“kiss me and i’ll forgive you” for— you know it— loceit, please?
I don’t even know why I bothered asking for ships haha I knew full well what was gonna happen. I think this has now become a Loceit blog and I’m not mad about it! This one got a little angstier than anticipated, but it’s got a happy ending; I promise!
Janus was going to leave him.
It didn’t feel like a fear. It felt like a fact, like a foregone conclusion, proverbial writing on the wall, inescapable and horrifically unavoidable. A certainty. Janus was going to leave him. And Logan didn’t know how on earth he was supposed to survive that.
He had done it to himself-- he knew that. He had sealed his own fate, and now here he was, locked in his room avoiding it like a coward. He paced like a mad man up and down the length of the carpet, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair in frustration. He had no one to blame but himself. He had been so careful to avoid this up until now. But one moment-- one tumble backward into old, harmful habits, and he had done the very worst thing he could possibly do. He had hurt Janus. And he hadn’t even realized what he was doing until it was far too late.
The group had been reasoning out some insignificant issue of Thomas’s-- so unremarkable that Logan couldn’t be bothered now to recall what the issue even was. But at the time, Logan had been invested. As he was wont to do, he had launched into a lengthy logical explanation of what he confidently believed to be the best course of action. He vaguely registered that Janus was trying to say something, but Logan was only halfway through his soliloquy, and he held up his hand to indicate that the other should wait until he had finished. That, perhaps, he could have come back from. But when Janus tried to speak again, Logan had gotten frustrated.
“Janus, please, I really don’t think deceit is a productive way forward here.”
Logan then immediately returned to whatever it was he’d been saying. He hadn’t even realized until he saw the awkward glances exchanged between the others that Janus had left the conversation altogether.
And now here Logan was, terrified of reaping what he’d sown. Janus was going to end what had barely begun between them, and Logan didn’t blame him. Logan had promised him he would do his best to avoid getting so wrapped up in his own train of thought that he became dismissive of others- of Janus in particular. It was hypocritical of him to do so regardless-- there was little that caused more pain to Logan than to be dismissed himself.
Except for this. This was infinitely more painful, knowing that he had destroyed the one thing about his life that ever made him happy anymore. Logan took a deep breath and decided it was high time to get this over with. At the very least, he owed Janus an apology before the axe fell.
He made his way down the hall and knocked tentatively on Janus’s door.
“Ah, so you’ve deigned to give me the time of day after all, have you?” Janus said when he’d opened the door.
Logan winced at the words. Knowing that he deserved them, and everything that would follow them, did not lessen their sting.
“Janus, I’m sorry,” he said with tears welling up in his eyes as he spoke, powerless to stop them in the face of the final blow that was sure to follow the insufficient apology. “I never meant to hurt you, but I know that I did. I had not realized what it was that I was doing until it was already done. I ignored you, discounted and devalued your input, and that is inexcusable. I accept that you do not want to continue our romantic involvement any longer, as I have forfeited any feelings you may have had for me. I only hope that one day I may be able to earn your forgiveness for my transgression.”
Janus’s guarded expression was gone in an instant, morphing into something confused and...concerned? That didn’t make sense.
“Who said that I don’t want to continue our relationship?” Janus asked softly. “Because it certainly wasn’t me, sweetheart.”
“Logan, did you come here thinking I was going to break up with you?”
Janus’s eyes were heartbreakingly sad as he spoke, and Logan had to physically cover his mouth to bite back a sob. Had he somehow managed to hurt Janus even further? He didn’t know what to do, how to go about repairing the damage he had done-- was still doing.
“Aren’t you?” was all his frantic mind could come up with.
Janus took a step closer and gently took Logan by the shoulders, forcing Logan to raise his eyes from the floor to meet Janus’s.
“No,” Janus answered simply but firmly, no trace of falsehood or hesitation in his voice.
“No?” Logan asked incredulously, tears still running down his face. “But I...I hurt you...”
“You made a mistake, love. That doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you. I love you, Logan. That counts for a lot more than one careless error.”
“But I promised you that I wouldn’t-”
“You promised me that you would try. And you’ve done a wonderful job at that, Logan, you really have. I cannot expect you to be perfect. I cannot expect old habits to die so soon. We both have our shortcomings, dearheart. I’ll never love you any less for yours.”
To say that Logan was shocked would have been a vast understatement. He felt as if he’d had the wind completely knocked out of him, and he struggled even to comprehend what Janus was saying-- that he was not about to be left-- much less formulate a coherent response. When he finally spoke, it was with a shaking voice and pleading eyes.
“So you...you forgive me?”
Janus smiled softly and brushed a stray hair from Logan’s forehead.
“Kiss me,” Janus said, his soft smile transforming into his familiar, playful smirk.
Janus shrugged his shoulders and chuckled a bit under his breath.
“You heard me. Kiss me, and I’ll forgive you.”
And Logan did. He grabbed Janus’s face with both hands and kissed him as if his life depended on it, relief and gratitude and love flooding through every single one of his veins. Janus wasn’t leaving. Logan could falter and fail, and Janus wasn’t going to walk away. As Logan kissed Janus within an inch of his life, there was another certainty that rang far truer than the fearful one he’d had only moments ago. This one told him that he would go on kissing Janus, holding him, loving him, for the rest of his life.
And unlike the fear, this certainty-- much like Janus himself-- would never leave him.