How To Tame Your Hockey Player
When Dak tells the guys of BTR to hit him up if they ever need anything, he doesn't actually mean it. It's something to say, to make his new label-mates feel welcome and to preserve his nice guy rep. It is not an open invitation for the four hockey players from Minnesota to drift in and out of Dak's Toluca Lake mansion whenever they please.
At least, it wasn't meant to be.
Dak might need to work on his elocution, because the next thing he knows, he's got James, Kendall, Logan, and Carlos making a mess of his private cinema room during Terminator marathons, using and abusing his Jacuzzi, and drinking the soy milk he's imported from Tokyo straight out of the carton. They still spend most of their time at the Palmwoods, or on tour, or in the studio, but the second Dak thinks he's safe, they show up toting paint ball guns, clearly intending to drive Dak insane.
Dak's a good guy, a friendly guy, but he is not exactly great with sharing. He nears his breaking point with amazing speed, and gently tells security not to let the four nuisances into his sanguine gated community without an invitation.
Failing that, he tries again, less gently, and with more curse words.
It does not work. Bribes change hands, possibly involving jerky, and apparently Dak's fame carries little weight in the face of dried beef. He still ends up with a boy band on his couch at least once a week, putting their dirty tennis shoes all over his pristine cushions while they shout obscenities at ESPN Classic on Dak's big screen.
On one memorable occasion, they even bring company. Katie Knight walks into his house, plops onto his couch, and then stares at Dak's face without blinking. It is extremely unnerving.
Rather unsympathetically, Carlos laughs for ten minutes straight. The staring does not stop. Eventually, Kendall has to forcibly drag Katie away by the elbow, glaring all the while, as James gives Dak a dirty look that clearly says don't you dare.
Dak does not want to dare. Katie is like, twelve.
The only person who offers Dak an ounce of sympathy is Logan, shrugging as if it's no big deal and offering up one of Dak's game controllers. He's less obnoxious than his friends. More unobtrusive, Dak notes, settling cross-legged beside the smaller boy.
They spend about an hour killing virtual aliens before Dak is forced to recant that mental gold star. Logan does not handle winning well. His ingrate victory dance sends a foot straight through Dak's glass-top coffee table.
"That was from Bangalore," Dak informs him, certainly not pouting.
"I'll buy you a new one at Ikea," Logan replies. He's flushed red, clearly mortified, squeaking like a frightened chipmunk. "It'll be, uh, sturdier."
Dak doubts that.
Directly after Katie-gate, he decides to try a few other things to get the band out of his life, but restraining orders don't work like they used to, and he is forced to settle in for the long haul with his new…friends. He wearily suffers the loss of half his expensive hair products (James), the destruction of his fine art (Carlos, accidentally), his DVR being overrun with crappy medical dramas (Logan), and a broken window in his Benz (Kendall, with a hockey puck, not so accidentally). Every time he's on location somewhere not in California, he has a minor panic attack about the state of his mansion, certain as he is that keggers are the definition of a party in Minnesota. Worse, whenever he is home, he worries that he might commit homicide.
So basically, when Big Time Rush breaks up some odd five years later, it is the best thing that has ever happened to Dak Zevon.
The break is amicable, as far as Dak knows, but he hears that Carlos lands an acting job on location in Australia, that Logan is going to medical school, and that Kendall and James are getting an apartment somewhere not in Hollywood. Dak gets the implications.
No more house invasions.
No more sharing his organic produce.
No more fart contests in his pool.
The wolf pack will not be gracing Dak's stoop any time soon, ever again. Yes.
Dak throws a ninety second dance party, breaking out the Britney Spears and his favorite fedora. His utter glee lasts an entire week, right up until Logan Mitchell shows up at his door, toting a duffel bag and wearing a face better suited to lost puppies and kicked kittens.
"What do you want?" Dak demands, eyeing the All-Stars label on the outside of the sack.
Logan shoves the bag in Dak's hands and announces, "I need a place to stay."
Oh hell no. Logan may be the mildest, most innocuous of the band formerly known as BTR, but Dak has never stopped resenting him for recording over his home makeover shows with Grayson's Anatomy. Mustering up his best apologetic smile, Dak prepares to tell Logan that he does not want a roommate, and if he did, it certainly would not be this Midwestern catastrophe of a popstar.
Only, he hesitates.
The thing is, Dak's never seen Logan on his own before. He looks taller without the guys at his back, but also thinner. Paler. Sadder.
Against his better judgment, Dak lets him inside.
That is how he makes the worst decision of his life. Good Samaritan-ism: it does not pay off.
See, Dak doesn't do roommates. He doesn't even share a trailer on location. He's great at being a people person. As long as those people aren't invading his home turf, setting up shop inside what can only be described as his sanctuary. When they do, Dak gets…tetchy.
He thinks maybe it'll be okay with Logan, who is all harmless with his quiet nerdittude and his adorable dimples. And at first, it is. Logan spends his days studying, like, endlessly, and mostly stays out of Dak's way. But as the months wear on, the truth is revealed.
Logan Mitchell is a pain in the ass.
Sure, he looks innocent beneath those sweater vests and pocket protectors, but really, it's all an act. Logan is a complete and total hockeyhead.
No, seriously. He's disgusting. He puts his feet all over the furniture and leaves hair in the shower drain and he thinks gas is just about the funniest thing in the universe. Dak prides himself on being a cool, hip young star, but he outgrew all of that when he was about six, so for the most part he's at a loss for what to do here. Logan is constantly making him lose his cool.
What Dak needs are some guidelines, probably. Some rules, about the care and handling of jocks, and what to do when they're ruining your life. Sadly, no one's published that book yet. Dak has to live off his own, limited knowledge.
Which, okay, did he mention it is limited? This is what Dak knows about hockey players:
1. Anyone who rushes face first into a puck is clearly psychotic, and has no place bossing Hollywood's Number One Tween Mega-Star around.
Oh sure, Logan appears sane on the outside, with his charming, corn-fed smirk and his fascinating ability to complete crossword puzzles in less than ten minutes. He knows big vocabulary words, like homogeneous, and he gave Dak the Heimlich once when he was choking on cauliflower. No one knows doctoring like Logan, which should be a bonus, having a genius medical student in the house.
Mostly it feels more like Dak is babysitting an oversized, hypochondriac child with impulse control issues.
Dak becomes intimately familiar with phrases like avian bird flu, candiru, and toxoplasma gondii, none of which he ever wanted to know. (Penis fish. There is a fish that can crawl up a person's penis. Dak had nightmares for weeks.) He's discovered Logan practicing sutures on various fruit products more than once at his kitchen table (Dak swears he can still hear the watermelon screaming), and most irritating of all, Logan steadfastly refuses to let Dak go to a shoot in Ecuador until he's been immunized against eight different kinds of exotic parasites that no one's had in the past century. Dak hates needles.
But Logan doesn't stop there with the weird. He brings really, freakishly bizarre things into Dak's pristine home, like a pet metal detector (because they're not just for eighty year old men anymore), a microscope to examine the mold growing on Dak's shower tiles (there is no mold in Dak's shower, damnit), and a monstrous calculator that may hold the answers to every mystery the universe has to offer (judging by the amount of time that Logan spends staring at it). He constantly hounds Dak to help him with his exam flashcards when Dak has much more important things to do, like go on dates. And once, after Dak returns from one of those dates, Logan forces him to watch a slideshow detailing the various shapes and forms of STDs. With pictures.
This cannot stand. He's Dak Zevon, Hollywood's Golden Boy. His smile causes preteen girls faint and just the thought of his abs makes tabloid reporters drool. He's got endless strings of friends and parties, admirers and movie offers. What he hasn't got is the patience to put up with one neurotic Future Doctor of America. If Dak wants to contract something icky and sexually transmitted, it's his prerogative, damnit.
He means to tell Logan that, he does, but then Logan institutes Wednesday Night Hot Cocoa Parties and Sunday Afternoon movie marathons and begins acting like he and Dak are actual friends. This is behavior that Dak intends to discourage immediately. If only he weren't such a very busy man.
Besides, it's hard to tell off a doctor-in-training when he's cradling a cup full of fluffy marshmallows and beaming at Dak like he's the most fantastic thing on earth. Dak is obviously growing soft in his twenties.
That's the only explanation for how Logan gets so comfortable in their new dynamic (that Dak does not approve of in any way, shape, or form). He begins operating under the assumption that it's alright to deliver lectures on Dak's posture and sleep habits and starts buying all these weird, scented soaps so that they can create a germ-free environment. Dak almost buys into his bullshit – despite the fact that he has a well-paid physical trainer and extremely stern physician who have spent years telling him the same thing – if only because it's easier to keep Logan's neuroses at bay. So he washes his hands eight times an hour and pays even more attention to his posture, and yet, when Dak comes home from filming The Prince Diaries 2: Royal Revenge, Logan's forgotten all his own cardinal rules.
He's sitting sprawled on the floor, munching on a bucket full of tacos wrapped in salmonella soaked wax paper from the street vendor three blocks down, covered in what appears to be dirt.
His hypocrisy is utterly inexcusable. The part where he looks exactly like a little boy, with his ear to ear grin and his mussed hair and his mucky fingers is downright rude. Dak immediately quells the impulse to whisk Logan into one of the ten Swedish showers lining his many halls, to scrub him down with soap and then tuck him into bed, away from bad elements.
Said bad elements are flanking Logan's sides, equally filthy, happily licking hot sauce off their fingers. Dak notes that Kendall and James aren't on the receiving end of a dissertation on clogged arteries or colon health. Dak must be the only one who gets those.
The idea is inexplicably grating, as if Logan doesn't respect his life choices. The grapefruit diet was once, okay, once. Dak snaps, "Aren't you two supposed to be somewhere that isn't here?"
Kendall and James blink. Logan's good humor does not vanish. He explains, "International flights make him cranky."
Dak's annoyance grows. He is not an infant. He doesn't get cranky. He perches on his couch, which is shockingly free of caked earth, daintily tucking his shoeless feet under his body. He really prescribes to the Eastern method of leaving one's grime at the door, but he notices that Logan, Kendall, and James are all digging the treads of their sneakers into his carpet.
Again.
Damnit. "Why are you all here?"
Ooh, that probably still sounded crabby.
Through a mouthful of meat, James explains, "Missed our bro," which actually explains nothing.
"There was a kangaroo," Kendall adds unhelpfully. Logan smiles at them both, all starry eyed. Like…like Kendall and James are the greatest guys in the universe, doing the greatest thing in the universe. Which so isn't true.
(Logan usually looks at Dak that way.)
Dak frowns. He's not sure what the feeling in his chest is. Maybe gas? He purses his lips and stares at the top of Logan's head, dark hair shiny and gel-less, soft and touchable.
He's gotten a bit careless with his looks since enrolling in UCLA. His only concession to fashion the constant presence of a sweater vest, if one could call that fashion with a straight face, anyway.
Dak does not touch Logan's hair. Even if he maybe wants to. He demands of Kendall and James, "Can you maybe miss Logan somewhere else? I want to rewatch my demo tape for the Magnificent Man audition."
James shakes his head, a grin breaking over his features. He's too pretty, too perfect. His teeth are the same unnatural white as Dak's. It's irritating. "No can do, buddy. I've got dibs on the remote."
"Dibs?" Dak is appalled. He knows better than to argue; this is not the first time the guys have tried to pull him into their middle school hierarchy of mineminemine, but he tries his luck anyway. "You can't have dibs. This is my house."
He's shot down immediately, of course, Logan casting him a wounded look and going, "It's my house too, now."
Dak refrains from telling him that his name is not on the lease, but only just. The intensity of Mitchell's Bambi-eyes is a powerful thing.
He settles back while James forces them to watch the worst example of reality television that Dak has ever had the misfortune of seeing. Kendall and James heckle the screen, James kindly rooting for the show's actors, Kendall firmly against their every decision. Logan leans his head back against Dak's knee, just far enough that Dak's fingertips are brushing the soft fluff of his un-gelled hair.
In retrospect, there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday night.
2. Hockey players eat. Everything.
Like much of young Hollywood, Dak is really into keeping his body fit, carving it into a well-oiled machine. Logan's advice about fad diets notwithstanding, Dak is actually pretty great at taking care of himself and he has been for a very long time. He gets all his servings of fruits and vegetables in, takes a multi-vitamin, and doesn't consume anything that isn't fair-trade or organic.
He's tried all the tricks; gluten-free, meat-free, carb-free, and on, and on, and on. One thing Dak's nutritionist emphasizes is that he should keep healthy snacks everywhere, and he does, munching throughout the day while his metabolism works through all the physical rigor he puts it through. What he finds, however, is that Logan has no compunctions about snatching up Dak's nutria-grain bars or probiotic yogurt on his way out the door. This is irritating on two counts, the first being that Logan barely ever visits the grocery store himself, and the second consisting solely of the fact that he's touching Dak's stuff.
As a joke, Dak replaces his normally wholesome shopping list with a whole lot of junk food – potato chips and fruit snacks and soda pop and not an ounce of Vitamin C or D anywhere in the lot –because he figures Logan will be aghast, his doctorly eat-right instincts forcing him to deliver a fire-and-brimstone lecture about Dak's new buying habits. Instead, Logan cheers in triumph over the Doritos, crying, "Real food!" and then dashes off with the three packs of them to do lab work.
Dak really should have been able to predict this, after the whole street-taco incident. He is left feeling like he's been buying his pet dog gourmet kibble when any old chow would do.
When Logan returns from a half hour study stint with all three empty bags of chips crumpled at the bottom of his man-bag, Dak is horrified. He was the cover model for Healthy Lifestyle magazine, and he's done commercials about proper food portions. It is his job to rectify this.
At first he takes the subtle route, re-introducing his snacks packed full of nutrients. Logan grabs a whole grain muffin without complaint, so Dak figures that his common sense has kicked back in. Then he spies Logan in his room, poring over a gigantic medical text book with two double doubles from In-N-Out carelessly dripping animal sauce all over his bed spread.
Dak's red-meat free this week, so it's a particularly macabre offense.
He tries to talk to Logan about it, but only gets about three words in before Logan exclaims, "Dak, I'm okay! I'm premed, don't worry. I eat fine."
"Then what is that?" Dak jabs a finger at the burger in consternation, worried it might jump up off the bed and smear its fatty patty all over his designer jeans.
Logan snorts, hiding the sound behind his ginormous textbook. "Not everyone's into trendy diets."
"Refusing to eat red meat is not a trend, it's healthy," Dak objects loudly. He is standing his ground. He's being a role model. Healthy Lifestyle magazine would be so proud.
Rolling his eyes, Logan replies calmly, "It's a good source of zinc, iron, and protein. Cool your boots, I don't need you to police my dinner."
Dak isn't used to crashing and burning like this. He's usually quite persuasive. He stares at the dark circles beneath Logan's eyes and decides to try a different tack. "Come to yoga with me tomorrow morning."
Logan probably doesn't need yoga – he's got a pretty great butt for someone who never works out excepting the occasional friend-forced game of hockey. Dak's actually convinced he's sneaking gym time on the side, because no way all those psychotic back flips into the infinity pool aren't the path to a perky ass. But he wants to be sure that Logan's doing something to ward off aortic hardening, so a few closely observed asanas couldn't hurt.
Logan's mouth opens comically wide, stuffed full of chewed meat. He says, "Look. It's not that I don't want to do yoga with you. It's just that yoga is lame."
"How can you even say that? The health benefits alone are phenomenal," Dak retorts, cocking a hip, and he could swear Logan follows the movement.
"That's true."
"But?" Dak asks incredulously, because Logan still does not sound sold.
"But it's still lame."
"You are so unenlightened."
"The pants are stretchy," Logan protests resentfully, swallowing.
His throat bobs with the motion. Dak snorts and decidedly does not notice.
"Oh, well that's not a problem. I do naked yoga."
"Youdowhatnow?" Logan's eyes bug out of his head. "Dak," he says, but he can't seem to come up with more than Dak's name.
Which is pretty flattering, actually. Dak knows he's got all kinds of talents, and that he's not stupid, but no one would accuse him of being a genius either. Short-circuiting one feels like an accomplishment.
He cocks an eyebrow. "So, yoga?"
Logan smiles crookedly, cheeks dimpling, sunlight winking across his dark eyes. There is a blush creeping along his collarbone, but he straightens his shoulders and offers up a genial surrender. With cherry red cheeks, he squeaks, "Okay, okay, yeah, yoga. With clothes. Definitely with clothes."
Dak cannot help purring, "Are you sure?" because Dak is a bit of a dick.
Logan nods his head forcefully, "I'm positive."
That's a shame, Dak thinks, even though he has no intention of running around anywhere naked unless he's getting paid for it. He doesn't mind imagining Logan's eyes on his ass, though. Too bad.
Anyway, that is the story of how Dak convinces Logan to take yoga with him.
It doesn't fix the larger problem at hand. Logan eats his mesclun salads when he's having candlelit dinners with Dak (the candles are for atmosphere, alright), but the second his friends come over he's all fishsticks and cheese fries. His plebian tastes are completely offensive and also, Dak worries Logan's going to bankrupt him every time he picks up a few hundred (or five) breakfast burritos at Del Taco.
Dak briefly considers that the level of concern he has for Logan's eating habits might be the problem, but he dismisses that thought immediately. He's simply being a really kickass friend.
3. Hockey players stick together.
Logan might have mentioned that Kendall and James rented a beach bungalow somewhere South of the Valley, which is to say a place that does not exist on Dak's mental map.
Kendall, unable to pursue his once-promising career in hockey, is working a minimum wage barista job while he figures out what to do with his life, funneling most of his band cash towards his little sister's education and his mom's early retirement. James, meanwhile, has been looking to start a solo career.
Logan gave Dak the impression that it hasn't been going well. James runs through different producers when he can, and in his free time he's been reduced to giving impromptu concerts on the boardwalk for spare change. The way Logan tells it, James doesn't need the money, but the notoriety drives him onward. Keeping busy helps him avoid heading home and running his mother's company while he searches for his second big break, and Logan claims that is a good thing.
As far as Dak knows, neither James nor Kendall have ever asked for anything from Rocque Records, but the details on that one are very hush hush. Big Time Rush's divide was cordial, but their breakoff from the label maybe wasn't.
Still, Kendall and James don't seem to be all that unhappy. Dak doesn't understand how they can live so simply after tasting superstardom, but Kendall appears to enjoy it, and James…well, James appears to enjoy Kendall.
Dak always thought there was something going on between those two, even before the band broke up. He can't really see someone like James Diamond giving up a sweet, high-tech apartment closer to all the music studios for the love of anyone else, but it's not Dak's place to ask.
Unfortunately, it is apparently Kendall and James's place to ask all kinds of things about Dak.
Dak's walking on the boardwalk with a date, a pretty young actress that his studio really pushed for him to get along with. He's amped up the wattage on his patented superstar smile for this girl, even though she appears to be way more interested in her phone than his existence. But Dak's bored out of his mind. He wishes he was back home, where Logan is cramming for midterms with this single minded focus that only breaks for snacks and the occasional smoothie. Dak likes making smoothies with Logan. It's relaxing.
He grits his teeth and tries to suffer through being ignored by his not-date, managing really well right up until the two of them stumble upon half of what used to be Big Time Rush by the seaside.
Kendall's playing guitar, cross-legged on the splintered wood while James – standing – sings. They've got an open hard case in front of them. Dak stumbles to a stop, tugging on his new lady friend's arm.
"Hold up, I know these guys."
"You do?" The girl manages to lift her head for about five seconds from her phone screen. She takes in the guys and asks, aghast, "This is what your friends do? Busk for cash?"
Dak frowns. "They're doing this for fun."
He's not really sure why he's defending the idiots, except for how he thinks Logan would want him to. His performance ends up scaring his date and her super interesting text conversations away, but Dak sticks around, waiting for the set to end.
James and Kendall crowd in on him immediately once it's over, demanding, "Who was she?" and "Where's Logan?"
Both boys cast tall, tall shadows against the planks of the boardwalk. Dak thinks about the way Logan looks slotted between them, squished between their shoulders and ribcages, egos and long legs. He's tiny there, but without them, he is the largest, loudest, brightest thing in Dak's mansion, demanding all of his attention.
Dak likes him better that way, he decides.
"She was my date," Dak replies, indifferent to their posturing. "And Logan's in class."
James scowls, crossing his arms. Kendall is more aggressive, snapping back, "Does he know you had a date?"
"Why would he care?" Dak is genuinely bewildered.
It's just his luck that his version of confused sounds a lot like most people's versions of sassy.
Kendall grinds out, "If you hurt him-"
"Why on Earth would I hurt Logan?" Dak steps into Kendall's personal space, challenging, "And how would it be any of your business, anyway?"
Kendall, to his credit, doesn't back down even an inch. He says, "It's my job to look after him."
"Your job?" Dak cocks an eyebrow. "Does it ever get lonely up there on that pedestal, chief?"
Kendall retorts, "Wouldn't you like to know?" oh-so-maturely, but Dak can tell that he's bothered by the idea, that he doesn't want to be anything like worshipped.
He doesn't find that surprising at all. Knight has never been the type for show business. He's the kind of small-town dreamer that gets crushed in Hollywood's jaws, too unassuming for the fake-n-bake crowd to tolerate for long. Meanwhile, Dak thrives on the kind of attention and adoration that Kendall is so quick to ignore, and he gets it, but he also does not. At all. If Dak had friends who looked at him the way Logan, James, and Carlos look at Kendall, he'd be different.
Better, maybe.
James steps between Kendall and Dak, playing the pacifist. The role obviously sits uncomfortably on his shoulders. He shifts from foot to sneakered foot, his jeans tugging too-tight at his thighs. "Why don't we all, um. Get along? For Logan's sake."
Kendall backs off, shifting into James's shadow. Dak wants to ask why he got so mad in the first place. But that might start the fight right up again, and James is right.
There are a lot of things he'll do, for Logan's sake.
4. Hockey players smell.
Logan, unlike Dak, has not taken deportment classes since he was ten.
That's not exactly Logan's fault, because Dak was a child star, and his mother was very invested in making sure he could never be completely comfortable around another human being. She ensured that Dak would always be invested in making sure whoever he is with is happily captivated by his company. Logan has never appeared to be particularly enthralled by Dak's very presence, but that does not mean that Dak feels at ease dropping the act around him.
For the first few months of Mitchell's term as live-in guest, Dak valiantly takes great pains not to get too relaxed around Logan. Which is why he finds it particularly off-putting that Logan suffers no such obligation. He burps, he belches, he breathes onions in Dak's face. He walks around after yoga covered in a sheen of his own sweat instead of showering immediately, and that's…really distracting for Dak.
Logan handles himself pretty okay outside the mansion, acting with grace and dignity amongst his fellow classmates or the rare girl he manages to woo, but at home? Logan's barely presentable.
Dak doesn't have any brothers, and he's made most of his friends on the acting circuit, which is to say that none of them are close enough to regularly share their bodily functions in his presence. He's not a priss, exactly, Dak just, you know, prefers that his body's gases pass discretely into the ether.
It grates, having to be one hundred percent one hundred percent of the time, but he politely does it for Logan's sake.
That all changes the night he makes the mistake of deleting the last three episodes of Grayson's off the DVR. Logan spent the day with James and Kendall, taking time off from the endless torment of med-schooling, and it's made him feisty. As punishment for Dak's transgressions, Logan tackles him to the ground, pinning him just long enough to fart right in Dak's personal space, wafting it towards Dak's nose with his hand.
Dak is relatively certain that he might pass out from the smell.
Smirking, Logan demands, "Sorry now?" and Dak can imagine him having the same kind of scuffle with Carlos or James or Kendall back in the day. He thinks if he really, honestly wants to be friends with this guy, he should say something snarky and maybe start a wrestle-match.
Instead, he gags, "I need a gas mask. What happens in your stomach? This is unnatural."
Logan shrugs happily, moving to let Dak up. "Teach you to touch my stuff."
"It's not your stuff though," Dak says, and it sounds wrong the second his words hit the slightly nauseating air. Dak is the one who let Logan tramp into his home, let him set up camp and eat Dak's food and drink Dak's special-occasion microbrewery ales. This is where Logan lives now, at least for the time being.
Logan, for his part, isn't as offended as he should be. He inclines his head to the side, thoughtful. "You've brought that up before. Maybe it is time I started looking for my own place."
He means he wants to leave. That is…not as appealing an idea out loud as Dak thought it would be five minutes ago.
"Nah man," Dak replies, his voice taking on a frantic edge. "I was kidding. You have like, eighty hours of school a week. You don't have time to apartment hunt. Stay."
Logan purses his lips. Brown hair tumbles into his eyes, grown too long in the midst of his pursuit of knowledge.
"Stay," Dak insists, wondering where his abrupt jumble of nerves is coming from. He doesn't do uncertain; he's Dak Zevon.
Logan leans in close, staring at him with his big, brown eyes as if he can see through Dak's head to the truth of the matter. Up in Dak's personal space, he doesn't smell bad at all, but sort of wonderful, a combination of spilled cappuccino, spiciness, and shared styling mousse. Only one of those scents is inherently Logan, but Dak doesn't want to think about where the scents of coffee and hair product came from, about the closeness shared between friends that Dak's just never had the opportunity to experience.
"Okay." Logan pulls back as quickly as he'd darted in and helping Dak to his feet. Conversationally he says, "You know, you should audition to be on Grayson's. You'd be a really great guest star."
"You think?" Dak asks, trying not to be flattered.
He's gotten better compliments.
He just can't remember ever getting one from Logan.
5. They make a mess. Of everything.
In the before-years, Dak assumed Logan was a clean person. He's pretty anal-retentive about a lot of things, so why wouldn't his natural habitat be one of them?
Dak was wrong. So wrong. Logan leaves mountains of clothes everywhere he goes, worn out from classes and too lazy to do much more than strip. He conscientiously does his dishes but forgets to put away old containers of Chinese food. He does not know what a coaster is. And asking him to clean the bathroom is a surefire way to get Logan to hide out in his bedroom for a week.
Dak gets it, sort of. Logan's not much of a control freak about anything other than his education, maybe because he's always had people like Kendall pulling the strings on his destiny. Also, being a med student is tough. But getting it does not mean that Dak enjoys being a maid.
"Is it really that damn hard to put your socks in a hamper?" He demands, practically every day.
On this particular day, Logan blinks up at him innocently and says, "Oops." He holds up a text book and explains, "Big test."
Dak softens, even though they both know that Logan would be equally messy without a single exam in sight. He really, really needs to stop coddling the-future-Dr.-Mitchell, because Dak is number nine on the newest Most Eligible Bachelor list published by Individual magazine, and Eligible Bachelors do not impress girls (or boys) with poor housekeeping habits. Plus, there is a very real possibility that his weekly maid, Rosita, might riot.
Dak musters up the breath to yell. Then he lets it out. Taking care of Logan is becoming second nature.
One day, when Mitchell accepts the Nobel Peace Prize for curing cancer or whatever, Dak hopes he gets a mention in the speech.
"You'll ace it," Dak tells him confidently. "Do you want to go out for dinner afterwards and celebrate?"
"Love to," Logan says, giving him a sheepish smile. "But I already agreed to meet up with Camille. We haven't seen each other in ages."
Dak knows Camille, having met her recently when she landed the starring role opposite him in the romantic comedy Love Will Keep Us Apart. Camille played a lonely zombie looking for a prom date, while Dak was the handsome slayer of all things ghoulish who could not help but be enthralled by her beauty.
Then they saved their small town in Ohio from a horde of werewolves.
It was fun.
"Oh. Are you guys…?" Dak doesn't really know what he's asking. He's relatively well informed about Logan's old relationships, but prying has never been his thing. Logan's business is not actually Dak's. They're just roommates. That's probably why the unexpected surge of jealousy in his chest is unnerving. Dak catches the thread of his sentence quickly, managing, "Are you catching a town car, or do you need a ride?"
"I've got it covered." Logan beams brightly before ushering Dak out of his bedroom.
Well then.
Dak spends most of the day trying to occupy his time with housework and meditation. When that doesn't work, he does what he usually defaults to when he's down; he goes on a social media spree. Something about poor grammar and fans scrambling to say the stupidest thing possible to get his attention lifts his spirits, at least temporarily.
Right up until he makes the unwise decision to visit Logan's rarely used Scuttlebutter account, where Logan's most recent status details the danger of crossing the street without looking both ways first. In the section, Dak finds much more interesting material, mostly in the form of Kendall, James, and Carlos's accounts urging their best friend to get some.
They're joking, Dak decides, staring at the screen hard enough to bore holes in it. Logan said it wasn't a date.
Not that it's a big deal if it is. Logan goes on dates all the time. Or all the time for Logan, which is like once a year. Dak distinctly remembers Logan going out with at least one girl since moving in.
But that girl wasn't Camille, who was one of Dak's cuter co-stars, and funny to boot. She and Logan have history, history that Dak wasn't there for because he was too busy worrying over whether or not the guys would trample through his Zen garden to bother trying to befriend them. Who knows how much weight all that history carries?
He reads one particularly graphic tweet from Carlos, who wouldn't know subtlety if it punched him in the face and grits his teeth. That is certainly enough.
Dak is a man of action. All his movie reviews say so. He grabs his keys, his phone, and a baseball cap, ready to do…something.
He doesn't exactly have a plan when he knocks on Jett Stetson's door with a six pack of blueberry flavored imported Belgian beer, but after blackmailing his way through the door – "I have a date," Jett had cried, bitch face firmly in place. "I have obscene pictures of you and a llama," Dak had retorted with the smug authority of a man who knows he has the upper hand – the two of them begin to formulate a plan.
Their plan mostly forms after they've blown through Dak's beer and Jett's less artisan case of Corona, but hey, sheer drunkenness has gotten Dak through many a trouble.
"Why do you even care, anyway?" Jett asks with a sneer.
For the millionth time Dak wonders why exactly he likes the arrogant asshole. Together they filmed a Sundance flick about the bromantic billionaire creators of Scuttlebutter, earning Dak a nod from the film critics everywhere and boosting Jett out of D-List obscurity. The movie was awesome, but their relationship on set never quite clicked. It was a miracle when they continued to hang out long after awards season ended, basking in each other's starshine and sense of narcissism.
"I don't care," Dak replies immediately, drawing his spine straight. Caring is stupid. "But. Logan's my roommate. And he sucks at relationships. I don't want him to spend a month crying, I'll drown in a river of his tears. Drown, Jett. Do you want me to drown?"
Jett reluctantly agrees that he does not want Dak to drown, although Dak suspects that one day soon there will be a tabloid expose about how Dak's an undercover drama queen. Discretion, even in friendship, is not really Jett's thing.
Jett dons a baseball cap of his very own, and they set out into the bright neon glow of Hollywood. Dak knows exactly which café Logan and Camille are at, because aside from Perez Hilton's constant coverage of Camille's every move, Logan chose to respond to his friends' Twitter-catcalling with some choice words of his own, replacing the crosswalk-safety tweet with a bevy of information that ends with, you Neanderthals.
Like that will stop the three horsemen of Moron-land from sexually harassing his account.
Dak directs Jett's town car chauffeur to a spot down the block from the restaurant, hoping against hope that neither he nor Jett will draw much attention to themselves.
It's a futile hope, obviously. Their clever disguises hold up for all of a minute and a half, giving them just enough time to be seated at the outdoor patio before they are consumed by a blinding slew of camera flashes. It takes even less time for Jett to give in, shucking his cap and giving the photographers a pearly white smile.
Movie stars make terrible spies.
Questions are shouted at an entirely inappropriate volume, including, and Dak has to suppress a gag at this one – are you two on a date? Because sure, Dak's been out of the bisexual closet for a while, but it's Jett. Grody.
The ruckus attracts the attention of basically everyone there, including Camille and Logan, who are sitting about three tables away with a paparazzi entourage of their own. Even through the flashes, Dak can see the moment a wrinkle appears between Logan's eyebrows.
He slides back his chair and scrambles to his feet, hoping to put an end to the night before Logan gets a whiff of his beer breath. Unfortunately, coordination is rejecting his friend requests.
"Dak, what are you doing here?" Logan demands, catching Dak before he can sprawl across the ground. He has no trouble supporting Dak's weight; Logan's got pretty good balance for such a little guy.
"We," Jett declares, with more pomp and circumstance than the situation warrants, but the paps are hanging onto his every word, so he must be doing something right. "Are eating."
Logan makes a derisive noise. Dak always forgets that he knows Jett from before. "I see that. Why are you eating here? Is everything alright?" His face pales. "Is it Mr. Mistoffelees?"
Mr. Mistoffelees is the beta fish that Logan insists upon keeping on Dak's kitchen counter. He has big bug eyes that he uses for glaring whenever Dak is in the middle of making a protein shake.
"Did you feed him sea bass again?" Logan demands.
"That was one time," Dak replies meekly, scanning his head for a suitable excuse. Stalking you just doesn't have the same ring out loud, especially when Dak can't explain why he felt the need to do it in the first place. "I'm on a date with Jett."
That…is not actually what he meant to say out loud.
Jett's slow blink is the only expression of his shock, but they aren't actors for nothing, and he recovers quickly. "Yes. We are exploring our passionate, burning love."
Dak grimaces. "I wouldn't go that far."
"Wouldn't you, Snuggle Muffin?"
"Alright. I…am really weirded out by this," Logan announces, and Dak can't figure out if he actually is wearing his wounded-face or if that's just wishful thinking. "Camille, let's go."
Logan drops Dak's arm and storms back to his table, where Camille is already gathering up her stuff, a neutral tilt to her lips.
"Logan, no, wait," Dak tries to go after him, but the fucking paparazzi aren't making anything easy tonight, getting in his way, cockblocking him, or…uh.
Yeah, wait, no. Hold up.
Dak pauses, not even bothering to chase after Logan now, because he does know exactly where the guy lives. Abruptly, he's got more important things on his mind, like cock – specifically Logan's – and even more specifically how he is wondering what it looks like.
Tastes like.
Feels like.
Dak's never denied that Logan is handsome, because ninety five percent of Logan is very obviously handsome. But Dak's never given serious consideration to how Logan would look handsome in his bed.
It's an awkward revelation to have in the midst of a flock of reporters.
And Jett.
Dak tugs at his baseball cap, frustrated. "We should go."
Jett huffs a laugh. "We never should have come."
He puts up a fuss about leaving because it photographs well, but when they go back to Jett's apartment, he doesn't say no to Dak sleeping over. Jett's couch puts an awful crick in Dak's neck and he blow-dries his hair through Dak's entire morning mediation ritual, but in the end, Jett's a good friend.
Dak still refuses to kiss him in front of the reporter hiding on his balcony, though.
Coda: They're shockingly good kissers.
On a normal day, Logan has all the grace and poise of a bull in a china shop, but today, he doesn't even try for stealth. He knocks over three antique lamps and a picture frame filled by Dak and the President's smiling faces before he makes it to the kitchen and demands, "Are you seriously dating Jett Stetson?"
"No," Dak snorts without thinking about it, because yeah, that mistake is all over the front of every newspaper, magazine, and entertainment news channel. Their publicists are going to have to get together and brew up a tactful way to break them up, because all of Dak's cognitive processing is dedicated to figuring out when he began crushing on Logan, and why.
Why?
For real. Logan's intolerable. He monologues about the benefits of sun block and yet refuses to let Dak put moisturizer on him. He whines his way through their yoga classes, drinks all of the orange juice Dak imports from Spain, added Skrillex to Dak's music library, and hid every single one of Dak's scented candles. He frequently kicks Dak's ass in video games and never takes off his shoes when he comes in the house.
He's a menace, just like his stupid friends.
He's also kind of nice.
Dak's gotten used to sharing his stuff. He doesn't mind watching doctor drama marathons or listening to Logan detail the steps in creating his new med-student study app. He actually likes the way that Logan hums some of his old songs when he doesn't think anyone else is listening, and the mess…Eh, Dak can live with it.
He wants to live with it. He wants to live with Logan.
As long as Logan doesn't kill him, which looks like it might be a thing that is in the cards, judging by the murderous fire in Logan's dark eyes.
Behind Dak's floor to ceiling windows, the sky stretches on endless, touching blue on everything. Even Logan is framed by that cool, pale light, his hair laced with the sun, his throat hollowed with shadows. He looks…bewildered. Frazzled. A tiny bit hurt.
He declares, "Good." Then, "Why did you say that?"
Dak answers with all the grace and elegance afforded to him via a million elocution classes.
"I dunno."
Apparently, Logan deems that is not an acceptable answer. He smacks Dak upside the head with unnecessary force. "Idiot."
"Ow? That's assault, you know." Dak massages his fingers into his skull. This is what happens when Good Samaritans invite brutes into their homes, really. He should have anticipated future concussions. "I could have you arrested."
Logan is unimpressed with Dak's threats. He agrees, "You could try."
"What do you mean I could try? It's not that hard. I pick up my cell phone, I call the cops, I-"
"Shut up and give me a straight answer," Logan crosses his arms and taps his foot against the floor, turning his irritation rhythmic.
He avoids Dak's eyes. That makes him more nervous than anything else; Mitchell usually doesn't have much of a problem being upfront when he's questing for knowledge. Dak informs him, "You're bossy."
"You're dodging the question." Logan instructs carefully, "Answer me."
Dak decides it's easier to be an ass.
"I could, but you know, this assertive thing is a new look for you, and I'm not sure if I like it-"
"Dak."
Logan's voice is a hard, cold thing. It dissuades Dak from his next, instinctive attempt to turn this whole situation into a joke. What's happening right now matters, even if Dak isn't quite sure why. He explains meekly, "I couldn't think of anything else to say."
He feels stupid admitting that out loud, but the previous evening wasn't one of his finer moments. It's probably not supposed to sound grandiose.
Dak adds, "Jett was there."
"Why didn't you just tell me the truth?" Logan scrunches up his face, rather cutely, like a confounded child. "The truth, which is…what?"
Awkward.
"Uh. Okay, look. If I tell you the truth you have to promise not to get mad."
"Why would I get mad?"
"Because stalking is not socially acceptable, and I know that, honest, I do, I shouldn't have spied on your date, but if we're straight-talking here then let me say that you should not be considering going out with Camille again. She is a heartbreaker. She will break your heart."
Logan waves away that rather redundant conclusion in favor of answering, "Alright."
"Alright?" Dak inquires dumbly.
"Alright, I won't go out with Camille again. It wasn't a date, Dak. We're friends."
Dak mutters, "Boys and girls can't be friends."
He starred in a movie titled that once, so he is really reigning authority on the subject.
Logan wrinkles his nose. "We'll address that really horrible, awful, tremendously bad misconception later. Are you interested in Camille?"
"What? No." Dak rubs his cheek instinctively, remembering all the times she slapped him on the set of their movie. "I bruise easily."
"Then?" Logan prompts.
"Then," Dak repeats, unsure what he's supposed to say next.
Love confessions aren't his realm of expertise here. His last three girlfriends and boyfriends all basically threw themselves at his feet, because yeah, he's Dak Zevon. Logan is really making him work for this.
"It is marginally feasible that I might – possibly – find you a little bit attractive."
"Marginally feasible," Logan repeats slowly, the plush shape of his lips taking care with every syllable. "I hope you don't say that to all the girls."
Dak's heart kicks up, his nerve endings on fire. This is another thing hockey players do, apparently – they play coy once they know they've won. And here, right now, Logan definitely knows. He steps in close to Dak while Dak splutters, "You're not a girl."
"It's really nice that you noticed."
Logan stands on his tip toes and presses his mouth against Dak's. It's clumsy and fumbling and over much too quick. He has the gall to look embarrassed when he reels back, his inexperience written clearly across his features, but Dak isn't interested in staring, not right now, not when they can do that all over again.
The second try goes better. It's a kiss that melts slow against Dak's lips, and it tastes like sunshine and vaguely of something that likely has artificial preservatives. Logan cages Dak's face with his hands, guiding the kiss until it takes a shape between them, gains a rhythm, forms some heat.
Dak slips Logan some tongue. Patience isn't his middle name. Logan doesn't seem to mind. He gasps and presses his body pretty firmly to Dak's, wrapping his arms around his neck. Dak is a big fan of this plan.
Not so much of when Logan pulls back and announces, "Alright, ground rules."
"Now? You seriously want to talk about this now?"
Logan barrels right over him, going, "One. No more stalking. It's creepy and invasive, and leads to everyone in the world thinking you're dating Jett Stetson. Do you want to date Jett Stetson?"
"We were having a moment," Dak complains. "It was beautiful. Why are you ruining the moment?"
Sternly, Logan continues, "Rule Two. No dating Jett Stetson. Both of your egos won't be able to fit in the same bed. It will crack and fall through the floor and you'll die."
Dak buries his head against Logan's neck and mutters, "Die. Yes. Exactly like the moment."
He supposes he shouldn't hold out for any more games of kissy-face in the next millennia. Or at least the next forty five minutes. What a trial.
"Three," Logan counts off. "No more sending poor Rosita to ninja-clean my room. I like my room the way it is, and it's hurtful when I find her wearing a gas mask."
Dak snickers.
Logan insists, "My socks don't smell that bad."
The gas mask was Dak's idea. Rosita, in her gracious housekeeper way, claimed it was unnecessary. Dak, as an awesome employer, forced the issue, because he only has her best interests at heart. "You've obviously never smelled your socks."
"I wash them," Logan protests, shoving back even more. Now Dak's head is just dangling sadly over open space, unkissed and unloved. Falling for a scold is the worst idea he's ever had. "And my feet! Just because I don't let goldfish nibble on my toes once a week don't mean I'm a leper-"
"You could do with a pedicure," Dak suggests mildly.
"–and it's weird to find her touching my underwear."
Dak shrugs. "C'est la vie. Lifestyles and the rich and famous, and all that."
"Let me rephrase. If you want to touch my underwear, you're going to make Rosita stop."
Dak swallows thickly. Smushing his mouth against Logan's face is fun, but underwear-touching is a tempting siren song. Begrudgingly, he admits, "Your socks don't smell that bad."
Logan grins and rewards him with a soft, sweet peck on the lips. Dak chases him for more, but the kid's already rattling off his next bullet point in the list of things sure to suck all the joy from Dak's life.
"You have to stop calling my friends names."
"What names?" Dak challenges, because he's been very, very careful to never refer to the idiots as anything crude within hearing distance.
"You know what names," Logan replies all uptight and joy-sucking.
Dak stands his ground. No way Kendall and James ever heard him call them butt monkeys.
Sighing, Logan steps back into Dak's personal space again and says, "Rule five."
"This is a lot of rules," Dak objects.
"Rule five," Logan repeats firmly. "Kiss me again?"
Okay. Dak can live with that last one.
They celebrate their newfound romance with a Season One marathon of Grayson's Anatomy. Logan settles into Dak's side, his feet propped up on the coffee table, and Dak wonders if he should come up with his own set of rules to discourage scuff-marks.
Only, thinking back on it, all the irritating things that Logan does – from eating anything that moves to recording over all of Dak's entertainment television – don't really irritate him anymore. Logan's a pretty great guy underneath his hockey-headed quirks, if not a bit accident prone. Dak likes that. Dak likes all of him. And as long as he doesn't accidentally continue to date Jett, Logan likes him too.
He presses his mouth against soft tufts of Logan's hair, simply because he can. Onscreen, doctors prattle about their extremely dramatic, extremely unrealistic lives, straight on through the commercial break. Dak wonders if his agent ever pushed through his request to audition for this show.
It'd be a nice surprise for Logan.
Logan, who takes advantage of a snack break by suggesting, "I could teach you how to play hockey."
Aghast, Dak inquires, "Have you seen my face? I can't put all this at risk."
He waves a hand across the bridge of his nose and the ridge of his cheekbones emphatically.
"That never stopped James."
"James doesn't have the face of a young god," Dak retorts prissily. There is a minor possibility that Jett's been rubbing off on him. That or he's always been this arrogant. Both are viable options.
Fondly, Logan touches Dak's chin and agrees, "Yeah, you're alright looking."
"Alright looking? Are you blind?"
His irritation trickles away as Logan bursts into laughter, completely undaunted by Dak's outrage. It takes him a full minute to realize that Dak has stopped blustering, and when he does, he asks, "What, we're done with the thesis on how you're a beautiful creature?"
"I am a beautiful creature," Dak agrees, worn out but fond. "And you know, when you smile like that, you're pretty alright looking too."
Logan beams, burrowing further into the couch, digging his sneakered heels into the coffee table. He twines his fingers with Dak's, and okay, he's definitely still a trainwreck of a hockeyhead.
But Dak thinks he'll keep him anyway.
A/N: New story! New story that comes with a story. Right, so a looooong, long, long time ago, like, pre-Big Time Moms, I wanted to write a story where BTR broke up and James and Kendall were poor(ish) and living in a beach bungalow, surfing all day and serving coffee to locals and busking for cash. That fic only exists on the privacy of my computer, because it's not done. This beast here grew as a prequel for that, because I needed a way to explain why Dak and Logan came over for dinner dates. Why is that important? Mostly because - you may have noticed - there are some throwaway lines in here mentioning Kendall and James sharing an apartment. Also relevant: Chapter 13 of Here, Beneath My Lungs is another spinoff of this same universe, if you are ever tempted to read about kames and their christmas tree. The main fic getting those two together will probably go up...er...one day.