Please Stop The Music.
pairing: John Logan x readerfem
Summary: She's been in love with her best friend for longer than she'd like to admit. He's been hung up on someone he can't have. One Halloween party later — everything falls apart in the best and worst way possible.
Some lines were never meant to be crossed.
Warnings: Alcohol consumption, mutual pining, angst with no immediate resolution, best friends to lovers, and a staircase scene that will genuinely mess you up.
a/n: Hey guys!! I really hope you enjoy this 🤍 I wrote this originally in Spanish and honestly it just hits different in Spanish, but I hope the English version does it justice anyway.
Also John Logan lives in my head rent free and has for a very long time. He is one of my obsessions and I will be taking request!
"You know I'm such a fool for you..."
( Oh sure, because nothing screams self-respect like still being hung up on someone who looks at you like a mistake he already regrets by morning)
I hated parties.
I always thought of them as dreadful, dark, and horrible… College parties.
Well, actually, the problem wasn’t the party itself. The problem had brown eyes, had a smile —fuck, it made your panties slide off like butter— and was labeled as my best friend, which made him a problem on most days of the year.
John Logan was, with complete objectivity, the worst thing that had happened to me since Janis —my little and beloved 2009 Civic, named that way for the pure chaotic energy of her personality— decided that a pole was her archenemy and crashed into it at twelve kilometers per hour.
It had been an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. I was coming from my shift at my mom’s café with cinnamon flour still on my cheeks and a carton of whole milk in the passenger seat, and suddenly, bam. Janis against the world, the world winning as always.
And then he appeared.
I don’t really know how it happened. I guess he was parked on the same block, or walking by, or emerging dramatically out of nowhere like he usually did. The only thing I remember is that a very tall guy in a hockey team hoodie planted himself in front of Janis, crouched down to inspect the damage, and said, with a voice that sounded like honey spilled over hot asphalt:
“Hey, that’s fixable. Do you know anyone at Mike’s ?” He looked at me quite attentively, his brown eyes scanning me up and down a second longer than necessary. I felt my cheeks burn. I didn’t know if it was Janis that was slightly steaming from the radiator or if it was me who was about to melt right there.
“No,” I murmured.
“I do.” He took out his phone as if he already knew he was going to solve the problem. “What’s the model?”
“What?”
“The car.” —“The car,” he repeated, pointing at Janis with his chin.
I blinked, feeling completely out of place.
“Janis. It’s a 2009 Civic.”
He looked up from the phone he had just taken out and stared at me for a long second, as if he were evaluating whether I was very weird or the kind of weird he found entertaining. Then he let out a soft, genuine laugh, shaking his head.
“Janis,” he repeated, savoring the name. “Well chosen.”
His smile tilted only on one side, but it was enough. A direct hit to my cardiovascular system. Something in that arrogant and amused expression made my stomach do a dangerous flip.
That’s how it all started. That stupid, that insignificant, that definitive.
It had been his idea to dress up as Snoopy and Charlie Brown.
Mine, I mean. My idea. Which, in retrospect, should have given me a clue of how completely gone I was, because who voluntarily suggests spending Halloween stuffed into a black and white dog costume when I could have been, I don’t know, a sexy witch like any mentally stable person?
Me, apparently.
And now I was standing on the threshold of a Halloween party in a Snoopy costume that made me look like a white sausage with ears. Logan had gotten lost in the crowd a while ago; right now he was on the other side of the room. There he was, leaning against the back wall in his yellow zigzag shirt that should have made him look ridiculous but somehow made him look like the most attractive guy in the room.
“Snoopy, what the fuck?” Dean appeared beside me with his typical shit-eating grin, dressed as something that looked like a sexy demon, quite sexy. “Was that your idea or did Logan force you? Because if it was your idea, I need to know how drunk you were when you had it.”
“It was my idea,” I admitted, falling under the Di Laurentis effect.
Dean burst out laughing.
“Poor Logan… having to put up with a best friend with such bad taste in costumes.” He winked at me. “Though the snout looks good on you.”
“Go to hell, Dean.”
“With pleasure, but first I’m going to find someone who wants to sin tonight.” He patted me on the head as if I were a real dog and disappeared into the crowd. Tucker followed behind him, shaking his head.
“Hey, Snoopy.” Tucker leaned against me with a beer in each hand, looking me up and down with a little smirk that meant he was about to say something awful. “Great costume, wrong place.”
“Thanks, Tucker. What would I do without your insightful observation.”
“I’m just saying that if you’re trying to get someone to see you as something more than the best friend, going dressed as a pet might not be the best strategy—”
“Can I?” I interrupted him, taking one of the cold beers from his hand without waiting for an answer.
“That was Logan’s,” Tucker replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” I took a long, deep swig, feeling the icy liquid go down my throat. “Perfect.”
Tucker watched me in silence for a few seconds, with that look of his between worried and resigned that he had been perfecting for months. That look that said “I know you’re about to do something stupid and I don’t know how to stop it.”
It had all started one night of absolute weakness, after seeing Logan flirting with a girl at the café. In a drunken attack of honesty, I confessed to Tucker that I was in love with his best friend. To Tucker. Of all the people in the world, I told one of John’s best friends that I was dying for him. I still regretted it every time I remembered.
The Hannah Wells thing was the reason Logan needed this party.
He never mentioned it to me, of course. Logan didn’t say things like that; he already felt like shit for liking his best friend’s girl. And he carried it all in silence, as if admitting it out loud made it more real. What he said was: “I need to get drunk and forget about everything for a few hours,” which translated from Logan language meant exactly the same.
Hannah Wells.
Garrett’s girlfriend.
She was pretty, smart, and had a quiet sweetness that made Logan look like a lost puppy every time she was around. I couldn’t hate her. Hannah wasn’t to blame for anything. The problem was him, who had fallen in love with the wrong girl without being able to help it, and now he punished himself for feeling something he never planned to act on.
He told me while I was decorating pumpkin cupcakes. His voice came out low, almost defeated.
“She loves Garrett, I’m really very happy for my friend but… I’m still here, feeling like a son of a bitch for not being able to get her out of my head.”
I continued spreading the frosting in perfect circles, swallowing the bitter knot that had formed in my throat. And I thought, with a shame that burned me alive: maybe if I were enough… maybe if he looked at me that way.
God. What a disgusting thought. What a disgusting me.
“Are you okay?” Tucker asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. His voice sounded softer than usual, as if he already knew the answer.
“I’m fantastic,” I answered automatically, with a smile so forced my cheeks hurt.
Tucker looked at me a second longer than necessary and let out a sigh.
“You lie terribly.”
“Tucker.”
“What?”
“Shut up.”
I said it without force, almost in a murmur. I didn’t have the energy to argue. He just shook his head, leaning his shoulder against the wall next to me, watching me as if he feared I was going to break at any moment.
“You don’t have to do this, you know?” he murmured after a while, giving me a comforting pat on the arm before leaving.
The problem with getting drunk at a Halloween party while trying to forget your crush is that it requires an alcohol consumption that no sensible liver would approve. And the additional problem with doing that next to your best friend who is secretly in love with you is that it generates a level of built-up tension that no sensible nervous system would approve either.
We were somewhere in the second hour when the situation got complicated.
Not suddenly. It’s never sudden. It’s gradual, like the temperature of the water when you raise it little by little: you don’t realize you’re boiling until it’s too late to jump.
“Hey,” Logan said, leaning his shoulder against the wall next to me. His glass was almost empty and his cheeks had that typical red. “Are you okay?”
“Perfectly,” I answered, and took a long sip of my drink. It was too sweet, it had too much alcohol… and it was too good.
Logan studied me for a second. His hair was slightly messy, his face sweaty from the heat of the party, and yet —and yet, which was the central problem of my existence— he was still the most ridiculously handsome guy in the room.
It was a cosmic injustice.
“You don’t look perfectly,” he said.
“And you look very interested in my emotional state for someone who’s been avoiding looking toward where Garrett is for two hours.”
Shit. Silence.
Too direct. I knew it the moment I said it, but alcohol has this horrible thing of removing my filter and well, it wasn’t like I was doing great either.
Very bad idea coming. I shouldn’t have come.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
“God…” I murmured, closing my eyes for a second. “That was wrong. I shouldn’t have said it like that. I’m sorry,” I added quickly, feeling the annoyance with myself rising in my chest. “It wasn’t for me to throw it in your face. You told me in confidence and I…”
“No,” he cut me off softly, running a hand over the back of his neck. “You’re right.”
We both stood looking at the same wall in front in an uncomfortable silence. On the other side, two girls dressed as cats were arguing about something the music wouldn’t let us hear. The plastic spiderwebs on the ceiling had started to come loose and hung crooked, just as pathetic as I was in that moment.
“You know what I need?” he said, cutting the tension, and turned with that crooked smile that always disarmed me.
“More alcohol?” I answered, half joking.
“To dance.”
I looked at him, surprised. I had barely opened my mouth to respond when a guy walked past us with a tray full of shots. Logan didn’t think twice: he reached out, grabbed two glasses and handed me one without saying anything.
“Cheers,” he said, and downed it in one gulp.
I hesitated for half a second, but the alcohol had already won the battle. I drank it in one go too. The liquid burned my throat and warmed my chest instantly.
Without waiting for a response, Logan closed his fingers firmly around mine. His hand was warm, a little rough, and that simple contact accelerated my pulse more than the shot I had just taken.
“Come on, we’re the most ridiculous duo at this party.” He extended his hand. “Perfectly matched.” he murmured, and pulled me toward the center of the room without giving me a chance to protest.
It was a mistake.
Let me say it clearly: it was a big mistake, and I should have seen it coming from the first note of the song. Because the universe, that son of a bitch, has an absolutely incredible sense of humor and decided to play Don’t Stop the Music right at that moment.
We were already quite drunk. The shot we had taken in one gulp had hit us fast, and the heat of the party made everything feel more intense, closer, more dangerous.
Logan pulled me to the center of the makeshift dance floor and started moving with me. At first it was something clumsy and fun, laughing at how badly we danced. But when the chorus came and Rihanna sang that part…
Your hands around my waist…
oh shiiiiit.
He didn’t think about it. Or maybe he did. His hands slid down naturally and closed around my fluffy waist, pulling me toward him until our bodies were pressed together. The contact was electric. His fingers pressed gently against the fabric of my costume, firm, hot.
I looked up and found him staring at me. There was no laughter in his eyes anymore. Just that drunk intensity that makes everything blurry and too sharp at the same time.
Without realizing it, my hands went up to his chest, feeling how it moved under the shirt. We swayed together, slow and sensual, as if the music were giving us permission to cross a line we had never crossed. His breath brushed my temple. My hips responded against his almost by instinct, following the rhythm and the heat growing between us.
This is wrong, I thought, even though my body said the complete opposite.
It’s Logan.
But in that moment, with his hands around my waist and his body pressed against mine, none of those reasons seemed to matter.
“Hey,” Logan murmured, his voice hoarse and low, almost lost in the music.
“Hi,” I replied.
Completely useless as a response.
Perfectly honest as a response.
And then he kissed me.
It wasn’t a soft or sweet kiss. It was hot, desperate, as if he had been holding it in for years and the alcohol had broken all the barriers. His hands moved from my waist to my back, pulling me hard against his body while his mouth claimed mine. He tasted like alcohol and something sweeter, more dangerous. His lips were demanding, almost aggressive, and I responded with the same intensity, tangling my fingers in his messy hair.
The world disappeared. There was only the heat of his mouth, the way his tongue brushed mine, the low moan that escaped his throat and vibrated against my lips. We kissed as if we were drowning and the other was the air. His hands moved a little lower, pressing me against him, and I melted into that kiss, completely forgetting that this was a line we shouldn’t cross.
He pulled away for barely a second, just the time for a ragged breath. His forehead stayed pressed against mine, eyes closed, and he murmured something that sounded like my name halfway, like a question he didn’t dare finish.
I responded by standing on my tiptoes and kissing him again, harder.
Logan let out a low sound, almost a growl, and pulled me against his body with more force. His lips became slower, more deliberate, as if now he wanted to learn every detail of my mouth. As if he had all the time in the world to do it.
I don’t even know how we got to his room.
I remember laughter in the hallway, his clumsy hands searching for the keys while I laughed against his neck, and then the door slamming shut behind us. The world was still spinning a bit, but it didn’t matter anymore. Only we mattered.
Logan gently pushed me against the door as soon as we entered, kissing me again with that drunk desperation that had consumed us on the dance floor. Our mouths crashed between laughter and ragged breaths. We kissed badly, with teeth, with tongue, with desire. Every time one laughed, the other silenced them with a deeper kiss.
“Turn around,” he murmured against my lips, his voice hoarse and amused.
I obeyed between laughs, still with the Snoopy ears crooked on my head. I turned, placing my hands against the door. I felt his clumsy fingers struggling with the zipper and buttons of my costume. He was too drunk. We both were.
“Shit… how the fuck does this open?” he growled, frustrated, while pulling without success.
I laughed, resting my forehead against the cold wood.
“Logan, you’re a mess…”
“Shut up,” he said, laughing too, and gave another harder tug.
A clear and satisfying riiiiiip was heard. The costume tore down the back from the shoulder almost to the waist. The cold air hit my exposed skin and I let out a surprised laugh.
“Logan!”
“Oops,” he murmured, not sounding sorry at all.
Instead of apologizing, he leaned in and started kissing my bare back, moving down my spine with hot, wet kisses. His big hands slipped through the opening he had just created, circling my waist and moving up my ribs. His mouth returned to my neck, biting gently while I sighed and arched against him.
“I’ll buy you another one,” he whispered against my skin, his voice thick. “Tomorrow… or next week… I don’t know.”
I turned in his arms, still laughing, and kissed him with the same urgency. My hands pulled at his shirt while he kept touching me as if he couldn’t believe this was happening. The torn costume hung ridiculously from my body, but neither of us had the coordination or desire to take it off properly.
Logan pulled away just enough to look at me. His eyes were dark, glassy from alcohol and desire. Without saying anything else, he slowly knelt in front of me, his hands sliding down my hips, dragging what was left of the costume to the floor.
He looked at me from below for a second, with that expression of pure desperation, as if he had been waiting for this all night… or all his life. His hands trembled slightly when he opened my legs.
“John…” I whispered, not knowing if it was a warning or a plea.
He didn’t respond with words. He just let out a low moan and buried his face between my thighs, kissing me with the same desperate urgency he had had in my mouth seconds before.
The next morning, the sun was a crime against humanity.
I woke up with my eyes still closed, on that threshold of consciousness where you know exactly where you are but still have the fraction of a second to pretend you don’t. The sheets were thick cotton. The smell was different: wood, something that was only from this room, him.
I reached out my hand. Cold.
The side of the bed where he should have been was cold.
I opened my eyes.
Logan’s room, which I knew from being here at his desk helping him review papers, from being here on his floor watching hockey games, felt completely different with the morning light coming through the blinds. The Snoopy costume was on the floor, perfectly ironic in its abandonment. My shoes by the door, very neat for the result of something so messy.
I sat up slowly.
There were no immediate noises. Just the party that still echoed downstairs, muted, the sound of people who hadn’t left yet or had decided to sleep where they fell.
I dressed in one of his hoodies. I tied up my hair as best I could. I grabbed my shoes, the Snoopy costume folded under my arm because it was the only thing I had to carry, and opened the door.
I told myself: go out, go down the stairs, open the front door, leave.
Simple. Executable. One foot after the other.
I reached the landing of the stairs.
And then I heard Logan’s voice.
It came from the kitchen. Clear under the muted murmur of the party, with that tone of someone speaking in a low voice but too agitated to control it completely.
I should have kept going down.
I know.
I knew it then too, on the landing, with my hand on the railing and my feet on the first step. I should have gone down the sixteen steps that separated Logan’s bedroom from the ground floor, crossed without looking and gone out into the November morning without hearing anything else.
But I heard my name.
And I froze.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened, Tucker.” Logan’s voice, tense, low. “I woke up and… God. I fucked up. I fucked everything up.”
A pause. Tucker responding something I couldn’t hear.
“Yes. I know I was drunk, but that doesn’t…” A dull sound, as if he had leaned something against the counter. “If she comes down, tell her I went for a run or something. That I won’t be here. I need her to… I need her to leave before I have to—”
I didn’t hear the rest.
Not because it stopped. But because something in my chest made a noise that wasn’t literally audible but should have been. Like something giving way in an orderly manner: one line first, then another, then another, like the structure of something that had been held up for too long with too little.
I need her to leave.
I fucked everything up.
Sixteen steps. I counted them one by one because it was the only thing I could make my brain focus on without slipping toward the rest. Tucker was with his back to me when I reached the kitchen, and he turned when he heard me. His face said an entire paragraph: the beginning of an apology, something he wanted to tell me and didn’t know how to start.
I didn’t let him.
I went down the last steps, crossed the house without looking at Tucker and walked out the front door.
“Hey,” Logan called behind me.
I stopped.
“Wait,” he said, approaching. “Please.”
I turned around.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “We were drunk, I was drunk, something happened that neither of us planned and we both know it.”
Logan stayed silent. And that silence hurt me more than any words.
“I’m in love with you,” I blurted out suddenly. The words came out without permission, but I couldn’t stop them anymore. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time. And I know this is the worst possible moment to tell you, I’m really sorry if it sounds weird to you,” I kept my voice steady out of pure stubbornness. “But I needed you to know.”
I saw how his eyes widened, confused, almost scared. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “What? Well, I… I… I can’t.”
I felt my face burning, but I continued:
“I’m not asking you to feel the same. I just… needed you to know. Because after last night I can’t go back and you have no idea,” I started.
“Don’t do that.”
“…of what your friendship means to me,” I said anyway. “I’m sorry for misinterpreting things. I’m very grateful to have met you. But I can’t do this.”
The November cold got into my bones. I felt everything we had built falling apart in front of me and I had just accelerated it.
Logan ran a hand through his hair, visibly lost.
“I… I can’t,” he murmured. “I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t give you what you want.”
You can’t. Of course you can’t.
I nodded, swallowing the knot in my throat.
“I understand,” I said quietly. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to force you into anything. It’s just… I can’t lose you, Logan. But I also can’t keep destroying myself pretending I’m fine.”
I turned around and started walking.
“Wait,” he called, following me. “Please, just a second.”
“No,” I answered without stopping. “Don’t ask me to stay so you can give me explanations you don’t feel. I don’t need your pity.”
I left him there, in the middle of the sidewalk, with my heart in pieces and the feeling that I had just lost my best friend and the boy I loved in a single morning.
.
.
.
The Cranberries · Stars: The Best Of The Cranberries 1992-2002 · Song · 2002
