Rating: mature/explicit

Prompt: Chase/Logan + physical

Note: companion piece to baby, don't be gentle

Warnings: (kinky, yet still unsexy) smut, angst, general self-indulgence because apparently I lowkey ship this now?


They fuck before they kiss.

Kissing seems too intimate for them, too tender. Logan thinks of kissing Chase and he pictures the smooches Chase and Zoey used to share in school at lunch, and then he thinks of rubbing noses with Quinn and -

And then he stops himself.

It's not like he and Chase are dating. They're still just friends, but sometimes after they've finished playing video games at his house Logan will offer to give Chase a blowjob, and it's possible that Chase has found a very effective way of shutting Logan up whenever he's complaining about something like the limitations of nepotism in the film industry by simply bending Logan over the couch and making him moan instead; and occasionally when Logan is showing off at a party Chase will drag him into a spare room or a bathroom and growl, "You're being an asshole," and covers Logan's mouth with one hand, adding, "just be good for once," as his other hand slips below the waistband of Logan's jeans. And Logan wouldn't actually say he behaves afterwards, but the night does end with him unsteadier on his feet and correspondingly more mellow.

Oddly, it works for them, as much as anything between them ever does.

.

(Logan kissed Chase first. He assumes Chase had been deliberately avoiding it, a rule about how kissing makes it - them - real, how it would have to mean something then, because that's what Chase is like, and it makes more sense to Logan than the idea of someone not wanting to kiss him, Logan Reese, because who wouldn't?

The point is that Chase kisses back.)

.

It works like this: Logan is impulsive and demanding and owns a limitless credit card and Chase is, at his core, a nerd. An oddly hot, mostly nice nerd, who (and it pains Logan to admit this) is not that bad in bed, but the end result is that Logan feels like he's getting dominated by a surprisingly kinky boy scout whose usual response to Logan trying to shock him with a kink is to goddamn wiki-how that shit.

But other times it feels oddly normal. He supposes this is one of the benefits of getting fucked by your best friend, which he's in the process of saying to Chase one afternoon before he realises that the last time Chase did that it didn't end so well. He doesn't know how to explain to Chase that for once he wasn't deliberately trying to be provocative and it was just forgetfulness and insensitivity, but he's not sure that would help, either.

"You're not my best friend," is all Chase says.

"Yeah well, fucking my enemy worked out for me well enough last time. So I guess that works too," Logan replies, the knot in his stomach uncoiling when Chase offers him a smile in return.

.

It's most practical for Chase to stay over: Logan doesn't have a roommate and he would ask if Michael suspects…them, whatever that means, only that would break the unspoken agreement they all have to never acknowledge Chase and Logan being "acquainted" that they all seemingly agreed to, except maybe Michael who is possibly still ignorant and oblivious to the whole thing. Logan would not know, which is the point.

So sometimes Chase will stay over and sometimes he'll be gone in the morning and other times he'll lounge around and eat all of Logan's cereal which Logan hates because it's the one food he actually knows how to prepare, which usually results in Chase lecturing him about how he should learn to boil an egg.

But the real advantage of Logan's place is the California king bed, which he resents sharing with Chase when he has to but is rarely able to actually voice his protests beyond a garbled "hmfugh". Logan finds this out one weekend when Michael has gone back to Georgia for a cousin's wedding and Logan takes the chance to willingly debase himself by stepping foot into their humble abode.

"I would have thought you'd be used to willingly debasing yourself by now," says Chase, so Logan sneers at him. And somewhere in between Logan mocking the apartment's non-existent maid service and watching a terrible 90s action movie and Chase making toasted sandwiches for dinner, Logan will stick his tongue out at him and Chase will give him a look that says "well, might as well make yourself useful" and they end up in Chase's bed, and this is where the problem lies.

"Quit hogging the covers," Chase grumbles, pulling the covers back towards him and turning over. It's two in the morning and it's cold, which Chase might be used to after a childhood of east coast winters but Logan is decidedly not. He's not exactly going to huddle up with Chase for warmth either because he's not a cuddler, no matter what Quinn might have to say on the matter.

"I'm the guest," snaps Logan, and snatches the covers back so he's snugly cocooned and Chase is left completely exposed.

"It's my bed," says Chase, now fully awake as he tries to wrestle the sheets from Logan's grasp.

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it?" taunts Logan, warm and cosy. Already drifting off again, he distantly feels Chase get up and assumes he's going to sleep on the couch or in Michael's bed.

Ten seconds later Logan lands on the floor with a thud, Chase having tipped the mattress up until he slid off. Chase cheerfully hops back into bed and under the covers, giving Logan's thigh a well-aimed kick when he tries to get back in.

"I am never staying over again," snaps Logan, already getting dressed to go home.

"Tragic," Chase yawns, and promptly goes back to sleep.

.

"Why did you break up with Zoey?" says Logan. It's the only time he'd dare ask, when Chase is just a silhouette and a breath beside him. He has other questions too, lots of them, but he figures this is the one he might actually like to hear the answer to.

Chase is silent for a while.

"We wanted different things," he sighs eventually, and Logan frowns.

"Explain," he demands.

"It's not actually any of your business," Chase replies, the frown evident in his voice.

"Were you out to hurt her or yourself?" Logan pushes, brazen in the night, because he's never seen a breakup where someone didn't get hurt. "Was it like a…a 'masochist in the streets, sadist in the sheets' thing?"

Chase huffs out a guffaw and reaches over to shove Logan, who lets out a small but bemused grin in return.

"You're an idiot," says Chase. "Go back to sleep."

.

Chase likes it when he begs.

They both know how much Logan hates saying 'please' so Chase devotes himself to finding a myriad of creative ways to drag the word out of him using his fingers, tongue, cock - smirking all the while. Sometimes he'll be merciful and Logan can get away with saying come on, i want/need it give it to me fuck god fuck me and Chase will relent and roll his hips. But other times he'll be torturous, slow and teasing as he tries to coax Logan, "What's the magic word?" over and over again until Logan finally gives in - again and again and again until he's hoarse with it.

.

(please please please please please -)

.

Logan's father asks to visit him for dinner one night so he can "check in" on him, even though it's his spare penthouse that Logan's living in and Logan has never left California since the one and only time Malcolm let him go on-set when he was eleven. He invites Chase, Lola and Michael around under the guise of getting Lola connections, but mostly so that he can justify the empty space of the penthouse now that he doesn't have a girlfriend, and partly to distract his father from asking about the locked second bedroom that definitely hasn't been turned into a kind of makeshift sex dungeon.

So Lola tries to convince Malcolm that Logan has more potential as a director than they all know he actually does, and Michael and Chase try to lighten the mood whenever the conversation strays a little too into the idea of expectations or Malcom's return on investment because that boarding school cost at least one Porsche, damn it.

"I considered sending him to military school," Malcolm admits some time into the night. He turns to Logan and adds, "I thought the discipline would do you good. But I wanted you to have some fun and some friends."

"Well, I think you made the right call," says Lola, the only schoolmate who never had to share a room with Logan. She smiles her best I-will-agree-with-you-until-you-cast-me-in-something smile.

"I don't know, I think military school might have straightened him out," says Chase, smirking at his own double entendre as he takes a sip of water. Logan kicks him under the table, Chase kicking him right back.

"Maybe," Malcolm replies. "But I don't know if I've ever met anyone Logan would willingly call 'sir'."

Chase promptly un-swallows his water, trying to choke down a cough as he does so, while Logan suddenly becomes very, deeply, intensely interested in the wood grain of the kitchen table.

Once Logan's ears have stopped ringing from sheer mortification he tunes back in to find that his friends haven't been entirely successful in steering his father away from his academic disappointments at both school or college, though why any employer would need to look at Logan's transcript when they could just look at his face is beyond him.

"Well, PCA did have some exceptional teachers. They had pretty high standards," says Michael, seemingly having a flashback to Economics class.

"Yeah, the ones that actually had their teaching degrees were good," Chase adds dryly, now mostly recovered from the water incident.

"Exactly, which is why it would have been nice to have seen some more A's on that report card," says Malcolm, pointing at Logan.

"Hey, I nearly topped the year in Chemistry," Logan argues.

"You've never topped anything in your life," says Malcolm, immediately unravelling Chase's composure.

"That's true," he rasps, looking less like he's trying to hold back a laugh and more like he's undergoing the first-ever cardiac arrest induced by dramatic irony and a strong dose of schadenfreude.

Nonetheless, Chase, Michael and Lola do eventually go home and leave Logan and Malcolm alone. They don't say anything for a while, lingering around the kitchen as Logan subtly, but utterly, fails to stack the dishwasher. He then tries to pretend that he isn't peering at how to turn it on because he decided two weeks into living by himself that he was rich enough to constantly order takeaway instead of learning how to clean and he hasn't touched it since. Likewise, his father bemusedly wipes a dry towel back and forth across the kitchen counter like he's trying to remember a language he once heard in a dream.

"So," Malcolm starts. "Have you heard from Quinn?"

"Um, not recently," Logan replies.

"Shame," says Malcolm. "She was good for you."

"She was," he says with a shrug, because it's not like that was ever the issue with them. He realises that he never really considered if he was good for her, though.

"You got a new girl?" asks Malcolm.

"No," he sighs, anticipating a lecture on how he should learn to commit and take his life seriously despite his father being on wife number four.

"Boyfriend?"

Logan whips around and stares at him before spluttering out, "No? No! Why would you think that?"

"It happens. It's LA," his father states simply and what is possibly intended to be soothingly, the way someone would tell a crying child that the sun can't be switched off. "You know, I don't care who you date, so long as you both look after each other. You could do a lot worse than Quinn."

"I know," he says.

"Could do a lot worse than someone like Chase too," adds Malcolm, and Logan stills and stiffens. "Is he still with Zoey?"

"Yeah," says Logan. "I think he is."

.

Chase gives him a custom shirt without the excuse and accompanying ceremony of Christmas or his birthday that reads: "never topped anything his life".

Logan hits him with a pillow and ensures it's never in plain sight when Chase comes over, but he'll sleep in it sometimes when Chase isn't there.

.

"Safeword?"

Chase is behind him, his voice more even than Logan would like while his own breathing already has an edge to it from anticipation; already enjoying where there's a slight ache settling into his shoulders from having his hands above his head.

"Covington," he answers.

He can almost hear Chase roll his eyes before he flicks the top of Logan's head with his finger.

"Ow."

"Try again," he says.

"Quinvention," he replies - which, in his defence, is an old one.

"Ok, I'm going to smack you anyway so it's up to you whether you enjoy it or not."

"Ooh, scary," Logan mocks, and shortly afterwards Chase grabs a fistful of his hair and wrenches his head back. Logan can't help but meet Chase's face with a grin.

"Next time you're getting gagged," says Chase, which Logan hopes is a promise.

"And blindfolded?"

"Deal," Chase replies. "Now tell me your goddamn safeword."

"Safeword," Logan answers, attempting and failing to shrug his shoulders smugly. Chase gives him a scathing look.

"Your creativity never ceases to amaze me," he says, releasing his grip on Logan's head.

.

"I heard from Zoey last week," says Lola.

"Oh?" says Chase.

And for once, Logan is good and keeps his mouth shut.

.

(It doesn't last.)

.

He starts to look elsewhere.

He and Chase had never been exclusive but they had been safe, a somewhat inevitable outcome of the multiple lectures Chase had received from his mother before going off to PCA and then college. And Logan had been happy enough to comply, albeit with the assistance of some very graphic medical photos and, subsequently, a degree of complacency encouraged by Chase's nimble fingers and that stupid growly thing he does with his voice whenever he gets bossy.

So he blows the dust off of Grindr and picks out an outfit and a bar that seems like the right level of flamboyant for a guy like him, and then for some stupid reason he invites Chase to come with him.

"I think you would have had more luck with your cowboy outfit," says Chase, surveying Logan as he tries to catch the attention of some pretty boy biker. He fails. "You know, the one in your 'Dancing with Logan' DVD?"

Logan glares at him.

"What do you want, an encore?" he snaps.

"Of what, the YMCA?"

"Oh, get fucked."

"That's what you're here for," Chase replies, grinning as he sips his drink. Logan isn't sure if he subconsciously asked Chase to come to make him jealous but he knows that, whatever the case, it sure doesn't seem to be working.

They drink and Chase occasionally chats with the bartender in a way that could be classified as an attempt at flirting, while Logan swipes through Grindr and tries to find someone who doesn't seem like a serial killer.

Eventually, Chase gives him a nudge and tilts his head in one direction. Logan has barely turned his head when he senses someone walk up to him and ask if he can shout the both of them a drink. He's met with the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered man, takes in the tattoo sleeve and full beard, waxed head and friendly face, and promptly says yes. The man introduces himself as Alex and, after pleasantries have been exchanged, Chase announces that he's heading off then holds eye contact with Logan as he slips a condom into his pocket, and says he hopes the two of them have a good night.

Alex is cheerful and makes him laugh before he takes him to bed. His hands are big but gentle and his beard tickles the skin of Logan's stomach and he teaches Logan how to rip the condom Chase gave him open with his teeth.

Logan walks home in the early morning light, cold and satiated.

.

(Four days later he texts Chase and ends up on his knees for him, cheeks hollowed and chin slick with spit, not quite able to remember Alex's name.)

.

Zoey comes to watch Lola in her new play, and Logan does not care.

Because he doesn't care, he tells Chase to ask her out. He knows that boy, and even in the dark of the theatre he can see the lingering, vaguely constipated look Chase reserves only for Zoey, and knows he's already pining for her more than a Christmas tree.

"Go to her, she'll take you back," says Logan, nudging Chase hard enough to make him wince.

"How is that fair on her?" Chase shoots back, which Logan notes is different from him not wanting to.

"Oh good, you're back to your old masochistic self," says Logan, rolling his eyes.

"Rich coming from you," Chase mutters.

.

Zoey starts to talk (mostly to Chase) about moving to LA again, her trips from New York becoming more frequent. It's eerily similar to high school, hearing Lola mock him and Michael's laugh and watching Zoey and Chase keep looking at each other. He's sure that if he went through Chase's phone he'd see a bunch of emojis and flirty text messages, but he also knows that Chase's phone is filled with a bunch of midnight "u up" texts and the subsequent replies where Chase corrected his spelling and grammar as he made his way to Logan's apartment.

He feels like a broken record, telling Chase to ask Zoey out like it's the ninth grade. Only this time Chase doesn't even counter with the excuse of "ruining their friendship" - he just doesn't ask her.

Logan is so sick of it.

He gets Zoey on her own one day, sidling up next to her despite her look of confused distaste.

"Are you going to ask if I want to make out?" she asks, because no one has felt like having that particular discussion with her, least of all Logan.

"You're not my type, Brooks," he says, arguably more truthful than he needs to be. "Look, I'm not here about me. What are you doing with him." He points at Chase, currently trying to help Michael write a text message to the new girl he's seeing, which seems like the embodiment of the phrase 'the blind leading the blind'.

"Being friends," Zoey answers after a pause. "You should try it sometime," and Logan nearly bursts out laughing.

"I'm just saying, maybe you should decide whether you want him or not in oh, I don't know, under three years," Logan says. He's surprised by the flash of hurt across her face, a reminder that it had been Chase that had initiated the break-up.

"I'm not - I didn't," Zoey starts hotly, then frowns and tries again. "I know, I never wanted to do that. He's too nice for that."

Logan rolls his eyes and bites his tongue, wondering if she really knows Chase at all because he's not nice, at least not all the time. He wasn't nice when he made Logan kneel on a wooden floor long enough to cause bruises or when he thrust into Logan's throat until his lungs burned or the first time he made Logan come in his jeans while he was rutting on the floor and tasting leather, and damn it if that isn't what Logan likes about Chase the most.

"You're as hopeless as each other," Logan sighs, getting up to leave. "Good luck."

.

Nothing changes, except perhaps the increased tightness of Chase's jaw and the way his silences stretch out more, how he carries them with him most of the time now. Or something like that. Logan's never been the observant type.

What Logan does know is that Chase might as well take his frustrations out on, well, him. Which is how he finds himself riling Chase up any opportunity he gets, pushing and pushing and going too far until Chase finally responds in brutal, delicious ways. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, he thinks.

.

He wonders, sometimes, if he's just a substitute; if this is just Chase's type: bronze and blonde and less than he deserves. He asks Chase about it once, meant as a joke but said with a sneer because Chase is too tired to fuck him and Logan is too in his own head and turning mean with it.

"Are you calling yourself an honourary blonde due to your IQ?" asks Chase. "Or have you genuinely forgotten what your hair colour is."

"Ha-fucking-ha," says Logan. "You're always going to be chasing her, aren't you? That's all you're ever going to be. Zoey's little lapdog."

Chase arches an eyebrow in his direction.

"Would you still want me, for even a second," he asks, "if you thought you could have me?" Logan closes his mouth, the desire to rile Chase up further utterly extinguished, too terrified to even truly contemplate the answer.

.

(What if he does? What if he does?)

.

It's different this time.

Chase pulls out still panting and Logan's breath shudders. He feels bruised and raw - Chase had been rough, even by his standards, and he thinks if he lies there and concentrates he'll be able to catalogue the sensation of every teeth mark and bruise, everywhere his skin has been left flushed and hot.

Normally this is when he would get up or sink into the bed; some kind of movement to fall back into himself, as if a body of water has stretched over him and he has to break through it. Chase seems to have disappeared, the bed no longer heavy with his weight, but Logan isn't quite ready to come back into the world anyway. So he clings to where his body still stings, chasing the heat that unfurled inside him as he tries to ignore the coolness settling over him, his skin turning clammy.

He hears Chase moving somewhere, too distant from whatever dimension Logan is in to be of any use or care to him, and assumes he's getting dressed to go home. The hand on his knee isn't enough to shock him out of his haze, pushing his legs further apart, but the feel of damp cloth on his skin drags him awake as it sweeps over his stomach, his thighs, his cock.

This is where Logan would - should - shake him off, grab the cloth and do it himself. He's never let Chase do this before, despite all of Chase's fussing because his how to dom your high school roommate for dummies guide has a whole chapter on aftercare or something - Logan has usually just told him to shut up and go to sleep. But he allows it now, only squirming when Chase runs his fingers through Logan's hair and says, almost whispers, "So good for me."

Logan turns his head away, his body shifting under Chase's gaze and touch, Chase pressing harder against his knee to still him.

"Logan, look at me."

He doesn't, and a moment later he feels Chase's hand move to his throat, warm and gentle, his thumb settling at the corner of his jaw, pushing Logan's head to the side to meet Chase's gaze.

"You did good," Chase says, and drops his hand from Logan's neck after he receives a nod in return, Logan missing the feel of it already.

.

(This is your reminder. It doesn't last.

It never could have.)

.

"Dude, what do you want from me?" Chase says in exasperation, deliberately dying in the video game they've been playing. Logan's pretty sure that means he's not getting laid tonight, an increasing occurrence as he's gotten more combative and Chase has gotten more irritated.

"Nothing," Logan replies.

"Great, then stop being such a fucking dick," Chase says.

"You say that like it's new," Logan sneers.

"You're a brat and a jerk," Chase states plainly. "But recently the shit you've been pulling is next level. You're better than that."

Am not, Logan thinks.

"Fine, I'll quit being a bastard when you stop being a coward," he says. Chase just shakes his head.

"Well then," he says, "coward every time."

.

"What's Zoey like in bed?" Logan asks some weeks later, reckless and wanting an excuse to hurt. Chase reacts instantly, hot with fury in a way Logan hasn't seen him since high school, and suddenly Logan feels plastered to the lounge, already in too deep.

"Excuse me?" Chase asks, his voice teetering towards uncontrolled, his body wound tight. On another day, Logan would smirk to see him like this.

"Don't tell me you dated for three years and she never let you hit it?" he says instead, hating the sound of his own voice, the way it rises above the TV. Chase tilts his head, almost curious to see how far he'll push it.

"Maybe," Chase says, a threat.

"Oh?" Logan proceeds, "or maybe it was different. Maybe she was desperate, wanton."

"Big word for you," says Chase, and Logan's own jaw clenches, frustration coiling inside him.

"Were you nice with her, all gentle and loving? Or does she she like it rough," he says, not quite able to stop, an unspoken like me resting on his tongue that he hopes Chase doesn't hear, "did she moan your name, call you daddy, ask you to spank her?"

"Last time I checked she wasn't the one with daddy issues," Chase replies matter-of-factly, "I've never thought of her as an attention whore. Not the way I think of you," he continues, dragging the word whore out with just enough quiet emphasis to make it sting.

Logan feels an electric current jolt through him, trying to laugh it off but scared about what kind of sound will come out if he opens his mouth too much.

"I was just asking," he says after a pause, embarrassed by how petulant and defensive he sounds. He turns away and stares hard at the TV, already seeing Chase soften out of the corner of his eye, his body flooding with regret.

Still, he leaves without a word when it becomes clear Logan isn't going to apologise.

.

He takes it for granted until it's too late, like he always does.

He and Chase don't text for a week, then two, and at night he lies in bed and lets the desire flow through him. He doesn't want to think of Chase as a friend, doesn't want him to be that tangible and real, so he thinks of him as a fuck; thinks of the grip of Chase's fingers in his hair, around his wrists; the feel of Chase's teeth sinking into the skin of his shoulder. He thinks of the way Chase looked after he came, red mouth and flushed chest, and feels very, very sorry for himself.

.

Logan assumes that Chase hasn't told anyone anything because Lola invites him for a group movie night. Either that or the night out will feature some kind of humiliation ritual directed at him, but he's had worse nights with a similar premise. So he goes.

He arrives fashionably late and finds everyone outside the cinema waiting for him, nothing immediately amiss in their facial expressions. Then again, the main thing he notices is that Zoey has her head resting against Chase's shoulder, Chase smiling at her until he notices Logan's presence.

They make their way to the concession stand (under the assumption that Logan's card will be footing the bill, he might add) and Logan is in the process of getting himself a very large, very buttery tub of popcorn when he finds Chase beside him. There's a pause where they don't make eye contact, and then Chase says:

"Look Logan, I'm sor -"

"It's cool, man," he says, and thinks that he should probably apologise too. "I'm happy for you," he says instead, gesturing to where Zoey is talking to Lola.

"I - we're - thanks," Chase says eventually, still looking uncertain.

So Logan claps him on the back in a platonic, I-have-never-had-your-dick-in-my-mouth way and spends the rest of the night watching Chase and Zoey share a tub of popcorn in front of him as he flicks through Grindr, reminding himself that this was the only way this was ever going to end.