I'd like to dedicate this to my wonderfully amazing fellow RPers: Leeshy, Siddeh, Rachel, Roma, Nic and Taters. I love you guys so freaking much.
Logan closed his fist around his bed sheets, and then opened it again. He repeated this action several times as the frown on his face deepened and his frustration grew. He had feeling in his fingers which was good – it seemed to come and go as the days passed. He couldn't remember if that was a good or bad thing, whenever he tried to work it out all he could hear in his head was the soft tinkling of an instrument which he recognised and loved so much it hurt his heart, but he couldn't remember what it was called. He couldn't even remember what he was called, that was what he was trying to figure out right now.
"Logan?" A soft voice was calling and he looked up with a smile as he remembered.
"That's my name," he said proudly, searching for the source of the wonderfully soft voice. It sounded like music and he wanted to hear more of it. His eyes fell on a tall boy at the foot of his bed who had incredibly curly brown hair and green eyes that were full of sadness and anger and he felt a twinge of guilt as he realised he should know who this was. Something beginning with J… Someone he'd known well for a long time…
"J…" He cast around inside his head for a long time. "Jeremy?" He questioned and the sadness disappeared from those green orbs to be replaced by pleasant surprise. The anger remained though.
"You know who I am?" He asked, slowly making his way to sit in the chair beside Logan's bed. Logan's head swivelled to follow his movements – he didn't want to look away in case Jeremy disappeared. He couldn't remember so many things but he could remember this boy being here one moment and then not the next. It was terribly confusing.
"I don't think I did yesterday… What day is it?" Logan frowned, trying to remember but, aside from the random snippets and some earlier memories that were just starting to come back, he couldn't remember anything.
"It's Wednesday. And no, you didn't know who I was yesterday." Jeremy said softly, closing his eyes. Logan peered at him, looking at the grey tinge to his skin, the shadows under his eyes, the way his shoulders had slumped. He was exhausted, his brain told him.
"Why are you here?" He asked, then glanced around. He didn't really recognise his surroundings, it was just all white and overwhelming. "Where is here? Are my sisters alright?" Sisters? He had sisters? The words just slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them and he wondered if his brain to mouth connection was working properly. Did he have sisters?
"Yes, you have sisters. Yes, they're alright but Phoebe and Tara are a bit traumatised. We're in the school hospital wing. And I'm here for the same reason I'm here every day, because the nurse reckons I'm the only one you can actually remember without too much prompting." There was an underlying sense of bitterness in his voice and Logan just wanted to reach out and take the bitterness and the anger and the pain away. Some tiny part of his mind was screaming at him that this was his fault, that Jeremy was like this because of him, but he couldn't hear it because it was shrouded in darkness.
"…Why am I here?" He asked after a long moment of silence, honestly trying to work it out. Obviously he needed to be here – he had less than brilliant control over his muscles, his memory was full of holes and he was having trouble remembering his own name – but he didn't know what could have happened to have put him in here. Jeremy sighed and it was such a harsh sigh that Logan winced slightly because he knew that meant something really bad had happened.
"You… You took some pills," he said after a long moment of silence, sitting forward and propping his elbows on his knees so he could bury his head in his hands. "Well, more than some. It was some sort of pain medication and you… you downed half the bottle. I don't know what would have happened if Dino hadn't found you in time." At that point his voice cracked and he stopped talking for a long moment. Logan was thinking about what he'd said and he just couldn't piece it together.
"But… why?" He was remembering more as time went on and, for some reason, he could see a lot of red in his memory. He didn't know what it was but it was a nice shade of red. It wasn't angry or malicious or violent and he found he couldn't relate it to blood because it was such a nice colour. It was almost like a really dark shade of pink, but so much prettier. There was something of a punch to it which stopped it being too girly.
"Jude," Jeremy hissed and Logan sat up straight – or he attempted to at least. Apparently he was much weaker than he'd thought. Now that he'd heard the name, he was associating her with the pretty colour he'd just been thinking about and he smiled slightly. Jeremy huffed and Logan glanced at him with surprise to find that he was staring at him – specifically his little smile.
"What? How could she be the reason I'm in here?" He was confused again but it wasn't surprising. Apparently he wasn't hard to confuse now.
"Logan…" Jeremy began then stopped as if he was trying to figure out what to say. Logan realised that he liked the way his name sounded when Jeremy said it and that he wanted him to say it again. "Logan, do you know who Jude is?" He sounded hurt and just as confused as Logan felt and, honestly, it was just confusing Logan even more.
"Does she have red hair?" He asked and Jeremy grimaced and nodded. "Why do I remember her more than… who's the blonde haired guy?" He immediately felt bad for asking the question as an image of a blonde boy wearing a Mickey Mouse jumper swam into his mind, grinning at him and holding a plate of bacon.
"That would be Eoghan, known by us as Eggy, Egg or Eggs. He's an Irish Hufflepuff who loves food and has been your friend since first year, same as me. Except I'm in Ravenclaw and I don't love food nearly as much as he does because that's impossible." Logan waved his hands to stop Jeremy who had started on some sort of panicked rant. He wondered if it was to stop him asking more questions about Jude.
"Okay, first of all what is Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff? Never mind, answer that later. So why do I remember Jude more than Eoghan? Don't avoid the question, Jeremy," Logan warned, seeing the contemplative look on his… friend's face? Yes, his friend's face. Jeremy, his friend Jeremy, sighed for the umpteenth time before he ran a hand through his already unruly curls.
"No interruptions, okay? If I'm going to tell you this you need to listen to the entire thing before you decide for yourself what you think of Jude." Jeremy waited for Logan to nod before he began. "Jude is in our year, which is sixth year by the way, but she's in Slytherin." He noticed the look of confusion on Logan's face and sighed softly. "We go to a school called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – yes, you are a wizard and no, I'm not getting into that right now. There are four houses, defined by various characteristics. You and I are in Ravenclaw, known as the house of the wise, Eoghan is in Hufflepuff, known as the house of the just, Jude is in Slytherin which is known as the house of the cunning and then there's Gryffindor which is the house of the brave. Anyway. Jude and I used to get on very well, so obviously you guys knew each other through me. At some point a few months ago you guys had a moment and started getting romantically involved and you bought her some amazing earrings for Valentine's Day and it was all well and good until a seventh year threw a party and we all went and that's where Dimitri comes in." Jeremy had been watching Logan's face very carefully as he told his story and he saw how his face went from listening intently to an angry storm in a flash at the mention of Dimitri's name. Jeremy felt the same way, to be quite frank, but mainly because of how much Dimitri had messed Jude around. He was furious at her, but she was still one of his best friends and he would happily punch Dimitri in the face if he could be bothered with the pain he would get in his fist.
"Jeremy?" Logan had noticed Jeremy's eyes unfocus and he gently called him back to earth, needing him to finish the rest of the story.
"Dimitri has been in love with Jude since they were six, he claims, and so he's been trying to pry her away from you. They went outside to talk, which they did apparently, and after a while you decided to go looking for her. Unfortunately you arrived at the same time that their lips arrived together and you and Jude had a massive fight and broke up – though you weren't technically going out at the time. I have no idea if that was what triggered it or if it was something to do with your family but a week later my cousin Dino walked into our dorm room to find you lying on your bed… unconscious and struggling to breathe." Jeremy's voice had gotten weaker and weaker as he finished his story and as soon as he was done he turned away from Logan, who thought he saw him lift a hand to wipe something from his eye.
"How many times have you had to tell me this?" He asked softly, his fist closing and opening around the sheets like it had done earlier. Much to his surprise, Jeremy's hand suddenly landed on his fist, preventing him from opening it and closing it again.
"Today is the sixth day in a row," he mumbled, "but it was shorter today. Usually I have to tell you about myself first before you'll listen quietly. And even if your memory does seem to be improving marginally, I still have to tell you every day that I hate it when you do that with your hand because it just reminds me more of how weak you are."
"And what about when you've told the story? What normally happens then?" Logan had decided he had far too many feelings rushing around his body at once. There was confusion mainly; confusion about what he'd done and why, confusion about Jude and this Dimitri kid, confusion about who everyone was; confusion about pretty much everything. But there were also stirrings of anger at himself for doing such an idiotic thing, sadness about how easily he could just drop everything over one girl and… more confusion. This of a more… fluffy type. Jeremy still hadn't released his hand and he couldn't help but dwell on it slightly, just adding to the pot of confusion in his brain.
"Well this is actually the first time I've finished the story," Jeremy admitted, glancing down to where their hands were joined and quickly drawing his hand away with a faint hint of colour in his cheeks. "Usually you fall asleep or just forget how to listen. You zone out and it takes me ages to get your attention back and by the time I do, you've forgotten everything again. It's… unsettling. I can sort of deal with it if you wake up without a memory in your head or a name to give yourself, but the way you just blank out and forget everything is terrifying. So, yeah, I don't really know what to do or say now. The nurse will probably be along with your pills in a minute."
There was a long silence between them as they both got lost in their own little worlds. Jeremy was staring at Logan's hands resting feebly on the bed and thinking about how everything had been before this terrible week. Logan was staring at Jeremy's face, half in shadow as it was, and trying to think about the same thing as Jeremy but failing. Eventually he gave up and just started trying to memorise everything about Jeremy's face. The way his curls fell on his forehead, the way his eyelashes were casting shadows onto his cheeks, the way his teeth were gripping onto his lip. Logan felt a strange inclination to reach out and free his lip from his teeth but he stopped himself. That would probably be a bit weird. He wanted to ask a million and one questions but he just couldn't figure out how to phrase them.
"What're my sisters like?" He asked eventually, deciding to go with what he hoped was a safe question.
"You have five," Jeremy said, not looking up. Logan had a feeling he'd told this story more than once as well. "Phoebe is fourteen, in Ravenclaw and trying to grow up too fast. Tara is ten, probably going to be in Ravenclaw and a musical prodigy like you. Danielle and Lizzie are six year old twins who have silent conversations with each other that scare everyone. And Natalie is three and doesn't really know much about the world yet. Technically Natalie and the twins are only your half-sisters but you care for them just as much as you care for the other two. You're closest to Tara who absolutely adores you and begs you to teach her piano every time you go home but you're refusing to because you're worried that she'll be better than you within the year. Both Tara and Natalie sing, though Natalie's is more just random melodic noises, and Phoebe does too but she doesn't like to admit it because she doesn't want to be like you. Not because she doesn't love you, she loves you a lot but she doesn't think she'll be able to live up to you. She's something of a diva but at the end of the day she's a good kid. They all are."
"And what about my parents?" Logan asked automatically and Jeremy frowned – obviously this wasn't a hurdle they'd crossed yet.
"Your parents are… difficult. Well, parent. Your dad disappeared a few years back and, aside from birthday and Christmas presents for everyone, you haven't heard from him since. Your mum's kind of a delicate subject and a tricky one to explain. She's… not entirely sane. She's not insane, but not everything's there. Obviously I only have this story from your point of view because I never met your dad and your sisters were too young to remember when it happened but you said you first noticed it when you were about eight. You'd heard her complaining to your dad sometimes that the constant music around the house was driving her insane but he'd never actually believed her. Then you noticed her strange behaviour and he left two years later. You are basically the sole care-taker of the girls when you're not at school – you raised both the twins and Natalie pretty much entirely by yourself, despite your age and lack of experience – and occasionally your mum has these little episodes that send you home to look after everyone until she's capable of cooking again. A couple of weeks before this happened you'd just come back from a six week stint of looking her after she put her head in the oven."
"…In an oven?" Logan asked in shock and then he winced and groaned as a sudden flood of pictures filled his head. He screwed up his face in pain – it felt like his head was being split open with a blunt axe. When he finally opened his eyes again, Jeremy was gazing at him with concern and, at some point, he had taken his hand again. Logan would have wondered if he'd done that on purpose or just as a reflex had he not been so overwhelmed by memories.
"Logan? Logan, what's wrong?" He asked urgently and for the first time since he'd walked into the room, Logan noticed that all of the anger had disappeared from his friend's eyes to be replaced by genuine concern.
"Nothing's wrong, though my head hurts a hell of a lot due to all the images of this tall, slim woman with blonde hair and ridiculously pretty eyes. Is she my mum?" Logan asked quietly, flicking through every single individual memory in his mind as he waited for Jeremy to answer him. She was beautiful but she didn't have a true small in any of his memories and her eyes always seemed to be a little bit too vacant to be normal.
"Yeah, that's Felicity," Jeremy replied quietly, letting his hand go and slowly drawing his back towards his own body. The realisation that Jeremy didn't have much else to say about his mother hit Logan suddenly and he thought about her for a moment longer before he put her and his sisters to the back of his mind for now. Instead he turned back to an earlier subject which was probably just as uncomfortable for his friend.
"So what about Jude? What's happened between she and I? Has anything happened? Has she been to visit me or anything along those lines?" The questions tumbled out and Logan could have sworn he saw Jeremy wince between each one.
"She came to visit you yesterday, actually, so maybe that's why you're not having as much trouble remembering her as you are remembering Eoghan, even though he spent the first four days pretty much glued to the chair beside your bed. I suppose you don't even have a clue who Blake and Archie are because goodness knows where they've got to." Logan shook his head, trying his hardest to put faces to names but just coming up blank. He sighed; he couldn't remember feeling so useless at any moment in his life. Well, those moments in his life which he could remember so far.
"Anyway, you two talked and kissed," Logan didn't miss the way Jeremy grimaced as he said it, "but then something – I don't know what, you couldn't remember the specifics of it when you told me afterwards – changed and you asked her if she would ever be able to choose between you and Dimitri. When she said no you said something about thinking that she needed to take time for herself and figure out what she wanted to do and she ran past me on my way in to visit you."
Confusion. Confusion. Confusion. So much confusion.
"So did I say how I felt about that?" Jeremy shook his head and they fell into another long silence, both of them trying to figure out… everything, really. Eventually Jeremy stood up and stretched, wincing as the blood flowed back into his feet. "Are you leaving?"
Jeremy turned back to look at Logan, his heart breaking slightly at the hurt and desperation in his friend's voice. He could see just how confused Logan was and it just killed him so much but what hurt even more was the fact that, if it weren't for the way the nurses had worked so quickly, he might not have even been sitting there, looking confused. What hurt the most, however, was the fact that Logan hadn't thought about him as he took those pills. He hadn't thought about anyone but Jude, all because of one damn kiss that probably meant nothing to Jude and probably would have continued to mean nothing if Logan hadn't seen it. Even though he wasn't currently speaking to her, Jeremy knew Jude and he knew her well. If something happened and no one saw that she cared about, she wouldn't really let it bother her. But if something happened someone that she cared about did happen to see, she'd spend a lot of time beating herself up about it. And in beating herself up, she'd be thinking more about what it was that that person had seen and then she'd start to see it from a different perspective until eventually she had changed her opinion about it completely.
"I'm just going to see where the nurse is with your medicine," he said softly, his eyes gentle as he watched Logan's eyes fill with relief, felt them on his back as he walked away. Maybe whilst he was gone, Logan would fall asleep again and when he woke up they'd go through this entire routine again. Jeremy would tell him who he was and what had happened and it would be pointless because Logan still wouldn't remember a thing. Everyday so far that week, Jeremy had considered lying to him just because he wouldn't remember. He could have told him he had a different name every day. He could have never told him about his parents and the way he lived when he went home. He could have never mentioned Jude's name, never told him about the events that had led to him lying uselessly in that bed, never said there were other people in the world who cared about him. He could have never told him the truth and just kept Logan all to himself.
"Jeremy?" He hadn't fallen asleep, then. Jeremy checked his watch and was surprised to find he'd been here for over two hours. He wondered where all the nurses were, none of them had come to chastise him for not being in class yet even though they were the ones who requested he come for Logan's benefit.
He quickly cast around in the small office, looking for Logan's medicine because suddenly he was just impatient to get back to his bedside. He'd started his day dreading having to go back to the hospital and speak with the boy who couldn't remember him and now that he was remembering things he just didn't want to leave him if he could avoid it. There was a small glass sitting on the desk in the office with Logan's name on it and a small amount of potion in it and Jeremy picked it up, recognising it as the medicine he saw Logan take every day. Then he stopped and something clicked.
Jeremy pulled out his wand, hearing Logan call his name and knowing he had to hurry up, and waved it over the potion. For some reason, picking it up had just made pretty much everything clear to him. Every day he came to see Logan during his lunch hour and every day at the end of that lunch hour, the nurse came to see them and gave Logan this potion to drink. Jeremy then usually left because Logan always fell asleep, just like clockwork, and at the end of the school day Jeremy would come back to a Logan who had forgotten almost everything they had talked about just hours ago. Just as Jeremy reached the exact conclusion in his head that there was sleeping potion in that glass and that Logan shouldn't be taking it anymore, the results flashed up on his wand to show him the contents of the glass and confirmed his suspicions. He set the glass back down where he had found it and left the office to return to Logan whose eyes had been fixed on the spot where he would come back into his little screened off place.
"Why'd you take so long?" Jeremy felt his stomach twist slightly in a very good way as he saw the way Logan's eyes lit up as he reappeared and heard the happiness in his voice to see him again. He wasn't fully sure of exactly when he had realised he wasn't straight and that he had more than platonic feelings for his best friend, but he reckoned it had been two or three days before Logan had seen Dimitri and Jude kissing because Jeremy himself had seen Logan and Jude kissing and felt… He had felt jealousy and not jealousy towards Logan because he was kissing Jude, but jealousy towards Jude because she was kissing Logan. And then he had been there when the nurses were trying to save Logan's life and he had been certain because he had realised that if Logan died he would be taking his heart with him.
"If the nurse comes back and tries to give you medicine, don't take it," he warned with a quiet urgency in his voice as he heard the door open behind him. He ducked his head down so his lips were right next to Logan's ear, even though he didn't need to be quiet. "There's sleeping potion in the medicine and every time you fall asleep you forget everything," he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of Logan's ear. Jeremy didn't miss the way Logan's breath caught slightly and he couldn't help but smirk to himself with satisfaction. "I'm going to talk to the nurses about it," he breathed before standing up, hiding another smirk at the wide-eyed look on Logan's face.
His conversation with the nurses doesn't take long because he was Jeremy and being charming was second nature to him and he was perfectly capable of persuading them to let Logan sleep naturally. Maybe if he didn't have medicine messing with his mind and blocking out his dreams he wouldn't forget everything. Or maybe he would and Jeremy would have to find another way to bring his memories back to him.
"What just happened?" Logan asked quietly when Jeremy sat down beside him again; unconsciously bringing his chair closer to his friend as his face fell. Had he forgotten everything in the minute that Jeremy had been gone? Had he fallen asleep for all of thirty seconds and had everything just fallen out of his head after Jeremy had so painstakingly put it back? Maybe he wasn't getting better, maybe he was just getting worse.
"I'm Jeremy; we've been best friends for six years…" Jeremy began but Logan shook his head, interrupting him.
"I know who you are, you div," he said with another shake of his head, an amused smile on his face. "You just explained everything to me, remember? No, I meant what just happened there with you whispering in my ear?" His cheeks were flushed a soft shade of pink and his eyes were wide and his breathing was slightly short and Jeremy just had to look at him to feel butterflies in his stomach. No, it was more than butterflies. It was more like a stampede of angry Hippogriffs were trapped inside his stomach and trying to get out. He definitely wasn't straight.
He didn't actually reply to Logan's question. Instead he slowly slid his hand across the immaculate white covers to grasp Logan's hand with his own, the stampede in his stomach increasing in ferocity as he felt the small sparks when their skin touched. The mood had changed so completely from when Jeremy had first walked through the wooden doors. At the time, he didn't want to go to the hospital wing and see how Logan had forgotten again but now here he was, sitting in the chair beside Logan's bed with Logan's hand in his own and too many feelings to cope with running through him.
"When Dino found you and he called for me," Jeremy began softly, his voice rough but tender with emotions, "I was absolutely terrified. I saw how you couldn't breathe and I saw how pale your skin was and I saw how you didn't respond to me shaking you and telling you that you needed to wake up and it terrified me. I thought I was going to lose you forever because you were so far gone but I couldn't tear myself away from you to go and get the nurses. Then they arrived and Eoghan came with them and for once he didn't sit down and hug me and tell me everything was going to be alright. He didn't do any of that, he just took your limp hand in his and started praying and I just… I couldn't, Logan." His voice was choked with tears and Logan found the strength to squeeze his hand, to reassure him that he was there. "I couldn't deal with seeing you like that so I ran."
Logan had been staring at him the entire time the words had been pouring out of Jeremy's mouth and when he finished he noticed he'd absently started stroking the back of Jeremy's hand with his thumb while he had been talking. Jeremy ran his free hand through his curls and wiped furiously at the tears that had started flowing while he told his story. He had felt so ashamed when he ran, when he ignored Phoebe demanding to know what was wrong, when he hadn't stopped her from seeing her brother in a state she should never have seen him in. But he'd been so furious that Logan could just give up everything and leave him without a second thought. And he couldn't bear seeing his best friend in such a state.
"Jem," he said very softly and Jeremy abandoned his tear wiping and looked up at him and he just looked so vulnerable and frightened that Logan completely forgot what he was going to say and lifted his hand to wipe the tears from Jeremy's face. He didn't know if it was because he'd been twitching his fingers for a good half hour or so or if it was because seeing Jeremy like that had given him the willpower to move his arms, but he'd done it and that was good. Jeremy lifted his hand and settled it on top of Logan's so now both of their hands were touching.
"Don't ever do that to me again," he whispered, so much raw emotion on his face that Logan was feeling so overwhelmed that he just couldn't handle it. He cupped Logan's face with his hands and leaned forwards until their foreheads were pressed against each other and their lips were only millimetres away from each other. Their breath was mingling and, deep down inside, both boys felt something change inside them. "Please don't ever leave me," Jeremy whispered.
"Never," Logan promised.