All told, the man doesn't look too much worse for wear. A little overgrown perhaps, but otherwise about as well considered as he ever is. His boots, a little more caked in mud than usual sit outside the door and he comes in stripping himself of a shirt he's put a hole in, hauling it over his head before he takes notice of his company.
He looks a Wes a long moment before holding a finger to his lips— the universal sign for silence— before going on to the washroom and closet. Rummaging around until he finds a shirt that might be his. It fits if nothing else.
Go back to sleep, he says straightening himself out as he changes his socks and empties a few things quietly out of his bag.
Wes takes in Logan with all the interest of a forensic scientist, as if the man's every movement through the silent little cabin drips clues about his previous whereabouts and the current state of his emotions. He looks uninjured, save the wear on his clothing, but Wes realizes moments too late that doesn't say very much about what he's been through. For weeks now the only image of Logan he's been able to call to mind -- at least when the man isn't immediately in his field of vision -- is the sight of him lying in the grit and the dark, bleeding from a belly wound of Wrench's own infliction. To see him up and whole is still baffling. It's as though the younger man expects that this healthy, virile image of the man he's hurt so badly so recently is the false one. A projection meant to trap him into a false sense of comfort.
I wasn't sleeping. He gestures to the book he's abandoned on the coffee table as proof. The already well-loved copy of Winesburg, Ohio Kurt inscribed and presented him for Christmas sits propped open halfway through, set aside in a rush at the first threat of potential danger. Now Wes feels foolish and exposed. He hesitates to sit, not wanting to make himself comfortable in a place he'd promised that he'd leave as soon as Logan arrived. But standing makes the man feel foolish, and he squares his shoulders and tries to look sure of himself. Like something worth having.
The smell of recently brewed coffee lingers heavily enough in the air to turn his head towards the pot as Wes points it out, but his instincts wall him up for even the smallest of invitations. It's hard enough to stay away from this place when it's filled with the pull of people he's attached to by those strings. There's no sense in making it any more tempting than it has to be.
I'm not staying, he says before he can even let himself consider otherwise. There's wood on the porch. Buttoning up his new shirt he retrieves a couple of crushed beer cans from his bag, swapping them for full ones from the fridge.
There's something he should probably say. He knows it and Jean-Paul all but demanded it. But for the life of him he can't come to words that either do any justice to his thoughts or offer any distractions to the void that has opened up between them.
There's lumber in the truck, he tries. I'll be back to unload it when everyone's awake.
I can get it, Wes offers without hesitation. The tall man seems eager to do anything in his power to make himself useful. He can't quite tell what Logan makes of the fact that he's still there in the cabin, keeping quiet watch on the sleeping inhabitants and monitoring the comings and goings for any sign of trouble. He had not seemed eager to agree with Wes that the best place for him was somewhere far from their reaches, and yet it's evident that he's regarded as something of a stranger. He thinks that if Logan truly believed there was any reason to think he'd cause immediate harm to Kurt or any of the rest of them, the man wouldn't hesitate to tell him to leave. Perhaps there's some assurance in the simple fact that he's allowed to remain where he stands, at least for now.
But if that all relates to a certain amount of trust not yet lost, it doesn't do as much to comfort Wes as he'd like to believe. Logan looks strong. He's rarely seen the man for more than a few minutes bearing even so much as a solitary scratch, but somehow that makes the picture he holds in his mind's eye all the more brutal. To put it against the living canvas of the man before him is a grim reminder of what Wes is capable of. What he's done to others. Not since Grady's death has he spared so much time thinking about the brutality of the life he's been made to live, and the pain that he might have left in his wake.
The most abhorrent people can still be loved. Any amount of affection Wes has ever felt in his life must be proof of that. And for that reason he knows he's taken the lives of people who were missed and mourned. The idea of someone like him taking Logan, too, is too much to bear, and he feels his throat constricting around the air in his lungs, and his eyes prickling with hot, sharp tears.
You're not just something disposable, you know? That's not how I look at you. I shouldn't have said what I did about thinking you'd heal. It doesn't matter. What I did was sick.
I'm not askin— his hands fall tiredly when he realizes Wes isn't paying that refusal any mind as he puts his book down. Logan sighs. Maybe he's kidding himself to think he didn't mention it like some kind of olive branch anyway. If the younger man is that eager to take it, he doesn't have the heart to withdraw it now. In fact, the eagerness with which that scrap of an opportunity is collected puts what he's been withholding into stark relief.
Fine. Just don't wake anybody up, he reminds. Sleep and comfort being in short supply as they always are. Which is the thought on his mind when he gives in and sloshes some coffee into a tin cup on the counter. Prepared to take it with him. Until Wes' moving hands draw his eyes away from his drink.
His eyes narrow as he translates the words in his head. Not once, but twice. Just to make sure. The back of his neck prickles uncomfortably— the vestigial remains of what evolution had once intended to be hackles. It's a difficult thing to separate that reaction from the words themselves or merely what they imply and in the short span of time he gives himself to respond he operates only on instinct. An instinct that tells him to put himself between anyone and anything that feels like a vulnerability.
You want absolution, talk to Kurt. I don't give a shit what you think you know about me.
I know how to be quiet. The words are formed before Wes remembers to be humble, to admit his shortcomings. His hands settle at his sides and he balls them into loose fists, willing himself to find less protestation in the words that seem to point towards his failings with them all. Logan isn't wrong, of course. It's always easier for the lot of them when he can find something else to distract himself with as the group of them sleep. It's easier to find excuse for that when they're all here. When slipping away means leaving the rest of them to the familiar comfort of one another's security. But with the pieces of their egos flung in so many different directions, it feels unsafe not to keep vigil. Wes wants to hold onto every scant remainder of what made this place one of the only real homes he's ever known.
Wes watches as the admission of his feelings only seems to make Logan more tense. He tries to ignore the sharp prickle at the backs of his eyes, but when he can't help but blink the tears spill over his cheeks. It's humiliating, he thinks. The emotion with no action. Not knowing what might start to heal the gaping chasm he's put there. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyelids and groans in helpless frustration. A second passes and Wes seems to realize the noise he's made. He tenses, and withdraws his hands from his eyes slowly, red-faced and frowning.
It's not what I think I know about you. It's how I feel about you.
It's already taken more to shake the younger man from this conversation than Logan had expected. He adjusted his gait uncomfortable before realizing busying himself with something is a far better way to avoid coming face to face with a conversation about feelings he's probably not equipped to have.
"Sure. Right up until you need a liver, or a lab rat, or some cannon fodder. I know how it is."
What's frustrating of course is not Wes' words. That assurance is exactly the comfort he craves and at once so removed from what he knows by experience. Refused in fact, by the opposing forces in his mind. The one put there by those who sought to make a machine of him. The one that tells him the sum of his infinite parts is the most valuable thing about him.
His backpack provides some minor distraction from what it is he can't decide Wes wants out of him. Forgiveness? Apology? A promise of what? "I know it doesn't matter what happens to me," he mutters, not sure his admission is making good on anything Wes might be looking for, but it's all he can think to say for now. "I just want a say in it."
It matters to me! The force of his insistence trips itself over an uneven breath, and Wes chokes back a sob that hurts his chest. The realization of what he's done only seems to make it worse, as the man battles instinct to find a sense of calm. Or at least if nothing else, the silence that Logan has insisted from him. It matters to me what happens to you. I know I fucked up. I know it! But I've never asked you to be any of those things when I was in my right mind, have I? That's not how I see you. I love you. I need you. You! Not your liver or your blood or your bone. You.
It's too much to give to a man who's called him stranger. Too much to pour out to someone who seems now to have finally looked deep inside Wes and judged him as rotten as he knows he is. There's something unfair about insisting it like Logan should want to care, but the words are gone before he can stop them. Deerington has been more of a life for him than his own ever was. Maybe they'll all lose this eventually, but Wes can't imagine that loss coming so soon. Clenching his fists around the last wisps of something as he watches it slide easily from between his fingers, like a fine mist. He feeds himself the side of his own fist, the fleshy bit at the base of his thumb, choking back his own breath until it stills in his chest and he can be sure of his own silence. It's to much to find himself losing control again, to watch the most of what he needs stripped away from him as if no effort will change the fundamental composition of a man who seems put together wrong.
In the days he's spent trying to put distance between all the thoughts and feelings in his cabin that are inexplicably tied directly to his own head and his own heart he's found that place of calm. That distance from feelings he needs to keep the hurt and fear far enough at bay that they don't turn into frustration. But in the face of Wes' insistent agony that distance dissolves so easily.
With nothing clothing the man enough to offer something to grab hold of Logan heaves the chair between then out of the way and brings his hand down hard around the back of Wes' neck. Dragging him close by the scruff when his resolve over this injury finally breaks. What the hell makes you think that's stopped anybody before? he snarls when his hands speak, as he does his ever best to keep the words from forming on his lips as well.
It was JP who pointed out that despite that hollow feeling of betrayal that red string on his finger never went anywhere. It never disconnected them. And while it stands as a reminder that his feelings for Wes haven't changed perhaps as much as rational thinking should dictate, it also nags him with the thought that he'll always be a man easily bought with the promise of being wanted. What the hell makes you think that's not what hurts the most?
He's used to fending off Logan's familiar band of manhandling. At first out of concern for the man's intentions, and then for the amusement of finding himself grasped even more tightly. Wes has always been reluctant to give in. He demands proof, loathes assumptions, and never wants to take anything at face value. But he caves easily when Logan grabs at him now, bowing his head as if accepting some fate he knows himself deserving of. He doesn't expect the other man to kill him. At best it would only give him a few days' breathing room from the younger man. But it doesn't feel like his style. What those hands might do instead, he almost hopes for. Rattle him around, knock out a few teeth, mash his nose back. Carve out any piece of him that would make it feel like they're approaching something like equal. Of course they never can. There's not enough of him to take so much and leave anything still standing. Wes doesn't have the substance. He isn't made of fine enough stuff.
Wes lets himself be brought forward and pushed back, still willing himself not to breathe. Not to do anything to detract Logan from what he means to let loose, or let anyone else in the cabin hear this moment. The betrayal presses on his chest like a vice, and he imagines what little he knows of the other man from what he's been able to see. The brief glimpses they've shared of each other's lives, only understanding by living inside of it, never willingly allowing themselves to talk about it. What's there to say? How can a person sum up so much, particularly around the fear that it'll only keep happening again and again? That in some ways the things that they do -- or things done to them -- must define everything.
I know, Wes agrees, tears still standing in his eyes like fresh pools. It's not a gift. It's not anything. I don't have anything to give. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?
Despite the man's effort to maintain anger over injury, the lack of answers for either of them makes that kind of energy feel futile. Though the crease in his brow doesn't grow shallow, neither does his sharp blue-eyed gaze look as angry as it does alone and lost. Nothing. he says, dropping his hands from where he holds Wes. There's nothing. You did... whatever you had to do. I'm not waiting to hear you tell me anything .... or see some kinda proof. I forgive you. Is that what you want? What'll make you feel better about it? That I'da let you? If I thought you just... needed something from me. Something like that? Because I would you know? I'd give you whatever part of me you could carve up if it helped you. If it made you happy. I would.
I still would.
When he breaks Wes' gaze his eyes close a long moment and the shake of his head that his thoughts give way too isn't disappointment in Wes. It's drawn on himself. The weight of something self effacing pulling on the line between them.
No. It prickles his heart to see Logan offer himself so willingly, promise any part that Wes could find a way to take. The big man shakes his head, insistence overlapping with the offering. It's not what he wants. It's nothing that he wants. He knows the words that people could fling at him. He's memorized them all by heart. Some he grew up being called and some he's only recited to himself, in his own mind in front of the mirror. There are things he knows are unforgivable. Acts he's committed that he would be right to be condemned for. But selfishness is not something he's ever counted among them, and it twists his gut to think of the way callousness turned so self-serving. He doesn't want that from Logan, but he knows what the man's offer amounts to. What it reflects back.
He's said it himself in other ways. Given it as best as he can, even if it's so much less. Draped his body over Grady's in a hail of gunfire, been first to breach the door, gone with less to let the other have more. It's the kind of thing a person gives when they think it's all they have, when they can't fathom anything else being quite enough. It speaks to what Logan thinks of himself, and what Wes wishes he'd never made the man feel. He shakes his head again, grabbing the other man by fistfuls of his shirt and burying his face into his waiting neck. Wes shudders against him, trying to find stability and to will Logan to believe it's not what he wants the other man to be.
Please don't take him away too. Don't take this from me too. I can't stand it.
The unexpected impact of Wes flung against him, staggers the man a moment. His arms coming up for balance and settling cautiously around Wes instead, a quiet promise of whatever forgiveness Wes needs and whatever acceptance Logan hopes they can find in the unsatisfying resolution of circumstances that bring out the worst in them.
I'm not goin' anywhere. I never do. he replies, forgetting the difference between words expressed and words merely felt by the connection determined to keep the bound together.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He looks a Wes a long moment before holding a finger to his lips— the universal sign for silence— before going on to the washroom and closet. Rummaging around until he finds a shirt that might be his. It fits if nothing else.
Go back to sleep, he says straightening himself out as he changes his socks and empties a few things quietly out of his bag.
no subject
I wasn't sleeping. He gestures to the book he's abandoned on the coffee table as proof. The already well-loved copy of Winesburg, Ohio Kurt inscribed and presented him for Christmas sits propped open halfway through, set aside in a rush at the first threat of potential danger. Now Wes feels foolish and exposed. He hesitates to sit, not wanting to make himself comfortable in a place he'd promised that he'd leave as soon as Logan arrived. But standing makes the man feel foolish, and he squares his shoulders and tries to look sure of himself. Like something worth having.
There's coffee, if you want.
no subject
I'm not staying, he says before he can even let himself consider otherwise. There's wood on the porch. Buttoning up his new shirt he retrieves a couple of crushed beer cans from his bag, swapping them for full ones from the fridge.
There's something he should probably say. He knows it and Jean-Paul all but demanded it. But for the life of him he can't come to words that either do any justice to his thoughts or offer any distractions to the void that has opened up between them.
There's lumber in the truck, he tries. I'll be back to unload it when everyone's awake.
no subject
But if that all relates to a certain amount of trust not yet lost, it doesn't do as much to comfort Wes as he'd like to believe. Logan looks strong. He's rarely seen the man for more than a few minutes bearing even so much as a solitary scratch, but somehow that makes the picture he holds in his mind's eye all the more brutal. To put it against the living canvas of the man before him is a grim reminder of what Wes is capable of. What he's done to others. Not since Grady's death has he spared so much time thinking about the brutality of the life he's been made to live, and the pain that he might have left in his wake.
The most abhorrent people can still be loved. Any amount of affection Wes has ever felt in his life must be proof of that. And for that reason he knows he's taken the lives of people who were missed and mourned. The idea of someone like him taking Logan, too, is too much to bear, and he feels his throat constricting around the air in his lungs, and his eyes prickling with hot, sharp tears.
You're not just something disposable, you know? That's not how I look at you. I shouldn't have said what I did about thinking you'd heal. It doesn't matter. What I did was sick.
no subject
Fine. Just don't wake anybody up, he reminds. Sleep and comfort being in short supply as they always are. Which is the thought on his mind when he gives in and sloshes some coffee into a tin cup on the counter. Prepared to take it with him. Until Wes' moving hands draw his eyes away from his drink.
His eyes narrow as he translates the words in his head. Not once, but twice. Just to make sure. The back of his neck prickles uncomfortably— the vestigial remains of what evolution had once intended to be hackles. It's a difficult thing to separate that reaction from the words themselves or merely what they imply and in the short span of time he gives himself to respond he operates only on instinct. An instinct that tells him to put himself between anyone and anything that feels like a vulnerability.
You want absolution, talk to Kurt. I don't give a shit what you think you know about me.
no subject
Wes watches as the admission of his feelings only seems to make Logan more tense. He tries to ignore the sharp prickle at the backs of his eyes, but when he can't help but blink the tears spill over his cheeks. It's humiliating, he thinks. The emotion with no action. Not knowing what might start to heal the gaping chasm he's put there. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyelids and groans in helpless frustration. A second passes and Wes seems to realize the noise he's made. He tenses, and withdraws his hands from his eyes slowly, red-faced and frowning.
It's not what I think I know about you. It's how I feel about you.
no subject
"Sure. Right up until you need a liver, or a lab rat, or some cannon fodder. I know how it is."
What's frustrating of course is not Wes' words. That assurance is exactly the comfort he craves and at once so removed from what he knows by experience. Refused in fact, by the opposing forces in his mind. The one put there by those who sought to make a machine of him. The one that tells him the sum of his infinite parts is the most valuable thing about him.
His backpack provides some minor distraction from what it is he can't decide Wes wants out of him. Forgiveness? Apology? A promise of what? "I know it doesn't matter what happens to me," he mutters, not sure his admission is making good on anything Wes might be looking for, but it's all he can think to say for now. "I just want a say in it."
no subject
It's too much to give to a man who's called him stranger. Too much to pour out to someone who seems now to have finally looked deep inside Wes and judged him as rotten as he knows he is. There's something unfair about insisting it like Logan should want to care, but the words are gone before he can stop them. Deerington has been more of a life for him than his own ever was. Maybe they'll all lose this eventually, but Wes can't imagine that loss coming so soon. Clenching his fists around the last wisps of something as he watches it slide easily from between his fingers, like a fine mist. He feeds himself the side of his own fist, the fleshy bit at the base of his thumb, choking back his own breath until it stills in his chest and he can be sure of his own silence. It's to much to find himself losing control again, to watch the most of what he needs stripped away from him as if no effort will change the fundamental composition of a man who seems put together wrong.
no subject
With nothing clothing the man enough to offer something to grab hold of Logan heaves the chair between then out of the way and brings his hand down hard around the back of Wes' neck. Dragging him close by the scruff when his resolve over this injury finally breaks. What the hell makes you think that's stopped anybody before? he snarls when his hands speak, as he does his ever best to keep the words from forming on his lips as well.
It was JP who pointed out that despite that hollow feeling of betrayal that red string on his finger never went anywhere. It never disconnected them. And while it stands as a reminder that his feelings for Wes haven't changed perhaps as much as rational thinking should dictate, it also nags him with the thought that he'll always be a man easily bought with the promise of being wanted. What the hell makes you think that's not what hurts the most?
no subject
Wes lets himself be brought forward and pushed back, still willing himself not to breathe. Not to do anything to detract Logan from what he means to let loose, or let anyone else in the cabin hear this moment. The betrayal presses on his chest like a vice, and he imagines what little he knows of the other man from what he's been able to see. The brief glimpses they've shared of each other's lives, only understanding by living inside of it, never willingly allowing themselves to talk about it. What's there to say? How can a person sum up so much, particularly around the fear that it'll only keep happening again and again? That in some ways the things that they do -- or things done to them -- must define everything.
I know, Wes agrees, tears still standing in his eyes like fresh pools. It's not a gift. It's not anything. I don't have anything to give. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?
no subject
I still would.
When he breaks Wes' gaze his eyes close a long moment and the shake of his head that his thoughts give way too isn't disappointment in Wes. It's drawn on himself. The weight of something self effacing pulling on the line between them.
No matter how stupid of me that feels.
no subject
He's said it himself in other ways. Given it as best as he can, even if it's so much less. Draped his body over Grady's in a hail of gunfire, been first to breach the door, gone with less to let the other have more. It's the kind of thing a person gives when they think it's all they have, when they can't fathom anything else being quite enough. It speaks to what Logan thinks of himself, and what Wes wishes he'd never made the man feel. He shakes his head again, grabbing the other man by fistfuls of his shirt and burying his face into his waiting neck. Wes shudders against him, trying to find stability and to will Logan to believe it's not what he wants the other man to be.
He thinks, forgetting the connection.
no subject
I'm not goin' anywhere. I never do. he replies, forgetting the difference between words expressed and words merely felt by the connection determined to keep the bound together.