comfort (part i) | john logan
john logan x f!reader
premise: you're in a "casual" relationship with logan, but you continuously refuse to spend the night at his place. in fact, you force yourself to never fall asleep in his bed. falling asleep next to him risks exposing him to your demons. and the last thing you want to do is place a burden on the man you're deeply in love with.
category: super super super light smut (minors dni), mostly fluff and yearning (incoming hurt/comfort in part ii)
word count: around 3.5k
content/trigger warnings: the lightest smut ever at the beginning (again, minors dni), vivid description of a night terror (brief mentions of blood, gunshots, screaming, suffocation in the night terror, but no other mention outside of it).
context notes: reader works at Briar's tutoring center. i originally was only going to make her a Psych major, but i added Bio because i wanted her majors to reflect her interest in figuring out how night terrors work (i never explored this angle in part i, but i will in part ii)
author notes: i've been in a creative writing rut for two years and off campus has pulled me out of it. sooo there's definitely room for improvement, please bear with me :) i'm also super inexperienced in writing smut, which is why you can barely consider the smut scene "smut" in the first place lmao. i originally wanted to write this fic all in one go, but i'm having some writer's block with the latter half, which is why i'm publishing it in two parts. feedback is much appreciated! (also very lightly proofread as of 06/02/26)
The afternoon sun slowly filters into his bedroom, basking your bodies in a soft, gentle glow. Though the entirety of Briar’s student body is still recovering from the brutal winter storm, you found shelter in his arms, feeling nothing but warmth while pinned beneath his body. As the end of February approaches, the promise of Spring weather reinvigorates Briar students as they deal with the exhaustion brought on by their grueling midterms. After all, the new season brought blooming flowers, brilliantly sunny days, and new beginnings.
Perhaps, the onset of Spring could mark a new beginning for you as well. Maybe you could experience a fresh start in your life by ending this bizarre arrangement that you have with this dazzling hockey player. Ending this “casual” relationship would be good for the both of you.
But ever since you stumbled into his bed on one October night during some Halloweekend festivities, Logan quickly became your comfort zone. And right now, as you restlessly writhe between his sheets, you have absolutely zero desire to leave this comfort.
“Fuck,” the man of the hour rasped and grunted, his head dropping unceremoniously onto the crook of your neck. He breathes frenzied exhales into your shoulder, hot air drifting towards the bottom of your ears. His body weight practically crushes you, leaving you with just the tiniest slot of air to supply your lungs. But you’re not complaining. You’re exactly where you want to be.
You gasp into his brown curls as his thrusts quicken, your hands desperately fisting and grabbing onto the fitted sheet as some sort of pathetic attempt to anchor yourself. Watching you twist underneath him with heavy-lidden eyes, Logan grasps your hands, carefully interlocking your fingers with his, your palms firmly sealing against each other. Like the satisfying connection of the final pieces of a puzzle.
The loving gesture tugs at your heart. This “casual” intimacy is too much to bear, but you can’t bring yourself to let go.
“Y/N,” He rasps into your skin, his frantic breaths imprinting themselves like love bites onto your neck. You know that he’s close, and judging by the tension breeding underneath your belly that’s threatening to release itself, you know that you’re not that far off either. With your elbows digging into his mattress, you arch your back, slightly lift your hips just a tad higher, and the sound that emerges from your throat reverberates off the walls of his bedroom. Logan immediately finds his own release as he moans your name into your neck, his stubble etching a mark onto your skin, and his own body shaking from head to toe.
After he takes off the condom, Logan’s chest makes its way on top of yours as you sink into his bed, trying to catch your breath as he lazily draws circles on your thigh. Though your mind flinches at the “casual” nature of your relationship with Logan, your heart eventually learns to return to slow resting state while around him. He’s a steady presence, and his company is much needed as you try to navigate around the various stressors in your life.
Already, your tortuous coursework and demanding work-study stint are clearly draining you. Hannah frequently points out the dark bags under your eyes and the sluggish, lethargic nature of your gait as you force yourself to attend class.
But you had another stressor that completely robbed the last morsels of life clinging on to your body. A hidden, yet dangerous stressor that you kept snapped shut in the corners of your mind, only giving the key to your therapist for her to unlock.
The reason why you always refused to sleep at Logan’s place.
“So beautiful,” Logan’s voice pulls you from your reverie, his hoarse whisper tickling your collarbone. He kisses over the hickeys he proudly implanted near your breast, admiring his view. “All for me.”
You bite your bottom lip at his comment, pressing down so hard that you’re sure blood will ooze out any minute now. You’re technically not “all for him.” Even though he skips hockey practice to help jumpstart your car on the side of the road. Even though he now uses a fragrance-free laundry detergent because his sheets would irritate your sensitive skin. Even though he looks at you with those eyes that compel you to answer his text every single time. Even though his bed feels so comfortable right now.
Control yourself.
“Back at ya,” You awkwardly laugh, delivering a very nervous and spur-of-the-moment reply. So smooth, Y/N. Did you flirt this badly when he tore your Tinkerbell costume off?
Chuckles rumble from his chest, pressing down onto your heart. You could play his laugh on repeat. Hell, even set it as your ringtone. “Still not used to receiving compliments, I see.”
You don’t offer a response. Suddenly, the bed feels way too warm and way too inviting. As his pillow swallows your head, your eyes start to close.
But you quickly force yourself to wake up, remembering that you do not, in any circumstance, want to fall asleep in his bed. You will not make that mistake.
Instead, you lean over to check the time on your phone. 4:09 PM.
“I need to get going to my shift,” You slide out from underneath him, removing yourself from his grap. The sudden loss of warmth feels like whiplash.
His dark eyebrows furrow as you grab the haphazardly laid clothes on the wooden floor. “Doesn’t it start at 5:00? You still have some time,” He pats your unofficial side of his bed, watching you shimmy yourself into your jeans. “Come ‘ere. Stay a ‘lil longer.”
You bite your lip even harder, using it like a stress ball, and you try to forget that your situationship remembers that tiny detail of your work schedule. Of course he does.
“I like getting there early, though. It’s much better than arriving five minutes before a session starts,” You zip up your jeans, chuckling softly when he flashes his signature sad puppy eyes at you. “I like to quickly refresh myself on the content beforehand.”
“As if you would need any refreshing, Mrs. Bio and Psych Double-Major,” He teases, and yep, you’re pretty sure that’s blood you’re tasting right now.
“Trust me, I don’t always remember the ins and outs of signal transduction.”
Logan tilts his head to the side, staring at you with those confused eyes that you find so absolutely endearing. “And what the hell is ‘signal transduction?’”
You sigh, kneeling onto the floor and tying your shoes. “That’s a story for another time. I better get going.”
“Wait, I’ll walk you down,” He says as he jumps out of the bed, rapidly putting on his sweatpants and grabbing a random flannel from his desk chair.
You roll your eyes as you open his bedroom door, hearing the noises of his roommates from downstairs. “I’ve been here plenty of times, Logan. I know my way around the house.”
He shrugs, buttoning up his flannel. “So? God forbid a guy wants to be a gentleman.”
“A gentleman?” You stifle a laugh, and he has the gall to put on a mildly offended face.
“Of course, my lady. I’m always on my best behavior for you.”
More blood seeps from your lip. You give him a playful shove on his shoulder, but he brandishes that signature crooked "John Logan smile" at you, and fuck, you’re in deep.
As the both of you walk downstairs, your peer at the living room and say a goodbye to the rest of the boys. Tucker and Dean were sitting on the couch, pouring over a textbook that you knew all too well. By the looks of it, Garrett wasn’t home. He was probably hanging out at Hannah’s dorm, per usual.
“Good seeing ya, Y/N,” Tucker smiles at you, lifting his head from the textbook.
“Yes, very good seeing ya,” Dean drawls, suddenly jumping up from his spot on the couch and making his way over to you. “And we are in desperate need of your guidance. This bio class is killing us.”
All of the boys knew you already. Though you and Logan weren’t “serious” by any means, neither of you kept your situationship a secret from others. At least Logan spared you the hurt and discomfort that comes from sneaking around.
Then again, all of his charming, boyfriend-coded compliments haven’t made the situation any better either.
You shake your head jokingly at Dean. “You guys have Professor Ragner, right? He’s chill. You’ll be fine.”
Dean gasps in fake shock, puting a hand to his heart as if he were in a melodramatic soap opera. “Wow, so you’re just leaving us to drown with no support? I see how it is, Y/N.”
You scoff. “No offense to y’all, but I don’t have time for free tutoring. I’m getting paid minimum wage, which is practically nothing to begin with, to tutor jocks like y’all in the first place. I’m sure as hell not doing any unpaid labor.”
“I can pay you in a different way,” Dean unabashedly flirts, blond waves falling over his eyes, voice dropping to a lower tenor. You raise an eyebrow in amusement, knowing that he’s joking.
Then someone behind you loudly clears their throat. You turn around to Logan, who is adorning an expression that you can’t quite decipher.
“Jesus, relax, Johnny,” Dean comes around and pats him on the back, which Logan rejects in fake disgust, pretending to flinch. “I was just suggesting an alternative method of payment.”
“Uh-huh, sure you were," Logan replies with a chuckle, though his smile doesn’t reach all the way to his eyes.
Tucker rejoins the conversation. “I don’t know about cash, but I’ll pay you back with free meals. I make a mean pasta carbonara.”
“Now that, I can get behind,” You point finger guns towards Tucker. “Well boys, I’m off to work. I’ll see y’all later.”
Tucker and Dean say their goodbyes. With a light touch of his hand on the small of your back, Logan leads you to the porch. He opens the door, and as you step outside, he wraps a hand around your wrist, wanting to say one last thing before you leave.
“Have a good shift,” He presses a kiss to your forehead. You force yourself to not bite your lip for the hundredth time. Control. “I’ll see you on Friday, yeah?”
You don’t know what to say. You knew that the team was throwing a party before their game on Saturday. A sharp inhale exits your nose.
“Yeah, sure,” You smile at him, starting to walk to your car. “See you, Logan.”
As you drive to the tutoring center, you chastised yourself for how close you were to falling asleep in his bed. This pathetic attempt at a situationship was going to tear you apart. And if you need to distance yourself from those warm eyes and beaming smile, then so be it.
Friday was two days away. You decided to not come over to the hockey players’ house for their party before playing Eastwood. Not only did you want some space between you and Logan, but you also had an upcoming midterm that made up a good chunk of your grade for your Psych class. You thus planned on devoting your entire weekend to studying for it.
So when Friday night came along, giving excuses to Logan felt easy. Somewhat easy.
(9:21 PM) Logan: Hey, I haven’t seen you yet. Are you on the way?
(9:46 PM) Y/N: I have a huge midterm on Monday. I need to study. Sorry, I forgot to tell you :/
(9:48 PM) Logan: Ahh I see, no worries.
(9:51 PM) Logan: I looked forward to seeing you.
(9:52 PM) Logan: I’ll see you after the midterm? Good luck, you got this.
(10:23 PM) Y/N: Thanks, good luck with the game.
A twinge of guilt spread through your chest and hammered at your heart when you didn’t confirm the rendezvous. You always came to the boys’ parties before their games, even though you continuously stuck by your rule of never sleeping over, which definitely took Logan a little bit of time to get used to. During Halloweekend, you surprised him when you slipped out of his bed at 3:00 AM, grabbing your car keys and opening his bedroom door.
“You don’t want to stay the night?” You recall his gravelly voice, utterly rattled with sleep, as he watched you put on your shoes. “It’s kinda late.”
“I have an early morning. And I didn’t drink at all, so…” You explained, giving him a tight smile before closing the door so that you didn’t have to stare any longer at his bare, toned chest. “See ya.”
Starting with a clean slate was necessary. After all, you needed to keep your commitment to both your grades and your job. Logan would only serve as a distraction.
That’s what you kept repeating to yourself as you went to bed later that night, putting your phone on the other side of your room in order to stop checking it.
The first thing that you notice is that you can’t speak.
You bring a palm up to your mouth, but your face feels completely numb. Anything you say just comes out extremely muffled, as if you never had a mouth in the first place. You gaze around your environment with blurry eyes, looking at the four corners of the dingy room. You try to touch one of the walls, but as soon as your hand comes into contact, the wall becomes translucent, your hand just floating around in open space. But as you pull your hand back, the wall comes up again, inching closer and closer to your face.
Your breath hitches as you try to find an escape—a trapdoor, a window, just anything will do. But the room starts to resemble a box the more you look at it, as if you were an inanimate object shoved inside a carton to never be seen again. The lump in your throat grows as your vision subsides with each passing second, complete murk and darkness clouding up your eyes.
You try to bang on the walls, but your balled up fists just fall into air. You try to scream for help, but you feel chains wrapped around your mouth, silencing your cries and greedily swallowing up any remaining shred of air needed for your survival.
The sound of falling objects tears your gaze away from the walls. You eyes widen as you watch clumps of your hair disintegrating into the floor and massive droplets of blood emanating from your fingertips. You frantically search your whole body for any sign of a cut, a wound, an injury, but your hunt is fruitless.
And that’s when the walls start closing in, devouring every inch of space that’s not covered by your trembling body.
You sink to the floor as your knees helplessly buckle, crawling up into a ball as a fresh flow of tears sprint down your cheeks. Soon those tears also turn to blood, drowning your limbs in a sea of red. And the ceiling feels so fucking close to you, you’re certain that it’s going to collapse.
Sounds of whining sirens and howling wind and quick gunshots and terrified screaming all fuse and merge tightly together in perfect storm, a cacophony where you can hear each individual occurrence happening at once. The walls are up to your nose, and you try so hard to scream. To cry for help.
The sound of a door slamming shut finally wakes you up.
You’re heaving as you sit up in your bed, your fists rapidly unclenching to rest your palms on your chest. Your body feels so unbearably hot, outlines of your sweat etching themselves onto your sheets. A fearful whimper tears out of you, and you wrap your hands around your curled-up body as you begin to frantically rock yourself back and forth on your bed. The sobs pour out of you in an instant, breaths clawing themselves up your throat in such a sharp, stiniging manner that you’re sure there’s clawmarks scarred across your trachea. You’ve had night terrors ever since elementary school, but you’ve never really adjusted them.
The tears completely wreck you. You move your hands from your body to the sheets, fists digging into the fabric, helplessly searching for security. What a stark contrast to your time with Logan, where you desperately fisted at his sheets while waves of pleasure cascaded through your body.
Both times, however, you were looking for control.
Nevertheless, as your sobs gradually begin to subside, you inhale shaky breaths to center yourself back to reality. When your vision starts to clear up, you go back to the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique that your therapist suggested to ground yourself.
Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste.
As you slowly list through the four things you can touch, your mind goes back to the hockey player you’re trying so desperately not to think about. But all you desire is to feel his callused palm on your cheek, his long arm around your waist, and his mouth trailing kisses on your neck.
And you hate how much you yearn to be in Logan’s arms right now. You ache for his comforting presence, but you know you can’t place this trouble on him, this overwhelming burden to bring you back to Earth after a night terror. He already has enough on his plate.
Sighing, you make your way to the bathroom to splash some water on your face. On your way there, you grab your phone, looking at the date and time. 2:38 AM, Monday, February 23rd.
So you had a night terror the morning of your big exam. Great.
At least you can thank your neighbors’ rowdiness for pulling you out of your dream. They loved to slam the door after a night out, and unfortunately for you, they seemed to go out every fucking night. You kindly asked them to close their door more gently, but clearly, your words had zero effect.
After wiping your face and staring too long at your bloodshot eyes in the bathroom mirror, you walk to your desk, deciding to fit in a last-minute study session now that you’re awake. You definitely don’t want to go back to sleep now.
After five minutes of flipping through some flashcards, you make the mistake of scrolling through the notifications on your phone. Your eyes immediately lock on to some notifications from Instagram. Specifically, some DMs from Logan.
When your trembling fingers open your message thread with him, the slight shaking in your body stops when you browse through his messages. All of them were either the silliest of reels or the stupidest of memes. And under each and every one of them, he wrote a message: This made me think of you; or you definitely need to watch this; or even this is so stupid, but it made me laugh so hard that I had to send it you.
As you laugh while watching cat videos and overplayed vines, the desire for Logan seeps through your veins. He has no idea of the effect you have on him.
But you’re still going to keep your distance. You have to, even when you watch all of the reels he sends you, despite telling yourself that you need to go back to studying any minute now.
