they visit land for the first time, and even though Logan got to try walking much earlier than most of his people, things might have been easier had he been given legs before he was expected to know how to walk, and therefore able to blend in like any regular orphan child. He may have had magical legs, but they were also brand new, and previously untested.
Basically, his first few attempts at even standing up were pretty shaky. However, having adoptive parents who worked with orthotics was pretty helpful in the process, and Logan was in and out of his knee and ankle braces fairly quickly as he grew stronger and more sure of his legs and feet.
Granted, Logan looks like your average eighteen-year-old boy. Having grown up under the unforgiving scrutiny of a camera lens without any question about his humanity is a good sign that he's been passing as normal. Whatever enchantment was put on him as a toddler, when he was left crying and alone beside a tide pool at San Clemente, has held strong for nearly two decades now. But that's fish-magic for you.
The fact of the matter is, while Logan has everything below the waist that he's supposed to as a human male, he's still, genetically, a merman.
And up until recently, that hadn't really been an issue.
The Lerman family has been really great, totally accepting. It was something they'd always joked about, knowing that he was different from the day they brought him home from the foster care facility. Logan's an incredible swimmer and able to hold his breath underwater for frighteningly long periods of time. It always scared them how long he'd stayed down there, and so he would come up whether he needed air or not. But even still, Logan intentionally kept secret what hazy memories he had of his past, like having a fish tail for starters, worried about what the family might think, especially his brother and sister. Either they'd believe him and treat him like a freak (which he kind of is), or more likely, think he was completely crazy, and ship him back to Social Services... or dump him in the ocean itself.
On Logan's thirteenth birthday, he was given a letter from his birth parents. His mom and dad, the Lermans to be more specific, had received it forwarded from the adoption agency, and they gave him the choice of opening it or not. He was too curious. He had to know. Upon reading it, Logan knew that it was time he sat them all down and explained as best he could what he knew, and what had been confirmed by the mysterious letter. They've kept his secret ever since, and he felt they were even closer for it. There had been other people Logan had wanted to tell over time, particularly his best friend Dean, but somehow Logan felt that he couldn't trust his biggest secret to the kid who had gotten drunk off two beers and admitted to having had a crush on Spinelli from "Recess."
The letter itself wasn't particularly long, but later on Logan realized he was impressed that it was in English. He wasn't certain what language was spoken under the sea, but he just assumed he'd understood it as a baby. He also noted that it was written on paper, in ballpoint ink, and not on a seashell or something.
"To our son," it had read, "we hope this letter finds you healthy, happy, and successful. We have been coming to the Dry Land to watch you grow up, but this has been more difficult as we age. Someday, we will not be able to come at all, as we will be unable to transform. It is our wish that you come to visit some day. Dear boy, there is much to tell you about the world from which we come. It is unlike anything you have ever imagined, but we felt that the Dry Land was a better fit for someone of your distinct talents. We hope that you agree, and are not bitter about your place in life. Good things lie ahead, we are certain.
"We write this letter because we are uncertain how much you might even recall of your earliest years. Our kind has a different sort of memory, as we age faster than the humans that you walk amongst. WALK! Oh, how we have seen you walk! Do not be alarmed, the body you have is yours, we only made the necessary adjustments to allow you a normal human lifespan. But if you feel like you are wiser and older than your physical body suggests, it is because your mind and soul are still of our kind.
"You will read many legends, many stories of our people. Some of those stories are true, but most are false or imagined. We are not a malevolent kind. We are loyal to those who do us kindnesses, and any perceived violence is result of protecting our home from those who may intrude upon our territories. We are enchanting to those who see us for who we really are, and sometimes this can be overpowering. It is in our nature to attract others, both spiritually and physically. As you mature, please be mindful of this, as you may do so unwittingly with often-grave consequences. Because of your unconscious charms, people will be quick to confide in you and seek your attentions, and you must not abuse that privilege.
"Son, please know that you are not alone in the Dry Land. There are many of our kind who have chosen the life of adventure on the surface, as we chose for you. You may choose to seek them out, although such precious efforts are taken to hide that you may have difficulty spotting them amongst the humans, just as you will initially appear human to them. We have learned much about the world in which you now live, and have determined that you should not give out your true self to anyone but those you love and trust most deeply. We wish only for you to be safe.
"Know that we miss you, and hope you will study your ancestry and culture as best you can, as you have an estate as well as a legacy to inherit, if you so choose to return to us permanently. We will not live for many more of your years, as the sea is unforgiving even to its inhabitants. Please, do not forget yourself. Be well."
And that was it. No names, no address. Logan was comforted slightly by the idea that his birth parents had watched him from afar his whole life, and had his best interests at heart, but it was also somewhat unsatisfying. Did they have TV down there? Had they seen the movies he'd been in? Was his affinity for the performing arts so obvious as a baby (pup? calf? fry?) that he was sent to land to act?
And what the hell kind of a lame birthday card skirts around the Big Truth of his existence, suggesting instead that he consult his local library for more information?
+++++
It's stupid. Nick didn't really mean to break up with Selena the week before, but then it just sorta happened, and he doesn't regret it. Selena had been too busy for him, he was tired of not seeing her, and while he feels like a bit of an ass about it, Nick doesn't especially care. They'll still be friends. Probably. They won't even make a formal announcement or anything, because they hadn't even been all that serious, but word seemed to be getting out all the same.
Honestly, his love life is so much more interesting on a blog than it is in person.
On top of all that, he and Nicole are spending more time together this season, both on-camera and off, and he's not certain whether it's because he's newly single and she's interested, or just because she's easy to be around. Nick can't actually tell. But almost immediately, rumours begin to spread around the gossip sites about he and Nicole dating, and somehow that has ended up being the case for their characters, too, which in turn has led them out to this beach.
The weird thing about filming a sitcom is that even the exterior scenes are usually filmed indoors on a soundstage. So this whole move-JONAS-to-LA thing was kind of exciting, because even though they'd been filming in Hollywood all along, they now got to go outside. As Nick looks around at the crew standing around on a sunny closed-off section of a beach, he's fully enjoying being out in the sunshine. He can already tell that filming this season is going to be a lot more fun.
However, as much as he loves the change of pace, Nick isn't wild about the wardrobe change. He's standing around between takes in a very revealing wet-suit, and the costume supervisor is staring him now, clucking her tongue and wondering aloud if it isn't too scandalous for their target Disney audience. Nick blushes. It's not really his idea of comfortable beachwear, although if pressed he would admit that he didn't hate the admiring looks coming from Nicole and some of the female crew members. He's not really attracted to any of them, but it doesn't hurt the old self-esteem. He idly wonders if any of them remember he's only seventeen.
The trickier aspect of this particular scene is the actual surfing part. He's gotten a couple of lessons, but it just isn't really his strong point. He's more of a golf person. An on solid ground, sneakers-and-pants sports guy.
He really doesn't want to embarrass himself in from of the entire crew, not to mention the on-looking fans, photographers and tourists gawking on either side of them. Not exactly a secluded beach, although they'd paid to cordon off a decently sized section for the day.
Today's challenge: he had to paddle out, and then jump up and surf back to where Nicole was standing, all while staying within range of the camera. Nick even came out early to practice again with his coach this morning before everyone else showed up. He'd nailed it once, but wiped out twice. There were professional surfers hired to stay in the background as well as help Nick if he got into a jam, but still.
It's not like he's a stuntman; he's barely an actor. He's a songwriter first and everything else second.
Nick gets the cue from the director and starts to paddle out, but the waves aren't cooperating. He sits on his board, watching for what he'd been taught to wait for. Seabirds spin and dive above him, and he could feel his sunscreen starting to fail, the first prickle of a burn on the tops of his ears. An entire team of cameramen, lighting and sound guys, cast and extras... everyone just standing there, looking at him expectantly, and all he can do is stare back at them. He's ready, but the surf is not something Nick can control. Not like being on stage.
But, there! There's the wave he's been waiting for. Nick rises unsteadily to his feet just in the right moment, and immediately feels pretty proud of himself. He wooshes towards the beach, but groans when he realizes just how off-course he'd managed to get, missing his mark by over ten feet.
People rush towards him, fixing his hair and giving him pointers. He paddles out again, and once again misses where Nicole is standing. Nick wonders why they don't just move the damn camera, since that's obviously the direction the ocean wishes him to go. Instead he paddles out for the third time, and makes it much closer to where the camera needs him to be, but some damn seagull swept down and completely obscured his face, rendering the shot useless. More hair and make-up, a long drink of water, back at it. Next time he does it right, but the lighting is wrong.
Awesome.
As Nick begins to paddle back for yet another take, he has to force himself to smile. That feeling of excitement at the fresh air and sunshine is fading fast. The show is supposed to look a little shaky, but this is ridiculous. He wants to march right up to the director and demand the scene be changed, so they might use one of his crappier takes. Maybe it wasn't so much in character, but the writers tended to play fast and loose with how they perceived them on a daily basis anyhow, so Nick doesn't see the big deal. He is his character, isn't he? Maybe Nick-From-Jonas isn't always amazing at everything either.
Another attempt, and another. Neither was spectacular and his arms are getting tired from paddling out, but he's getting closer to the mark with each try, and so Nick vows he'll give it one more shot before suggesting they take it in another direction.
That was what Nick was debating instead of noticing the speedboat zooming into the shot, and heading directly for him. All he thought when the water began to swell beneath him quickly was "This is it! This is the wave! Go go go go go!"-- and as quickly as the thought shot across his mind, he was pulled off his board and underwater.
Nick finds himself upside down, thrashing about, immediately trying to determine which way is "up." He feels rather than really sees the boat crashing through the water above him. He squints through the water, trying to see clearly and not letting his mouth open and gasp for air, as terror streaked through his body. Something, someone, was gripping his ankle. And at the back of his head, buried behind all the fear and panic, was music. A melody he hadn't heard in over a decade.
He then promptly kicked Logan in the face.
+++++
Logan knows that swimming in the ocean alone, even on a crowded day, isn't always necessarily the best decision. His parents would worry a lot more about Lindsey and Lucas, though. He's more concerned about being recognized than any oceanic danger. There's some kind of TV show being filmed down the beach, and that seemed to be what most of the commotion was about. Nobody notices him.
Choosing a small, less-occupied portion of the beach, Logan drops a backpack holding his towel and water bottle onto the sand, and strips off his t-shirt, tucking it into the bag as well. His car keys zip safely into the pocket of his shorts, and he's ready to go.
He plans on being out there for a while. He's been busy with Percy Jackson press, and it's finally been in theatres for three weeks and doing okay. Not amazing, not wizard or vampire money, but definitely decently. Logan just can't handle the stress of following the box office any longer, and needs to get into the water.
Mostly he just tests to see how long he can stay under for. It's a game he's played since he was a child, like he supposed a lot of kids do, but he doesn't get the burn in his lungs, the pressure in his ears or the panic. It was getting up to ridiculous lengths of time. He was impressed with himself when he made it over 20 minutes, since that was longer than the world records, and longer than a manatee. But he could go for longer, and he knew it. His parents gave him a sweet diver's watch for his birthday last year so he could keep track.
Logan usually surfaces out of paranoia of being watched, rather than necessity. And sometimes he takes a snorkel or a scuba tank in deeper waters, just to look normal, but never the typical fins or goggles. He has perfectly clear vision, obscured only by shadows and shifting sand. If the whole acting thing doesn't work out, Logan could always have a career in ocean Search and Rescue, or maybe freelance hunting for sunken treasure.
He wades out, then takes a breath, and slips under. He takes a moment to adjust to the temperature, and then just starts swimming without a particular destination in mind. When Logan is underwater, he thinks about his birth parents, and wonders about merfolk. If he were to ever want to meet his true family, how would he go about it? Would they ever contact him again? Would he recognize himself in them?
The questions only give way to more questions.
Does he have siblings under the sea? How would he find them, if his parents died before he found them? And would he have to transform back to do it? Would it be permanent, or could he return to land if it turns out that being a merman totally sucks? Flippers or tail or two tails or a selkie skin or, fuck! There were too many options. At this point, Logan had read too many books and seen all of the movies, and there were so many conflicts between the legends.
He'd even seen a particularly cheesy 80s mermaid porn, which Dean had found online and insisted they watch one Saturday night, not realizing how appropriate the subject matter. It was basically "Splash", but with a lot more tits and awkward fucking, and no Tom Hanks. Logan knew he was supposed to get turned on, but instead he could only think about his mother.
Total boner-killer.
The letter said they often lived among people. Would Logan recognize one if he saw one? And more importantly, would they know him to be one, too?
So, yeah, he had dozens of questions and zero concrete answers. He still didn't know how to determine fact from fiction, either, since most stuff purported itself to be myth or legend anyway. It's been five years since he got that letter from his parents with no further contact, so they were no help. But all myths and legends had to be rooted in some kind of fact, right? It didn't seem possible to Logan that countries and cultures all over the world for thousands of years had been separately coming up with people-under-the-sea stories all on their own without some history of merfolk interacting with humans. Logan wants answers.
Except, hey, he's got school, at least for a couple more months, and he's got his career. It's not like he can fuck off and go hunting merfolk up and down both coasts, at least not yet. He'll have to start with the greater Los Angeles area.
He'd even checked out online how much manned submersibles cost, and while he's doing pretty well and has enough money tucked away from acting as a kid, he's not really ready to break into his college fund in order to go down in the ocean in one of those things. Logan figures he's got a better chance of befriending James Cameron and using his crew than Logan's parents ever letting him buy one on his own.
So, Logan goes to the beach.
He cruises around in the shallows for awhile, and does his best to avoid kids playing, but he always finds himself drawn farther and farther out to sea.
Logan knows that there's such a thing as getting too far from land, and he needs to be mindful of jet skis and larger watercraft. Too many close calls in the past, particularly with idiot college kids on spring break. Eventually, Logan turns back towards land, trying to guess without surfacing where he'd left his stuff. But despite his clear vision, Logan doesn't realize he's getting into a busier area until the colourful bottoms of surfboards rise above him, and he has to go deeper to avoid the dangling feet of people waiting for waves. He's lost in thought, wondering for the millionth time what might indicate his innate "mer"-ness to a stranger. How might his identity be given away, and could that be a way to identify someone else like him?
Surfers are harder to avoid generally because they don't splash around nearly as much, so when Logan makes his way towards where they're filming the TV show, it certainly wasn't intentional. He hears the boat's noisy motor getting closer, and it gets increasingly loud as it approaches him. He dives down to the bottom, looks up at the surfers, and realizes the boat's trajectory.
It was quickly closing in. Why wasn't that one surfer getting out of the way?
Pushing off from the sandy ocean floor and buoyancy doing its part, Logan moves faster through the water than he ever has before. He grabs the surfer by the foot, wrapping his arms around his calf, and dives down again as quickly as he could. Fuck fuck fuck, the boat is almost on them. The surfer is larger than Logan, stronger, but Logan holds on tight, pulling the guy down with him. The whole ocean seems to be churning and the boat crosses only a few feet overhead.
The guy, Nick, struggles, and kicks out hard. He connects.
Logan sees stars, and releases his grip.
Nick finally finds "up" and surfaces quickly then, spitting out water and looking around. He watches the boat turn and head back out to sea. People are screaming at the boat, and screaming Nick's name. He waves his arms and shouts "I'm okay!" to the crowd on the beach. He turns to look for his board, and spots it thirty feet away. The other surfers, the professionals posing as extras, are scattered around and collecting their own boards before presumably heading his way.
Logan pops up next to him, a hand pressed to his left eye. "What the hell, man?"
Nick snaps his head around, turning his body as quickly as one can in the waves.
"Why did you kick me? I was trying to save your life."
Nick just stares at Logan, salt water dripping from his thick curls. "Where the heck did you come from?"
"I was swimming under you guys. Saw the boat."
"Oh. Thanks, I mean. He would've smashed right into me. Asshole."
"No problem," Logan grins. "Right place, right time."
Nick offers Logan a half-smile in return, still a little stunned by the ordeal, then turns and begins swimming back towards the beach. "You scared me, though. The way you just grabbed me from down below, I thought you were a... I don't know what. A shark, maybe. Or some kind of sea-monster."
Pretty fucking close, Logan thinks, and kicks easily into a head-up breaststroke, keeping pace with Nick. "Sorry. There wasn't exactly time for introductions."
Nick stops swimming, realizes his born-and-bred manners. He doesn't offer a hand to shake but he does come out with "Right. I'm Nick. Nick Jonas."
"Hey." Jeez, of course he's Nick Jonas. They didn't exactly run in the same circles, aside from that really nice stuff Selena had said about him that time, but still, he should have recognized him at least through sheer pop-culture osmosis. "My name's Logan."
+++++
Nick gets a few days off from filming thanks to the Big Incident. They end up using B-roll footage of a stunt double, and the show continues shooting, but focuses on Joe and Kevin's storyline. Nick uses his free time to call Logan and invites him out to lunch. Logan is still attending high school during the day, so he suggests an early supper instead.
"It's a thanks-for-saving-my-life dinner," Nick explains. "I owe you. Seriously."
Logan accepts the invitation when Nick offers to pick him up. Logan insists on some kind of seafood, says it's only natural considering where they met, and they end up at Sushi Kiyono. It's so close to Logan's house that they probably should have walked, and Nick thinks that maybe next time, they will walk.
Nick's only known the guy for two days, they haven't even ordered their food yet, and already he's thinking about next time.
Japanese isn't really Nick's favourite, but he's learned that it's not just about sushi, and gets rice and a bunch of appetizers instead. Yakitori and tonkatsu-- meats and tangy sauce. Easier to pick up with chopsticks, as he's not really deft with them, and hopes that Logan doesn't notice when he fumbles even with his first piece. He gets the impression that Logan will be an expert with chopsticks, and really doesn't want to look like an ass.
He's right, of course. Logan digs into a plate of tuna rolls, mumbles something about trying to keep kosher, and smiles. Nick catches himself staring, and drops his eyes to his plate of yakitori. He concentrates on manoeuvring a piece of chicken off the skewer, and hears Logan chuckle.
"You can ask for a fork, or just pick it up and eat it, if that's easier."
Nick stabs harder with his chopsticks in one hand and pulls at the skewer with the other. "I can do it."
"Dude. I won't judge."
Of course he wouldn't. Nick can't even look up at Logan, meet those giant blue eyes. For some reason, he's incredibly self-conscious and finds himself wanting to surprise the boy across the table. Nick hasn't felt the need to impress anyone with his table manners so much in his life, and he's been to the White House.
Logan pauses, takes a drink of his lemonade, and Nick victoriously frees another piece of chicken, but it skitters across and off his plate. He studies Logan's hands, and how he grips his chopsticks. Logan notices, reaches over, and adjusts the top chopstick in Nick's hand. "Okay, try that."
"Oh, yeah. Huh." Nick scissors the chopsticks in the air, humming a little. Logan doesn't know the tune, but it's familiar somehow. Nick pokes at his food with renewed poise. "I think I've got the hang of it now. Thanks."
"I'm glad." Logan is studying him now, but it's actually pretty encouraging. Something about Logan made Nick feel like he could do pretty much anything. "They definitely take some getting used to. I promise it'll get easier."
Nick switches over to the much-easier-to-eat tonkatsu and feels like a total rock star when he picks up the pork with ease. "Dessert after this?" He's thinking something that involves real utensils, like pie.
Logan nods, and turns back to his own plate. "Absolutely."
+++++
Mrs. Jonas makes Nick blush to the roots of his hair when Logan visits their home for the first time, teasingly recounting how big a fan Nick was of Jack and Bobby, and how it helped build the family joke about Nick running for president some day. Logan just grins and thanks her, both for watching the show that basically gave him a career, and for the ammunition with which to tease the living daylights out of Nick. He stays for dinner and by the time people start getting up for seconds, Logan feels like he's part of the family.
If Logan had his way, he'd probably hang out with Nick every day, but the shitty part of having some fame is that they both work quite a bit and their schedules frequently conflict. Nick's got his music of course, but also the Disney stuff, filming and promoting the show, and their movie's sequel, and then he's leaving at the end of July for tour. Logan's got school for another two months or so before graduation, and then he'll go full-tilt into fencing classes and reading scripts. Dozens of them, as his agent keeps pushing things on him to look at, and he accepts them but then his parents remind him of a chemistry test or whatever and so they pile up. He wants to ride the Percy wave for as far as he can, and hopefully start working on something else as soon as Three Musketeers is wrapped. He's still hoping for Spider-man, but it's sort of a weak hope. He'd applied to a few universities and was accepted, but has decided to defer in favour of working for now. He can always go later.
Okay, no. He will go later.
It's hard enough balancing school and work, and the group of friends he's somehow maintained throughout lengthy breaks from classes to work on movies, and yet Logan doesn't mind shuffling things around to make room for Nick. He's fucking busy, and yet he finds himself making the twenty-minute drive up to Toluca Lake as often as he can. Loafing around the spacious home, watching movies and trading music, enjoying their relative free time between projects. Easy living. Logan's house is just as nice, but it's not nearly as spacious, and with Kevin married and Joe in the process of moving out, it's just Nick and Frankie left with a lot of room left-over. Nick's parents welcome his presence in their home gladly, their nest half-empty.
Figuring out how to tell people just seemed too complicated, so Logan doesn't mention his friendship with Nick to most of his school friends. Most of them have some connection to show business in one way or another, usually their parents rather than themselves, but it'd be too weird to roll up one morning to homeroom and announce that he's got a ridiculously famous new best friend.
Except, no, best friend is the wrong term for it. Logan wasn't looking for someone to replace Dean. Nick is something altogether separate, and the difference is striking; he feels a spark. They have a strange chemistry, and he can't explain it any better than that.
And he's pretty certain that it's not one-sided.
When Nick has to leave town for an appearance in Washington, Logan spends most of his time underwater, but he doesn't think as much about his heritage as he usually would.
Instead, he thinks about the way Nick looks at him.
See, Nick sometimes stops and stares at him for a long moment or two, staring like he's trying to work something out. Like Logan is a puzzle. Nick's eyes narrow slightly and Logan feels naked, scrutinized. He has to look away but can still feel Nick's eyes on him. He sometimes has to bite his lip to keep from smiling, and he's not sure why. He likes when Nick looks at him, but really, it makes Logan uncomfortable as well. He thinks back to the letter his parents gave him that insisted that while he appeared normal to humans, he also attracted them unwillingly, and wonders if that was always true. But it doesn't happen often or last long, so he never asks Nick about it, and Nick never says anything.
But Logan wonders, after another one of these moments, if he'll ever have to tell Nick the truth about who, or rather what, he is.
On top of all that, Logan feels guilty when Dean gets home from college for the summer because by that time he's already hanging out with Nick constantly. He feels like a shitty friend at first, like a kid with a shiny new toy who leaves the old one in the dust. Then again, Dean was the one who decided to go to college on the east coast and abandon him here in the first place, so maybe Logan doesn't feel all that badly about it.
Once or twice he tries to hang out with them at the same time, get them in the same room, but it doesn't feel the same. He wants Nick all to himself and he's not entirely sure why.
Logan hasn't been avoiding Dean, not necessarily, but he definitely starts to feel like an asshole when Dean calls him for the third time to hang out, and he's already over at Nick's place. He lets it go to voicemail, then feels even shittier.
"Hey, let's go out somewhere," he says as casually as he can. "See what people are up to."
Nick looks up from his laptop, and asks the only possible question: "Which people?"
Okay, so it's a little weird that they don't have any friends in common.
Nick folds his laptop closed and suggests they go bowling. Logan fucking hates bowling, but it was at least an activity where they could both invite other people to join.
He texts Dean back, trying to shrug off the lingering guilt of not picking up his calls, and then his brother, and a few kids from school. He'd missed so much of senior year, studying with tutors on set, that it was still a little awkward to scroll through the names of kids he was supposed to be close with, kids with normal lives. He'll be graduating with them, going to all the requisite senior parties, and he's even got a prom date lined up-- experiences that he was, by birth, never supposed to have.
Logan idly wonders if they have proms or even high schools where he's from, and if those dances have bullshit themes as well. He smiles a little at the idea of an "Enchantment ABOVE the Sea" dance. So many questions that he may never have answered.
Nick clears his throat in an obvious ‘penny for your thoughts' sort of way, and Logan jumps.
"Sorry, just thinking of who else I should call." He tries to cover but he knows that Nick knows him better than that by now. It's too weak an excuse. "Uh, I guess my social circle has narrowed pretty significantly over the last few years." He didn't expect to admit that out loud, and yet Logan still finds himself saying "You're probably the first friend I've made outside of work in a long time."
Nick gave him a peculiar sort of half-smile. "I guess I should be flattered."
"Don't be an ass." Logan frowns.
"No, seriously!" It's Nick's turn to make a confession. "I know exactly what you mean. It was getting to the point that I wasn't sure if I could trust anyone's intentions, like, with being a friend or whatever. It sounds so conceited, but we've had people come into our lives who weren't genuine, and it's so cool that you aren't like that."
Logan nods, glad Nick gets it. "Yeah. Like, it's important to have people around you who you can trust with, you know, personal stuff. Nobody who's gonna wind up as some ‘anonymous close friend' spreading lies about your life."
Silence falls between them.
Nick rolls his shoulders and sits forward, adjusting his stupid backwards baseball cap. "So, bowling?" he asks again, a hopeful tinge to his voice.
"Yeah, alright." Logan scrolls through his phonebook again, nobody else standing out. Nobody he really wants to share Nick with, anyway. Like Nick might possibly be interested in the girls from his high school. Girls Logan used to like, sometimes still does like when he's daydreaming in class. He reminds himself of the so-called normal life he was just congratulating himself on and sends an invite out to the girl he'd asked to the prom. He looks up at Nick and smiles. "We've gotta be on the same team, though. You'll just kick my ass, otherwise."
Nick nods, knowing it was absolutely true. "Just don't drag down my average, dude. I play to win."
+++++
There are times when Nick thinks he knows for sure that there's something different about Logan, but it's not something he can put his finger on. It's just this intangible difference that he can sense when they're alone.
At first, Nick just assumes that maybe it's just how Logan is. He's an artist, a real actor. Nick's got a lot of friends who act, but there's a difference between Disney Channel acting and the dramatic and serious roles that Logan has taken on.
He hopes that Logan will never ask if Nick's seen all the movies he's done, because Nick will definitely have to lie about watching Logan dancing around on-screen in ladies' lingerie. He'd had to shut his laptop really quickly when Frankie came barrelling in at that very point in the movie, and proceeded to badger Nick for a solid ten minutes, asking what he'd been watching and why his face was red. It wasn't even in a teasing way, he just honestly wanted to know, but Nick wasn't going to corrupt his little brother by showing him video of Logan in lacey panties.
Nick's pretty sure none of his Disney colleagues have ever filmed a scene like that.
He scraps the idea when he realizes that it doesn't really explain anything, anyway. Logan being an actor might be the reason why he's sometimes really serious or quiet, but it doesn't explain the way Nick feels drawn in, or the music that he hears. That's the really crazy part. He thought it was just a coincidence at first, or that he was just being inspired by him, but Nick's more and more convinced that he's actually hearing the melody, not just thinking of it when Logan's around.
Even the possibility of being in Logan's presence has messed Nick's life up. He'll know that he's got stuff he needs to be doing, like finishing up his own school-work or practicing songs for the Camp Rock 2 tour... but instead, he'll put it all aside to call Logan or see if he'd want to hang out. He'll even get the urge to call him in the middle of the day, when Logan is in school and every logical part of Nick's brain knows that nobody will answer if he called, but he'll absentmindedly reach for the phone all the same.
It's like he can't stop himself.
Nick's parents sat him down and talked to him about it the night before, asking if there was anything they needed to know about their friendship, if Logan was pressuring him to shirk his responsibilities in any way, and the whole thing has made him pretty uncomfortable. He felt like they were accusing him of something when all he was doing was being friends with someone new, someone outside of their usual circle. Nick didn't see anything wrong with that.
When Logan comes over that afternoon, Nick suggests they take Elvis for a walk around the block so he can talk about it without parental ears over-hearing.
They follow the big golden retriever slowly down the street, as Elvis sniffs at every tree, gate and mailbox in the neighbourhood. Logan's always had dogs as well, so he doesn't mind the slow pace of strolling around in the warm afternoon. They talk about maybe meeting up with their dogs at Runyon Canyon sometime, see if they'd all get along. Well, Nick thinks it's a good idea. Logan isn't much of a hiker but he seems pretty game regardless.
Eventually Nick bites the bullet, and changes the subject. "Do you think it's weird? Like, how much we hang out?"
Logan shrugs and glances over at Nick, apparently not fazed by the non sequitur. "I don't think so. I mean, it's not like I see you every day." He pauses, thinking. "I'm still getting everything done that I need to. I think."
Nick doesn't mention the history paper that he has due. He'd forgotten to write it on time, but he'd made some kind of excuse about writing their next big hit single and his mother had given him an extension, and now he's not working on it again. It wasn't like Nick to be this careless about his studies, especially when his correspondence school schedule was so much more relaxed. He scratches at his neck, feeling hot despite the cloudy weather. "Okay. I just, um, wondered."
Before Logan can respond, Elvis spots a squirrel farther down the sidewalk and takes off, jerking the leash, pulling Nick ahead. He breaks into a jog to keep hold of the dog's lead, and Logan runs a little to keep up.
Nick looks back at him and Logan is smiling, watching the scene play out. He's not weirded out by the questions or Nick's concerns, not uncomfortable. Instead, he's laughing a little, relaxed, easy.
Nick pulls on the leash a little more strongly, trying to rein Elvis back in so Logan can catch up and walk beside them again. Elvis obeys faster than Nick expected and he has to put the brakes on quickly so he doesn't trip over his dog, teetering wildly. Logan's reflexes aren't nearly as quick and he slams into Nick's shoulder, colliding on the sidewalk. Nick, still holding onto the leash with one hand, loses his balance for a second time and finds himself awkwardly half on the ground, half in a neatly trimmed hedgerow.
Logan, however, is sprawled out face-down on the the sidewalk ahead. While Nick dislodges himself from the prickly hedge, Logan is hissing in pain.
"You okay, man?" Nick drops the leash, as Elvis is now worriedly sniffing at Logan's face, squirrel forgotten.
Logan slowly props himself up on his elbows. "Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Caught myself before I smashed my precious face." He rolls over and turns his palms face-up. They're skinned and bleeding. "Minor flesh wound." He stands up carefully, wincing, and putting all his weight on his right side. Nick notices blood running down Logan's left leg.
"Dude, your knee." Nick crouches down and gingerly lifts the edge of Logan's black cargo shorts. It's a mess of torn skin, dirt, bits of grass and too much blood. "Oh, wow. This looks really bad. Like, maybe stitches bad."
Logan leans over, tries to bend it so he can see. "Oh, shit. That's... ow."
Nick stands up, grabs Elvis's leash again, and nudges Logan's elbow. "Can you walk back? It's just up and around the corner."
Logan nods, and leans a little on Nick, trying not to let his shredded palms bleed on Nick's pristine white polo. In a house of four brothers, Nick's been witness to (and the victim of) plenty of scrapes and spills, but somehow this felt different, with Logan's weight pressed against him. He's all lithe and light, not solid like Nick himself, and hardly a burden. And much less of a whiner than Joe. Logan was biting his lower lip so hard that Nick wouldn't be surprised if he broke the skin, but he didn't complain about the pain that was surely shooting through his leg with every step.
Nick resists the urge to suggest a piggyback ride. Although it'd be faster and easier than the slow and painful walk back to the house, it seemed undignified.
So, Logan limps along beside him, occasionally resting, but mostly just keeping quiet. Nick hustles them along as best he can, taking a shortcut through a friendly neighbour's yard to the back gate, where Nick keys in the code. They'd had girls sneak in through this entrance before and so even now a backyard gate needed amped-up security all the time.
The family had left by the time they reached the house, so Nick goes immediately into nurse mode, bringing out the first aid kit, preparing to clean the cuts on Logan's knee.
"Try not to bleed on the carpet," Nick suggests as they cross through the house to the kitchen. He heads towards the cupboard for supplies while Logan fumbles a little with the tap, running his hands under the cool water while he waits for Nick. It stings but his palms don't look nearly as bad once all the blood and dust is cleared away.
Logan shakes his hands dry and holds them up face out from his chest to make sure the bleeding has stopped. He looks like he's waiting to catch a dodge-ball and Nick surprises them both with a laugh, miming a toss.
"Don't throw me anything breakable!" Logan grins. "Unless you want it shattered on the kitchen floor." He flexes his hands a little, and his grin falls a little. "Okay, ow. I don't even know how I'm going to drive myself home with these." Nick presses big Band-Aids over each palm.
"It's a good thing your car isn't stick-shift, at least. Your hands might be okay, but I don't think you could work the clutch with that leg." Nick nudges him towards a chair and Logan sits with Nick kneeling down in front of him, studying his knee.
Nick wishes his mom was here, that she could take care of Logan, but then Logan gives him a lopsided smile and mumbles "Thanks for this." and immediately Nick's confidence is renewed.
Logan clenches his teeth and swears creatively when the cold cloth touches his skin. It's better than the sting of iodine, at least, but Nick still feels guilty, says "sorry" instead of "language", even though it needs to be done. He swipes carefully at the cut, biting his own lip hard, knowing how much it must hurt. He's not squeamish, at least. Sticking himself with needles all the time has gotten Nick quite comfortable with blood, but he's definitely not cut out for a career as a doctor. Too sympathetic.
The cut on Logan's knee isn't as bad as he'd originally thought, thank God, now that it isn't covered in bits of debris from the sidewalk. He works carefully to get every blade of grass clipping, every bit of dirt, until the wound is clean. It stopped bleeding for the most part, and Nick smooths another large adhesive bandage over the cut. He hesitates, resists the urge to jokingly "kiss it better" like he might with one of his brothers.
But rather than get up and put everything away, Nick glances up at Logan from his position on the floor. His face is blank, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Nick can't seem to move away. He's got Logan under his hands, quiet and somehow just completely appealing to Nick in a way that he never thought was possible.
Nick clutches the wet facecloth in one hand, dropping his eyes to Logan's knee again, and the line of blood that had run down his leg and into Logan's sock. Nick turns to an unused corner of the cloth and presses it to Logan's shin, humming quietly to himself the song that he can't quite work out.
The Logan song, he thinks. It's louder than usual, it might as well be playing on the stereo in the room, it's that hard to ignore.
He moves slowly, running the damp cloth up and down Logan's leg. He works his way down towards Logan's ankle, getting into a rhythm, making small circles. But when he reaches the thin skin near the ankle bone, Logan jerks his leg away, breaking the spell.
Nick snaps to attention, face burning. "Sorry, oh, um..." What the hell was he doing?
Logan is blushing, too, eyes open now. "No, it was, uh. I'm really ticklish there, that's all. It was nice, though." He leans forward slowly, but Nick is already moving, standing, gathering things into the first aid kit again and crumpling up the trash from the Band-Aids. The moment is gone.
Logan sometimes thinks having legs can kind of suck, like when he realizes that his skin is basically a layer of tissue paper, so easily torn by something as stupid as a patch of sidewalk. But there is absolutely nothing like the sensation of someone touching you unexpectedly.
Nick's hands on Logan's leg, prolonged contact between the two of them that definitely went beyond what Logan would have ever expected to come up in an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood. Nick humming quietly, focused on Logan's skin. In that moment, Logan loves skin and legs and shin bones and all those little nerve endings. Pressure points, friction and sensitive areas. Human contact.
Human. Logan is liking seeming human today.
Except, well, he's not. Not really, not at the heart of it all. And what Logan doesn't tell Nick is that all he really needed right then was a ride to the nearest beach.
Logan has to basically go on guess-work and he still has plenty to learn about what powers his people have, but one thing that he has learned quite accidentally is the healing qualities of salt water.
Historically, it had gotten some hype, such as the super-salty Dead Sea or the practice of "taking the water" in a Roman bath. But, as far as Logan can determine, those are really more homeopathic remedies for humans, whereas for merfolk, apparently, it was just standard health-care. They were surrounded by water all the time, so they're naturally healed just as soon as they're injured. He might have legs, but water still had the same effect. Cuts, scrapes, even blemishes-- Logan was proud to say that he was probably the only guy in his senior class to have flawless skin. A quick swim in the ocean after his crash-landing on the sidewalk, and he would have healed immediately.
But there was no way to explain that to Nick, not without giving away his secret. He allowed Nick to clean and bandage his knee, which pleasantly turned into something a little more than your average patch-up. But rather than take his usual route back to Beverly Hills, Logan heads to the nearest public strip of coastline, kicks off his shoes and socks, peels off the Band-aids, and wades into the ocean.
It isn't magic and it isn't science. It's just the way, he supposes, they've evolved. Merfolk managing to survive in modern times despite dangerous propellers and drills couldn't have happened with just luck and cleverness. The water sustains them, cures them, heals them. Logan might look like a human and walk like a human, but he is still a merman, and he still needs the water to survive nearly as much as any other aquatic mammal. The 3:10 to Yuma shoot was painfully dry, out in the desert of New Mexico for weeks, and his occasional dips in the Rio Grande on off-days were no substitution for the Pacific. He likes to think that it informed his performance, though: desperate and frustrated.
He even puts a bandage back on, just in case, so that he can avoid any questions about how the cut is healing the next time he and Nick hang out. But all that's left is a tiny scar, and maybe also the memory of how Nick's eyebrows knitted with concentration and concern before Logan's eyes slipped shut. Even the scar will be gone after another swim, but Nick's wrapt, careful expression... Logan would love to see that again.
Logan wouldn't go out of his way to hurt himself and let Nick play doting nurse for him again, but he thinks about it, just once or twice, his skin still tingling from phantom touches.
Part 2/3.