Logan can't breathe. His eyes are watering. He feels his face crumple and, mortified, tries to cover it with his hands, but Goren is holding his wrists. "You're an Irish Catholic," Goren says, and the workings of his brain are almost audible – as the last of his lucidity flees Logan thinks he can hear the gears turn inside that head. "It was a priest, wasn't it?" His voice is so calm. Calm and insistent. "Mike? Was it a priest?"
Logan's shoulders shake uncontrollably. He cannot stop himself. The memories play over and over in his head, the legacy of a past that was never beautiful, and he pitches forward into Goren's waiting arms. The other detective holds him, locks him in an embrace that is warm and comforting and the only thing that is real to Logan in this moment. A large hand cradles his head against Goren's shoulder, and Logan is crying like a six-foot-two baby. He feels like his world has been torn apart anew, like all the baggage of old is crashing down on him again, and he feels just as helpless as he did the first time around.
"It's over," Goren whispers, and his arms are so strong and his body so solid that Logan almost believes him. "I would never hurt you, Mike, don't you know that? Jesus." He rocks Logan like a child, and Logan clings to him like one. "I love you. Forever in your eyes and all the clichés – I never thought those things would make any sense to me, but they do now."
Logan can only cry harder. His face, where it is buried in Goren's shoulder, is probably bright red and streaked with tears. Logan is an ugly crier, he's always been. And he thinks, a little irrationally – which is strange, because Logan has always been logical – that if Goren can see what he looks like when he's crying and not run away screaming, maybe he really does love him.
He takes a deep breath, his body shuddering, and lifts his head, scrubbing at his face with the heels of both hands. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, his voice catching, and swallows tightly. "I'm a mess. I can't – I can't –"
What is he going to say? That he can't love Goren, that he can't give him an untouched heart? That his soul – if Logan even has a soul after his wild past – is in a thousand pieces and very likely can't be put back together again? That no matter what happens, it's only going to be temporary, another one-night stand, another notch in Logan's virtual bedpost? That he can't love?
Because that's bullshit and Logan knows it. He can love, and he does. He loves Goren. Blindly, completely and perhaps insanely, but he does love him. More than he thought possible. With more of himself than he knew existed prior to that kiss outside the federal prison in the rain.
"You can't what?" Goren lifts both hands to Logan's face and, with his thumbs, erases the paths Logan's tears have made on their way down from his eyes. The gesture is a simple act of tenderness, so pure and devoid of nefarious intent that Logan almost begins to cry again. "You can't what, Mike? I'm not going to ask you for more than you can give."
Logan manages a smile, trying with a monumental effort to regain some modicum of composure, and succeeds partially. "I can't forget," he says at last. "I can never forget." Goren's hands fall from Logan's face at those words, but Goren himself does not move, does not even breathe. Logan studies the floor intently for a moment, but his eyes are drawn back up to Goren's eyes. Like milk chocolate. Like coffee. Like nothing Logan has ever seen.
"But I love you." Logan's voice breaks. "I...love you."
Goren looks at him with that gentleness, and smiles. It is like the sun breaking through the darkest clouds imaginable, and the smile does more to warm Logan's heart and dry his eyes than he thought a facial expression ever could. Goren asks simply, "What are you going to do?"