Ack, Late-late update and gosh I hate doing this to you guys but real life got in the way. Not gonna bother you all with the details but let's just say it was hard for me to find time for writing.(Nanowrimo didn't go as well as expected :c ) Anyhow, I'm still working on FILT. I'm struggling a bit but hopefully I can plow out a lot in the upcoming Winter Break.
Much thanks to TheClair24, kathrynew30, pixiejazz, klolo8 for reviewing. And also thanks to everyone who alerted and favorited and are creepily stalking without commenting, your presence makes me happy enough and you deserve some credit :)
Moving on, this is Chapter 5! I think it's the longest chapter of Part One… could be because the song is the song for the whole Part One/trilogy but I don't know.
The Kogan Trilogy:: Falling is Like This
PART I- Falling is Like This
CHAPTER FIVE:: Falling Is Like This
PART ONE: Road Beneath Us
The next day came just like any other, the brightness of the Saturday sun breaking through the blinds of Logan's bedroom window. The strands of light tickled his pale face, drawing the teenager awake from his deep slumber.
He groaned upon opening his eyes. The day was already overwhelming.
'You've gotta get up though.' A voice in his mind nagged him. 'Studying for your mid-terms isn't going to wait for you.'
And that was all it took to get Logan to his feet, the brunet rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he dragged himself to his bedroom door, throwing it open to the dark empty pod of hallway space. He flicked on the light switch to his right, his eyes immediately catching the scribbled message on Sean's closed door to the left beside him.
"Out to b-ball practice early, will take out trash later. Cya." was all it read. Logan shrugged. In that case, he didn't mind. It was not like he saw Sean often anyway.
He carried himself to the small bathroom on his left, taking care of business real quick before heading over to the sink and scrubbing his hands good. The genius splashed a handful of cold water onto his face too, the fresh liquid drawing him completely awake as he patted himself dry using a nearby blue towel. Upon looking up he noticed he'd wet a little bit of the mirror for which he apologized out loud as he proceeded to scrub the droplets away with the rag in hand.
It was then that he caught the sight of dark bruised patches of skin on his neck out of the corner of his eye.
He let out a gasp, his free left hand coming up to cover the mark on his right side. In that instant he hadn't remembered exactly how he'd gotten the blemish but, the moment he grazed his fingers over the area, the memories all came rushing back.
This wasn't just any bruise. It was a hickey.
It had been given to him by Kendall.
He covered his eyes in his hands for just that second, half-embarrassed in recalling the events of the previous afternoon, that heat-rushed moment that had seemed to awaken so many unknown feelings he had buried somewhere within. He still didn't totally understand himself now, but in that instant he had felt like chancing a jump and telling Kendall that he liked him, as in really liked him, or rather anything mushy of the sort just to see that glowing smile on the blonde's face. He was unable to think of anything else besides him and their happiness.
Kendall had only mattered, he had only counted, and now, for some reason, even the simplest thought of the other young man holding his hand made his stomach do flips like it had never done so before. A kiss, well that made him feel like fainting, but not so much in a bad way.
To put it plainly, yesterday was some kind of revelation and now Logan swore he felt differently towards his boyfriend, or rather felt a stronger feeling he hadn't allowed to surface before until yesterday...
It was scary, frightening, and huge, unlike anything he had ever felt towards another person before and… wasn't it all too soon?
It was way too soon to want to trust someone in that way, too soon to hold a sense of attachment towards someone, to care for their emotions well-beings, to care about you, to care about them.
'It can't be "Love"... We're only eighteen…' He couldn't help but think as he looked back up into the mirror, eyes lingering on the sight of his bites.
Yeah, he really had to do something about those. He didn't want to walk into public and have people silently questioning what exactly Logan had been doing the previous day.
'Time to dig out the scarves, I guess,' he thought with a shrug as he turned to flip off the lights, the genius sauntering back to his room and kneeling down to open the bottom drawer of the dresser he'd placed below his bed.
He rummaged a bit until he pulled out a light beige one, deciding it to be simple enough to go with anything he wore, before getting up and walking over to the makeshift closet he'd placed on the empty racks in the left corner besides his door. However, on his way there, he spotted his phone on his desk and he paused.
9:15 it said, and in his mind he flashed back to Mercedes' request on the day before inviting him for lunch. Well, he did have her number and he was free, Kendall's lie the other day remaining just what it was. He could ask her to breakfast if she was awake...
For once, he didn't feel like being alone, especially on this morning, his mind needing a distraction from the whirling unspoken feelings and this intense feeling of worry that was building up in the pit of his stomach.
Kendall yawned as he shoved in a handful of soup cans onto the second to top shelf along with others he had thrown into the back sloppily. He knew he'd have to pay for it and organize it into neat rows later but, at the moment, he just wanted to be done with this box.
Oh, how he loathed his restocking duty. The blonde preferred to be active at the cash register. Then at least he'd have faces to distract him and conversations to make the day roll by faster but, nope, not today. Unfortunately, the local superstore found they needed more hands than cashiers at the moment so they put Kendall in the mix of that - not that he could complain because for sure he wanted to keep his job.
This helped to pay for a lot of his personal expenses. Sure, the a scholarship he retrieved back in middle school covered the first 2 years of his schooling, but Kendall was determined to eventually find better employment later on to further uphold the rest of his education and spending. He didn't want his mom to keep paying for him as it was, she had his younger sister Katie to care for after all, and—hello, he was eighteen.
Kendall knew he needed to learn stand on his own feet, now more than ever, no matter how much his mother insisted on being there for him. He was lucky he'd persuaded her to let him get his own apartment.
"Hey, Kendall, you almost done with those boxes?" The blonde turned to see his familiar co-worker, Steve pop his head around the corner of the aisle.
"Uh, sorta," Kendall called over his shoulder before unloading another armful of cans. "I got one more, but technically near done."
"Well hurry it up man," he shouted, "We're gonna need some help over by the back, there's a lot of egg cartons we have to unload."
"Got it," the blonde grunted, bending down to pick up one last handful, kicking the empty box aside as he shoved the last couple of cans onto the shelf.
He stepped back and surveyed the order. Some cans stood upright, others rolling on their sides, but none of them were in line, a jumbled mess that looked as if a preschooler had thrown it all on there. Yeah, he had to fix that.
Heaving a sigh, the blonde got to work in organizing, propping up the toppled silver cylinders and filing, trying at least to make it look somewhat presentable.
'Well, at least this is better than reviewing my notes for government class,' he thought positively. Although the prospect didn't sound so dead terrifying now because he could actually make sense of most words, all thanks to Logan of course.
Kendall couldn't help grinning to himself at the memory of the genius, or rather what he had done with him on that Friday afternoon. His lover had been all kinds of cute and, though he knew a chance like that wasn't going to come again for a long while, he was glad he at least gotten to Logan just once... it was enough to calm his burning desires. Not to mention he'd gotten the chance to mark him. The blonde was sure that those hickeys would ward off all girls around him for a good two weeks, which he was proud of.
'I hope Mercedes sees it,' he couldn't help but give a snicker at the thought of her disappointed expression in finding out Logan already had someone else.
The blonde paused in his movements then, briefly flashing back to the following events of that afternoon. He'd woken up around two hours later, Logan already on his feet and urging the blonde to get up for them to eat. They'd dined at the local small buffet restaurant on campus, though the atmosphere between them, he'd noticed, had taken a different medium. He couldn't exactly place his finger on the emotion, but if he'd had to describe it he would've said awkward. He and Logan exchanged very little words.
The brunet had also kept a set distance, which only unnerved Kendall just the slightest bit, especially when he'd moved away when he attempted to hug him goodbye.
The rejection had completely hurt, though he'd tried not to show it, but Kendall thought he probably deserved it for his reckless actions. He had settled for waving goodbye, the former hockey captain having trouble sleeping that night in fretting if Logan would break up with him over the situation.
However, the blonde had called him about thirty minutes ago, and just the fact that Logan had picked up had helped to rest his nerves. He'd sounded surprised. The brunet had not seemed to expect Kendall calling him during breakfast (Kendall could hear the noises of the cafeteria in the background), and their conversation was relatively short. Yet Logan's words seemed to flow more naturally. At the end though, when they were exchanging goodbyes, Kendall couldn't shake the feeling that Logan had seemed like he had wanted to tell him something. What it was he wasn't sure, but he'd certainly been holding his tongue after he'd spoken "I love you".
'Maybe he had wanted to say it back?' Kendall thought as he continued shifting cans around, his mind instantly enraptured by the idea.
He thought it could be a possibility. He wondered if Logan had maybe been able to sort out his feelings the night before, if Kendall had, through his actions, ended up helping him and not hurting him. After all, Logan wasn't furiously mad at him for what he did because they had snuggled afterwards...
'He might just need a little extra push,' the blonde surmised, his brain already swarming with a plan to try and get Logan to open up to him more. Nothing in particular came to mind though.
Just then Kendall's phone gave off a loud vibration in his pocket and he immediately stopped in his actions to dig the device out of his pocket, grateful for the distraction. He flipped the phone open and saw he'd received a new text message.
'Well, can't hurt anyone to read it,' he thought with a shrug as he clicked open the message. He'd expected it to be nothing special but, in fact, it was quite the opposite.
Kendall's eyes were blown wide at the sight of the words lit up on the screen before him. This had seriously uncanny timing.
He might've just been handed the "push" Logan needed.
Logan had approached the front of the classroom at a steady pace, eyes looking over the sheet of white paper he held in his hand, mind going over the sets of problems for the last time.
'Okay, it looks fine, everything looks fine... Just turn it in now.' Logan looked up to greet the face of his math professor who sat behind the front desk, the boy giving a shy nod to the scruffy bearded man before placing his test a top the stack of others on the surface. He turned to make his way out then, releasing a breath he hadn't even noticed he'd been holding as he pushed open the front door, other students wrapping up their answers behind him. He could only hope he did well.
"Why do you have that face, Logan? You are the last one who should look worried about his exam." A voice from beside him made him jump. The brunet hadn't seen Mercedes exit along with him!
"Whoa, Mercedes can you work on trying not to scare a guy." Logan breathed as he pulled to a stop, resting a hand over his chest as he tried to calm his racing heartbeat.
The blonde female giggled in response, "Sorry, you know I didn't mean to."
Logan offered a smile, "Apology accepted. So, while we're here, how do you think you did on the exam?"
"Hmm," she looked over her shoulder to see another group of students exiting the class, the stream of them flowing more persistently now that everyone seemed to be finishing. "I would like to say I think I did well, but then I saw your face and knowing that you're stressed out about your test even though you're the smartest kid in class kind of sets off my confidence."
The brunet gave an apologetic expression, looking up into the girl's hazel eyes as he spoke, "My bad, you shouldn't feel that way because of me. I just have a bad habit of doubting myself all the time even though I know I did the work right."
"Aw," Mercedes turned sympathetic, patting the other lightly on his shoulder. "You're so ridiculous, you shouldn't feel that way especially because you like math so much. I'm sure you did perfectly fine, genius."
Logan gave a small smile at this, glad that she was so supportive. He really liked Mercedes for her kindness. "Thanks."
Just about when she'd opened her mouth to reply to this, Logan let out a squeal at the feeling of an unexpected pair of hands snap shut around his middle, the brunet jumping away in fear.
Laughter came from behind and Kendall's voice immediately filtered through his pounding ears, "Oh my god Logan, you seriously need a chill pill, it's just me!"
"Geez Kendall," the brunet snapped around at this, glaring at the blonde as best as he could while adjusting the strap of his book bag that had nearly fallen off his shoulders. "You idiot I could've gotten in trouble for screaming, people are taking exams!"
"It's not my fault you get scared so easily." The blonde replied, still grinning.
"Yeah well, can you try not to do it when I'm in the middle of a conversation?" Logan gestured to Mercedes, the slender female at his side in a flowery pink vintage dress.
Kendall met her intense stare, trying his hardest not to scowl at her sight as he spoke, "Sorry, didn't mean to intrude."
She smiled at him, though Kendall could already sense it wasn't genuine. The girl spoke a simple "that's okay" to him before turning back to speak to Logan, inquiring about what other exams he had to take for the week were. As she was speaking, Kendall couldn't help but notice the way she batted her eyelashes. She was still trying to flirt with Logan it seemed, and he frowned at this wondering why she was when he had so obviously taken visual claim-
'Oh,' Kendall's eyes fell upon the cream colored scarf the genius had wrapped around his neck. 'So that's what he's hiding them behind...'
It was no good, Kendall decided. If Logan had been wearing a scarf as a cover the whole time then there was no point. And right about now he really wanted Mercedes to quit it in chasing his boyfriend
"Since we're about done here, would you like to accompany me to drop off a few things to the Larson Hall of Business? We could grab something to eat on the way." Kendall heard her ask this and immediately took the opportunity to slide into the conversation.
"Actually," the blonde snaked his right arm around the shorter boy's shoulders, subtly pulling down the scarf fabric with his fingers as he spoke, "Logan and I had planned to hit the library to study together."
The brunet turned his head to look up at the other with a frown as he whispered, "You know we never planned that."
"Relax Logie, she can join us if she wants, right Mercedes?" Kendall looked over back at her and was pleased to find her eyes were already staring exactly where he had intended them to look.
'Bingo!' he could not hide his smirk at her slightly paled physique.
"Logan is that a... o-on your," The genius was immediately alarmed by her shocked tone of voice, turning around and following her line of sight. He let out a gasp of realization then, hand coming up to slap over the left side of his neck, only half surprised to feel Kendall's hand tearing away at the same time.
'He did this!'
"I just, uh, remembered that I have to pick up something from admissions, bye!" Logan immediately sputtered out, not wanting to stick around for anymore questions she might ask, the brunet pulling Kendall's wrist sharply with his free hand as he ran down the hall. He turned a corner before coming to an abrupt stop.
"I cannot believe you!" He turned to face the blonde with an angry scowl, readjusting the scarf as he hissed, "Why would you go and show her? What was the point of embarrassing me like that?"
Kendall gave a sigh, "You really are blind aren't you?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
The taller moved closer then, quickly scanning his eyes to see if anyone was around before quickly diving in to give his boyfriend a short peck on the lips. Logan was baffled by it and Kendall took the chance to explain, "Mercedes is trying to flirt with you, so I had to show her you were already taken before she could try anything."
Logan looked up at the blonde, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "I think I would've noticed if that was the case, Kendall."
The hockey jock rolled his eyes, "But it is happening and you don't notice it because you're too busy focusing on the conversation! That's why I had to do something about it!"
The brunet pressed the scarf around his next as he responded, "Couldn't you have done it in a way that was a little less violating though?"
"Hey, it was either that or I would've made out with you in front of her. You should be thanking me for not entirely revealing us."
Logan gave a wry smile at that, "Thanks for that, I guess… although it still doesn't solve what I have to tell her about the uh... hickeys."
Kendall offered a shrug as he leaned back against the wall besides him, discreetly grabbing Logan's hand behind his back, "Just tell her you got yourself another girlfriend or something. As long as she knows to stop chasing you, I'll be satisfied. You don't have to mention me at all."
Logan let out a sigh as he fell back against the wall with Kendall, not wanting to tear away his grip from the warmth of the other's enclosed hand just yet. They stood in silence like this for a while before the brunet turned to face the blonde beside him with a frown, "You aren't going to do this for every girl that you think is trying to hit on me, are you?"
Kendall gave a click of his tongue before looking at him, "Maybe."
"You are so possessive."
"It's because I care." Kendall flashed the other an endearing smile as he settled to lean on the other's shoulder. Albeit he had to slouch, but to have the comfort of Logan for just a second was totally worth it.
The brunet didn't even shrug him off. He was glad for the contact anyway, when placed on top of Kendall's aforementioned jealousy, it made him feel all fuzzy inside. Surprisingly, he liked it that Kendall was possessive. Though he had acted mad, he was absolutely sold to the idea of the blonde wanting to show claim of him to everyone and anyone. He'd agree to it too if he wasn't so set on staying closeted for the time being. He'd tell Kendall he wanted the same from him if he wasn't this unsure of revealing his feelings.
He really liked this young man by his side, he saw it now. Saw it because he knew that Kendall was the only one he'd allow to kiss him, the only one he'd wanted to touch him so intimately, the only one he'd wanted to have him brighten his day, hold him, and he wished to say this.
However, he was afraid of what would become of them if he opened his mouth. This is where the worrying kicked in. He heard falling in love wasn't easy, he'd heard of the challenging experiences that came along with it from an old friend. Sure, sometimes lovers ended up living the dream in bright clouds and open sky, but there were very a many that eventually came down from their flight. They crashed, burned, exploded, and with no one else to pick up the pieces the two former lovebirds split down the gravel road below, each carrying the pieces of their broken glass hearts in their raw bleeding hands. The damage usually resulted in two strangers who never dared to speak to each other again.
Logan's eyes wandered to the top of Kendall's head on his left shoulder. He could hear his content and steadied breaths, the blonde strands of hair tempting his fingers to touch, his refreshing scent wafting up and filling his nostrils... he knew right now that he really did not want to lose this feeling of Kendall by his side.
Being in a serious relationship with him may ruin that... wouldn't it?
Right then Kendall moved off from his shoulder, unwinding his fingers from his own, only scaring Logan just a bit since he'd been thinking about it, though he was tuned out from his panicking once the other spoke. "Oh crap, sorry Logan, I just remembered I have to go meet with my advisor right about now."
"Then what are you doing here, go, go!" he immediately urged him with pushes to his shoulder, the brunet knowing how important those meetings were.
"I'm going, I'm going, gosh Logan stop being so pushy!" Kendall gave a laugh at the fact that his boyfriend was practically shoving him down the rest of the hall and into the lobby.
"Well I'm not going to be your reason for being late!"
"If I didn't know better I would think you'd be trying to get rid of me!"
"As if! You know I'd much rather have you with me because I li -" Logan caught himself mid-sentence, though it didn't appear to be fast enough, the former hockey captain whipping around the second the words hit his ears. Kendall was staring at him with wide-hopeful eyes, silently egging him on, and Logan could not bare the sight of it, tearing his eyes away and shoving his hands in his pockets as he tried to think of a way out of this.
There was no way of denying what he just said, but he wasn't going to finish it. Not when what could happen would be...
"You should just hurry on out to your advisor." Logan found himself saying, setting his expression into an emotionless kind as he looked back up at the blonde who had been waiting. He caught the disappointment in the taller's eyes, a slight pain stabbing his chest at this, Logan sending a mental apology his way though he wasn't sure if the other would receive it.
"Yeah, I should." Kendall's voice was almost sad, yet somehow compassionate, and he really hadn't expected the other's soft pat on his head. The next second Kendall's lips upturned into a smile, leaving him even more confused, until he spoke. "Hey Logie, do me a favor and leave your Friday open okay? There's something I have planned for us that day."
As unexpected as this was the genius couldn't help but nod his head, speaking a soft "okay" back.
Kendall gave one small wave before leaving then and Logan wryly smiled to himself as he walked away in the opposite direction. Kendall had something planned for Friday… even the joyous thought of it couldn't stop the negative thoughts flowing through his mind.