Chapter Text
The Blue Moon Saloon was the kind of place that held its regulars the way old wood held warmth: slow and enveloping, the type that held for a long time even after the fire was gone. Weekday evenings had their own quality unlike the rambunctious Fridays where tourists, dwindling as they were, arrived for the weekend. Weekday evenings held crowds thinner, the noise softer, and the people who were left behind long past dinner time were the ones who savored a conversation with friends and neighbors after a long day of work.
Logan and Justice had settled in the seats by the bar counter while Owen stayed behind it. And at this hour, the Yakmel Milk had been stowed, and some of the more spirited kinds of drinks were offered.
A year back in town had softened some of Logan’s edges. No longer having to be wary of being caught nor carry the weight of the hefty goals he once pursued, reintegrating back into town and being accepted so easily after all the events felt steady – grounding in ways he didn’t know he missed. He had grown up in Sandrock, and everything was still both familiar and different. The smell of the saloon was still the same, after all these years. Logan embraced that feeling.
The conversations had started the way reminiscing mostly did. Someone had thrown out a remember when and then an hour disappeared.
"—the sandstorm," Justice was saying, leaning back on the seat. "Half the town's hunkered down, and she was out there. I mean, in it. ‘Cause someone's delivery hadn't come in and she had promised it done."
Justice, the Sheriff of Sandrock’s Civil Corps division, who he grew up with, and after becoming a bandit had pursued him in the name of, well, justice. There was no bad blood between them – just the work and the outlaw.
"I think I remember that,” Owen said, taking a bite of a meal he had been nibbling on for the past hour. "For some repairs asked by City Hall."
And there was Owen, another piece of his childhood. He had taken over the Blue Moon after his folks moved out, running the place with the same steady hands he had always used to look out for Logan. The man who had done nothing but right by him, his whole damn life.
"You know, I watched her walk back in after," Justice leaned on the bar counter with an elbow placed on top of it. The imagery of whatever he had in mind seemed to come out to him as fond and incredulous in equal measure. "Hair full of sand, yeah? Dang eyes still sharp as anything. Goes straight to her workshop and starts cutting measurements, or at least that’s what I think she did."
"We may never understand the miracles she spins in that workshop of hers,” Owen said, nodding in agreement. “But that’s the thing, even under a Sandstorm there was not a word of complaint from her.”
“Nah, man,” Justice shook his head. “Ain’t ever heard her whine not once, is all I’m sayin’.”
“No doubt from me,” Logan said, half an arm on the bar counter and the other propped up by the elbow, and taking a chug of his drink. He quite liked Yakmel milk, but having something spirited on a cold night was a luxury he enjoyed partaking in from time to time. “She’s a whirlwind, that one.”
“Speaking of you two,” Justice started, and Logan watched Owen shake his head, as if wherever this was going to lead to was something they had to buckle up for. “A full season, Logan. You and Cerise, eh?”
Logan chuckled. They had been dating a while, with him initially pursuing her. Logan never took it for granted, still finding the fact that she agreed to be with him as something purely amazing. The odds were finally turning to his favor.
"I’m tellin’ ya, Logan," Justice grinned as he adjusted himself on his seat. "You think you had it rough out there being a bandit? You should’a seen the civil war happening right here in the saloon every Saturday night. Half the bachelors in town were tripping over their own boots just to get Cerise’s attention."
Logan felt a tug of amusement, a dry smirk touching his lips. He knew what Justice was trying to do; he wasn’t falling for it. "That so?"
"Oh, it was a circus," Justice laughed, slapping the bar counter and the dishes and glasses lightly clanked at the vibration. Logan held on to his glass and said nothing of it, while Owen just went and wiped whatever slight mess it created. “I remember when Unsuur had that massive crush on her. He even wrote her unsigned letters and left rocks in her mailbox.”
“He does have a good rock collection,” Owen said as he added more food onto the shared plate. “I bet he chose well.”
“They’re still good friends – heck, I would’a said something cause can’t have no ruckus at the Civil Corps, so it all worked out fine. But the boy sure was smitten."
Logan chuckled, hand still on his drink as he swirled the contents in it, not thinking too much of it. It was just an amusing story. Even so, he should pitch in a little. "Unsuur, huh?"
“Unsuur wasn't the only one," Owen chimed in, a teasing smile and a small laugh escaping him as he wiped down the bar.
“Oh, yeah. You're talking about Arvio, right?” Justice said with a laugh, then it quickly shifted into a groan. “Good kid, but…”
Logan raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? What about Arvio?" Haru was good friends with Arvio, Logan remembered. They didn't get much in the way of conversation – the general store owner was a little too wordy for him and he wasn't sure how to talk to those types well. It didn’t help that he knew without Arvio’s overt expression that he assumed Logan dragged Haru into the banditry life and messed Haru’s life prospects. Logan already felt regretful about that one, but Haru had said he had no regrets and that was that. Arvio had good intentions, even if the conclusion was wrong. It was no skin off Logan’s back.
"Arvio arranged a masquerade for two," Owen kept the easy smile, directing it towards Logan and refilled his glass. "At his house. I'm guessing you can tell who the other guest was?"
"Lemme guess. Cerise?" Logan said, raising his glass slightly as a thanks for the refill. "Just 'em two?"
"Strictly private, man," Justice raised his glass towards Owen, asking for his own refill. "Music. Banners. Dancing, and all that good stuff. Heard the music from home even if I didn't want to – kept me at night, I tell you. Hard not to; I live right next to him."
Logan raised an eyebrow. That was a grand gesture for a small town. He was more surprised that not even bits and pieces got to him even after being back for a year. "And how’d ya even know that happened?"
"We only pieced it together because he was an absolute mess for a week straight afterwards," Owen explained, pulling his sleeve back a little as he tipped the bottle’s mouth into Justice's glass. "Amirah had to spend every evening comforting her brother while he was a total wreck."
"Yeah, well," Justice leaned back onto his wooden chair as he took a swallow of his newly-filled drink. "That, and the crying was hard not to notice. Had everyone avoiding the topic a while."
Justice muttered something about hearing Arvio’s wails through the night and not being able to sleep. Logan sat with the thought, an image forming in his head: of a secret dance between a man who didn’t have good opinions of him and the woman he was currently seeing, far way back before he even knew her personally.
“Only reason it didn’t last as long was ‘cause Cerise still kept showing up at his store like always,” Justice continued, taking another bite from their shared plate having eaten half of it on his own. “Said nothing of it, even when everyone wanted to ask. Treated him the same; did the work, kept the friendship. Don’t know how she does it – I would’a avoided that shit for at least a month.”
“Huh,” Logan hummed, not sure what to make of it so he just took one of the sandfish sticks and let it stay in his mouth – he couldn’t talk if he had food in it, after all.
“The Sandrocker rejection,” Owen said, wistfully. Logan watched Owen’s face forming a smile a little too brightly, too fast, before he glanced at the corner table where no one was currently sitting at. Logan followed the trail and recognized that that specific table had a very specific regular who kept to it every time he was at the Blue Moon. “There’s Ernest, too.”
The reporter or writer, or whatever he was. Logan knew the guy; he paused to himself, the word catching up to him. He swallowed the food in his mouth a little too hastily, making him cough a little. “Too?”
“Romantic type, that one,” Owen laughed, handing Logan a paper towel. “He wrote her poems, stories…” he sighed and raised his hands in surrender. “—and all right, all right, I admit I did see some of his works when he left his notes at his table. I wasn’t going to look, I promise. But, I got too curious.”
“Sure you were,” Logan said, taking a slow taste of his drink and mostly tasting water, the ice having melted considerably. This was the third name.
“Why’d you keep that from me?” Justice asked, almost indignant, reaching for another bite. “What’d you see, hey?”
Owen leaned in a little, moving the shared plate closer to Justice. And with a dramatic flair in his voice that he used when he told stories at the Blue Moon every Saturday night, he answered, “Entire stories where the hero looked suspiciously like our builder – luscious red hair, bright tantalizing gray eyes, lips as pink as a tomato.”
“Pretty sure tomatoes are red,” Justice laid back on his chair, its legs creaking as he moved, crossing his arms.
“That’s what it said,” Owen bent down to retrieve something from under the counter. “Then I returned it to him because he came back running for it.”
“Incriminating evidence, eh?” Justice laughed. “Should’a thrown you in the slammer for privacy… er, laws.”
“You would have looked, too, considering how he acted,” Owen chuckled as he surfaced from below the counter. “Ernest used to watch her walk across town like he was witnessing a miracle.”
Logan kept to himself for a moment, eyes trained on the wooden bar counter, his eyes tracing the faint lines of scratches and wood patterns. That was three. Each person with their own story. He had known Cerise was a force of nature – anyone with eyes could tell. She was lovely to the eyes, but that was just the start of everything to love about her. It was the entry point – not the only point. It made sense, though, that people would look. He sat with something brewing in him. It was just… interesting. That was what it was. Yes.
The memory surfaced before he could even retrieve it on his own. After the dust had settled and the Sandrock occupation was resolved, with the perpetrators already brought to Atara for their sentences, and the Alliance military had left with them, Ernest found Logan.
He recalled that day clearly. Ernest was a new one to Logan and was not in town prior to his banditry days. It was someone who was clearly not from Sandrock – the blonde hair, green eyes, and outfits that were visibly and plainly not fit for the desert, and who Logan had only met after being accepted back to town. Logan had to admit he was avoidant at first, clearly not used to the attention the young man wanted from him – an interview about his days of banditry. He wasn’t sure either what to make of the fact that the blonde young man came to Sandrock originally to write about him, the news or his book. It didn’t matter to him back then.
“Mr. Logan, if I may have some of your time. Just one interview, please.”
“Just Logan is fine,” Logan said, watching the blonde man look up at him with hope. “What’s this all about? What went down up north? I ain’t much a story teller, maybe Justice is your man for that.”
Logan remembered one specific incident where he was going to say no to Ernest’s request yet again, but Cerise, who was not yet his then, walked by the two of them. He had intended to just walk away then, but Ernest instead pulled her into it.
Logan stayed for her without realizing it then; he also didn’t realize that Ernest wanted her to stay, too.
The interview was simple. Ernest plainly asked about the years of being a bandit, and Logan gave his short and plain answers that Ernest didn’t seem to be discouraged by. Ernest inquired about the Duvos spies, the banditry plan and agenda, and about coming back home to Sandrock after all those years of being misunderstood. Logan shrugged, it was what it was and nothing more. Things were happening and he had to do something, so he did it – that was the shape of everything his answers could give. Logan couldn’t even remember his exact responses to the questions while Cerise just sat there mostly listening, drinking her very sweet iced coffee.
“All right, let’s pivot to something a little personal,” Ernest asked, looking a little nervous all of a sudden. “Erm—I mean, is that all right for me to ask?”
“Shoot,” Logan said, unbothered by it. He had nothing to hide.
“Being an outlaw for so long… you must have had admirers! The charisma, the ruggedness, the allure of the bandit. Have you ever had any chance romantic encounters on the run as an outlaw? Seeing anyone – past or present?”
Logan was left speechless. That sure was personal in a way he did not expect, and he had no idea what was the importance of that information was at all for.
“Right, right,” Ernest laughed nervously. “I realize I'm kind of crossing a line here but... can you at least give me something? Something to help me get the romance right in this novel I'm working on...”
“I... am afraid nothing comes to mind...” Logan replied, apprehensively. There was one – a chance encounter, but not romantic.
Cerise started laughing to herself, small and jovial, as if she was hearing a joke only she had access to. Ernest’s eyes lingered on her face as he watched her, as if he was etching her visage onto his mind. Logan thought it was just what writers did, considering Ernest had looked at him with as much intensity for the past few days of him trying to get this interview.
“He pushed would-be lovers away,” Cerise said, startling both of them. She had been quiet since they sat down, happy to just listen to the awkward conversation.
“Really, now? Who—?” Ernest asked, eyes big and expectant. “I mean, how many would-be lovers exactly?”
“Just one,” Cerise grinned, and pointed to herself. “Me. It was me.” She then laughed in full, as if bells were ringing, as if the joke had then landed and everyone finally had access to it. Ernest joined in the laughter, a little constrained, his hands tightening around his notebook. Logan could only remember watching Cerise laugh with such mirth and his chest getting warm.
“—Logan? Hey, Logan,” Justice called out. He blinked, surfacing from the memory. “You okay, bud?” Owen and Justice were staring at him directly, everything paused. Logan looked around the saloon, and noticed the only people left were them.
Shifting his weight on the chair, he turned to them and nodded. “Yeah, yeah,” he took a big gulp on his drink, the burn scathing in his throat. “Just remembered something. All good. What were you saying again?”
The thought didn’t settle as well as he assumed, the memory filling in gaps he didn’t know were there. The gut punch in Ernest’s laughter as Cerise said her little joke. How Ernest couldn’t look him in the eye after that. “I should’ve seen it,” Logan thought to himself. “I didn’t see any of it.”
Logan continued his silence for a moment. He was building something in the back of his mind — a picture he hadn't had the pieces for before tonight. It was an accumulated map. All this wanting, directed at one woman, who had moved through it with the same steady focus she brought to everything else. Logan had lived in this town, born in it, raised in it. He had known Unsuur, Arvio, even before her, and the shape of every Sandrocker’s lives before his own had gone sideways. He hadn't known any of this, however.
He was beginning to feel, with a quiet and growing specificity, like a man who had walked into a room everyone else had already been sitting in for years.
“And there was that thing with Pen, right?”
Logan’s head snapped back to Justice, pulled back from his contemplations yet again. That name alone would have sent him reeling just a few months back. “Pen?” The name sat on his lips bitterly. The cause of his father’s death; he had managed the revelation and resolved it with his own daggers and fists, and the Duvos spy sat in a maximum prison in Atara now.
But if the topic was still in the same vein, he didn’t like the implications at all. “What’s the thing with him?”
“She managed it,” Owen said instead. “She was always busy – I mean, she really was, genuinely, actually busy… all the time. Still is.”
“Owen,” Logan said. Nothing more, knowing his friend would know exactly what he wanted to say.
Owen sighed. “It’s nothing like that, my friend. Just that… he was always trying to flirt with her. But she managed it. Actually busy, as I said, so there was nothing to push against.”
“Just a little awkward for everyone,” Justice added, stretching his arm. “Especially the first few months she was here.”
“Just consistently, pleasantly unavailable until it ran out of momentum on its own,” Owen said with a reassuring smile. “Cerise just gives everyone a clean exit, even when they haven’t earned one.”
“Civil,” Justice finished the last piece on their shared plate, almost eating the whole thing himself. Logan couldn’t find his appetite anymore anyway, so he could have it all. “Very civil. More than Pen deserved, if we’re being honest.”
Logan reflected on the whole evening. He gave attention to the specific shape of her generosity and kindness, the way she extended herself without apparent limit. Every commission no matter how small or large. Every reasonable and unreasonable favor. Every person who had come to her with their feelings and had to carry them carefully back out. She wasn't soft about it, though she wasn’t careless – that much was certain, if all else. Cerise was just… decided, it seemed. Like she had settled something in herself a long time ago about what kind of person she was going to be and had not revisited the question since.
And then he thought about her, herself – Cerise, the woman of the hour even if she wasn’t there to know it. The woman who he had loved and took an even longer time for him to reckon with those feelings. The way she looked – the red of hair, dark and deep, tied up when working, and down loose when sprawled on her bed; the gray eyes that sent electricity in him the first time she looked in his, and how it darkened when they spent their nights together; her mouth thin and pink and usually holding something just slightly in reserve – a teasing comment or a smile, and a kind word when needed. She was lean through the shoulders and arms from the Civil Corps work, the ruins, and the building work. It was a strength that wasn't immediately visible until one had seen her fight or observed her work, and still the contrast with the softness of her touch when she gave a gentle comfort or support. And after all that, it was all anyone could see. To Logan, the full of her was all he could see – one with the other, not anything less. Once he saw it, he could not take his eyes off of her even when he deliberately tried. He didn’t want to try anymore, anyway.
Overall, simply put, she was a great deal to look at. He had known this from the first moment – that one second of eye contact before Pen blew up the water tower in town and pinned the blame on him, where there was chaos everywhere, and her standing in it with those gray eyes already solving something. Logan had thought “pretty” when he saw her in the way one would register something bright, simple, surface-level, and then moved on.
He had been a fool then. He had been a fool for a while after, too.
The familiar sound of the bell chimed, and the loud creak of the Blue Moon’s door jostled Logan out of his own mind. A tourist or two from what he could see from his peripheral vision, who Owen then waved at, giving them their warm greetings as the host. The tourists lazily ambled up the stairs to their lodging, and Owen shrugged at Justice for a comment Logan didn’t really hear.
“We do have a steady stream of tourists lately, eh?” Justice said. Pulling the bottle from Owen to refill his glass.
“Easy there,” Owen said. “Can’t have the sheriff drunk tomorrow.”
“I can hold my liquor,” Justice said, both eyebrows raised, a mocking indignation that resolved with a laughter. “What was I saying?”
“Tourists,” Logan said instead, shaking the thoughts out of his mind, taking the bottle for himself and pouring his glass to just about the brim. Justice griped to Logan about the bottle, and to leave some more for him, when he had, in fact, eaten and drunk the majority of Owen’s hospitality for the evening.
“Right, tourists,” Justice said mostly to himself, adjusting himself in his seat and settling after retrieving the bottle from him.
“Just give Justice some Yakmel milk next time,” Logan gestured to Justice with his head, giving Owen a knowing look. “Don’t want to have to go into the desert tomorrow and find the sheriff passed out getting attacked by penskies.”
“Give me some dignity, man – let it be at least some tripions attacking me instead, not some penskies that ain’t even hostile.”
The three shared a short, hearty laugh, before Justice remembered his line of thought. “Again, as I was saying – tourists.”
“All right, all right,” Owen smiled. “Let’s hear it.”
“Didn’t know you were moonlighting tourist ambassador now, Justice,” Logan raked his hand over his hair, fingers snagging slightly at the hair tie.
“Since we’re on the topic, anyway,” Justice ignored Logan’s comment, with Logan duly noting it. “You know how tourists have been visiting Sandrock because they wanted to see Amirah?”
“What were they calling her?” Owen paused before snapping a finger. “The Desert Rose.”
“The what now?” Logan raised an eyebrow.
“Poor Amirah,” Owen said. “She hates it – tourists coming to Sandrock just to have a glimpse of her.”
Logan winced. That must suck, getting such untoward and unwanted attention. Even when he was a bandit and clamoring for the attention from the Free Cities, that they may look Sandrock’s way, he wasn’t quite into it. It was the work, he told himself. Nothing else.
“She’s very chilly about it,” Justice hugged himself, as if it was cold. “But because she’s icy, they all do nothing but just look.”
“All right,” Logan said, absentmindedly. That was fair, and good for Amirah, he thought.
“Unlike Cerise,” Justice took a big swig out of his drink, then paused and stared at the empty plate. “We outta food now?”
Owen sighed, then made eye contact with Logan, who just shrugged. You deal with it.
“Got some more sandfish sticks. Want some? They’re not hot anymore, though.”
“That’s fine,” Justice said, gesturing to the counter. “One set, yeah?”
“Not on the house,” Owen said with a smile and turned away from them to get the food. Logan watched Owen disappear into his kitchen, before something clicked again in his mind.
“What do you mean unlike Cerise?” Logan asked when the words finally sunk into him. They were talking about Amirah, and the whole topic on Cerise and her previous suitors things were closed already, wasn’t it? Why was she brought up again?
“Wasn’t it obvious?” Justice asked, genuinely perplexed. “You’ve been with her a season, did it not really show?”
“What do you mean?”
“The tourists are afraid of Logan, Justice,” Owen returned, the kitchen door clicking close from its slow swing behind him, and placed a warm plate of sandfish sticks. He wasn’t hungry anymore but Logan took one anyway, ignoring Justice’s protestations. “They probably don’t go near her when she’s with him.”
“What are you talking about?” Logan asked, feeling like he had been asking this in various iterations since the evening started, the sandfish stick stayed still between his fingers, before he could take a bite out of it.
“Tourists took their shot,” Owen said simply. “Followed her around in town sometimes. Sometimes, asked her out.”
Logan’s brows furrowed. He hadn’t seen any of that, though arguably he hadn’t seen much of tourists after he returned either. There was that incident where Sandrock as a community had to explain to the tourists regarding Logan’s reintegration, on why a bandit was casually living in town, and how it was all a big misunderstanding. Soon after that, the wanted posters were torn down. Cerise took the posters down.
“Don’t you worry, friend,” Owen smiled. “She said no at the onset of it. Gentle, but decisive. Closed. Fast. Just no, thank you.”
“Huh,” Logan hummed, unsure what to do with the knowledge sitting with him on the amount of suitors from four to however many tourists tried. But they tried. Everyone in this growing list had tried. They had committed an effort into wooing her. The masquerade, the letters, the poems – everything there and more. Meanwhile, Logan wanted to scoff at himself at how he did things. There was nothing except the simple fact that he just kissed her and hoped she would kiss him back. She did. They shared the bed together soon after that. He was a man of action, sure. But something in him still did a double take.
He treasured her deeply, and had no interest in treating her carelessly. But he couldn’t remember ever acting or doing anything remotely romantic, and of course, she deserved that. Logan knew that much. But he didn’t even know if he was capable of romantic. Thoughts on romance had never existed in him before, especially since she seemed happy enough. He was happy with her just existing by his side. Now he couldn’t tell if he was lacking or if it was simply just enough.
“Well, that’s just how things are, just like rumors tend to be.”
“Ah, you mean the dating rumors?” Justice asked, an eyebrow raised. “The one Pablo mentioned?”
Owen shrugged. “Might as well, right?”
“What’s this now?” Logan asked, finally biting the sandfish stick that had gone cold between his fingers.
“A whole lotta nothing,” Justice said, already done with three sandfish sticks, himself. “There was just a time when rumors of Cerise and Qi were dating. No one knows, no one verified.”
Logan turned to Justice and then to Owen, brows furrowed, not in distress but in genuine confusion. “Where the hell—,”
Justice stifled a laugh – or attempted to. Soon, his chortles turned to a large belly laugh and before he could slam a palm on the counter, Logan had raised his own glass while Owen did the same with his and the liquor bottle. Justice’s glass clanked as the impact vibrated through the empty plates. And soon, Owen joined the laughter, full of amusement, so much so that Logan couldn’t help joining in himself. Of all things, this was the most hilarious of them all.
As soon as the laughter died down between them three, and Justice had devoured half of the sandfish sticks while Logan had one and Owen none, they let a small comfortable silence permeate the air, as if to get their bearings back.
Logan supposed things were fine then, finally. Whatever he had learned so far, they sat with him and the complicated feelings that came with it were things he still had no idea what to do with yet or how to make them go away, if he even could. He took the mostly empty bottle and poured into his glass halfway, making sure to leave some for them. Logan was about to hand off the bottle to Justice when he saw the two.
Justice was moving his head, as if nodding a gesture to Owen, who raised a brow tentatively. His two childhood friends shared a look, having a full on conversation with their eyes and in silence, occasionally moving their shoulders or tilting their head. Whatever it was, Logan waited for it. This was not new.
Eventually, Owen sighed and his shoulders slackened. He closed his eyes, smiling, a look of resignation rested on an amused face; it took a few seconds before he turned to Logan completely, and Logan felt himself bracing for something even though he couldn’t yet tell what for or even just why. He held the glass between his hands, and he couldn’t be sure if his hands were starting to get sweaty or if it was just the condensation on his drink’s glass.
Too soon, he heard Owen’s voice.
“And then there was me, Logan.”
“…you,” Logan said slowly, buying time for his head to understand the implications of his friend’s words; a heavy weight landing on his chest, compounded with the memory of every person they have mentioned and discussed about and still not quite seeing that it would land and end on this.
“Long time ago,” Owen said his voice steady but low, and for the first time in the evening, drank his glass in full until it was empty. “Back when you and Cerise haven’t met yet, I asked her to dinner. She said yes, and well, we had a good evening.”
She said yes – Logan’s mind echoed the words once, then twice, then five times. He nodded slowly, still digesting the idea of Owen who had been easy company the whole evening about their topic, and was also undeniably now part of it.
“She’s easy to be with,” Owen said, arms crossed loosely, less imposing, and more like he was trying hold himself together. “She listens like you’re the only thing happening. Makes you feel like… what you’re saying is worth hearing.”
Logan stopped himself from shuddering. It was a simple recount, even though the chills were crawling through his body. He understood what Owen was saying completely – understood with a bone-deep recognition, more than Owen probably realized. The words weren't shaped like a memory. Owen wasn't talking about a girl from a long time ago; he was describing the woman who still held a piece of him.
“I walked her home,” Owen continued, wistfully, his hands gripped his arms a little tighter. Logan saw it plainly, as the heaviness sat with him, heftier with every word his friend said. But he knew Owen wasn’t done yet, even though the man looked like he wanted to be done with it. Logan could feel it – the shape of something still in the sentence that hadn’t come out yet.
Owen wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, not out of avoidance – Logan could tell easily when people avoided him – but more like a man waiting to see if he needed to continue, and to ground himself for whatever was coming out next. They probably needed it both.
“That so?” Logan forced his voice out, and tried to keep his voice even, almost casual, as if it wasn’t bothering him, though he suspected his friend saw through that just fine, clearly.
Owen turned his gaze at him then, directly. His expression was of a man who had seen the question coming and had decided, when it arrived, to answer it straight.
"No," Owen said, steady and without shame. "I kissed her."
Logan had to consciously loosen the grip on his glass lest he break it, and fully concentrated on it because what else could he do? Not when he felt something stab through him not even cleanly, but messily, jagged, and unyielding. Owen was doing him a service, he knew this. He appreciated it, Logan really did, but he also couldn’t feel it right then yet. He was trying, Light, he was, but he couldn’t shake off the gnawing, ugly feeling, as Owen’s words repeated in his head – it was the voice of a man who had never really left that doorstep.
“She was kind about it,” Owen continued regardless, and Logan could feel his eyes on him even when Logan had opted to just keep staring at his nearly empty glass. It didn’t stop Owen, however. “She let me kiss her, and she didn’t pull back dramatically. But, Logan—,”
Logan ultimately glanced up and saw Owen smiling, gentle, as he usually was, even if the smile hinted something underneath that he suspected moved within him too.
“She said no that night. Clearly,” Owen closed his eyes, his shoulders relaxing, as if whatever was holding on to him had finally released him. “And she never mentioned it again. The next time I saw her, she was exactly the same.”
There was a dry laughter that escaped Owen, small and weak, but he smiled through it.
“Like she had decided it was something that didn’t need to become a conversation,” Owen opened his eyes and held Logan’s gaze. “It ended there, my friend. She went inside. That was it.”
Logan didn’t move, and neither did his two friends. The saloon had been empty for a while aside from them; the outside had gotten dark, and the tourists had retired for the night, just as the other townsfolk.
He believed Owen. Logan knew he was telling the truth, even if the knowledge of that kiss played in his mind. He turned Owen’s truth over and over and understood the heaviness he was feeling was not something he had any standing to feel. He felt it anyway – this large, messy, and a little shameful unreasonable wish that he had been first. That her lips had been something only he knew. Logan was aware of how that sounded even to just himself in the safety of his mind, that it was unfair and from a time that he wasn’t even in it.
That Cerise was her own person with her own life long before he even ever met her – long before he was able to return to the town with his past mistakes, with an adopted son, and with the belated realization that he was in love with her. That much, he knew, that he had no rights over anything that had happened before him.
It was true, but it didn’t quite stop the feeling anyway.
He sighed, tipping his head back as he closed his eyes.
What he did not feel, however, and this mattered to him more than anything, was anything ill towards Owen. Logan checked carefully within him, and in between all the messy, jagged, irrational feelings, there was no hostility and no cold edge towards his childhood friend. He had done nothing wrong; Owen liked someone, had said so, had walked her home, had kissed her once, and had let her go respectfully when she had said no. That was, by Logan’s definition, a decent account of a man. He had no quarrel with it.
The feelings were his to carry. His to sort out, on his own time, quietly.
“All right,” Logan said instead, not really knowing what else to say.
“Logan,” Owen called out not softly, but firmly, with a voice that was still clear and steady, with a tone of gentleness Logan preferred he didn’t notice. “She chose you. That’s not nothing.”
Logan drank his half glass empty. He did know, that was what he kept coming back to – through Unsuur’s notes, Arvio’s masquerade, Ernest’s poems, and the long line of men who had looked at her clearly and wanted her. Yet she had moved through a considerable amount of wanting and had emerged still entirely herself, still making her own choices, and had landed, somehow, with him.
Logan couldn't even comfort his friend. That hurt in some places. He would do everything for all these people – that was why he became and endured being a bandit to uncover something sinister plotting in Sandrock. For his father. For the safety of those he cared about. But this? This he couldn’t yield on. Cerise was the one person he wasn't going to share, not going to budge on.
He decidedly met Owen’s eyes directly. "Right."
It took Logan a while to even convince himself that he should and had any right to reveal his own feelings to Cerise. And it made him realize yet again that had he been more stubborn, he might not have had this with her. He almost didn't even try. That scared him. While he took so long, there were others who were already trying and giving it a go way before he was even in the picture. Others who were, objectively, a more favorable prospect in comparison. He was, after all, a bandit - an outlaw for a while, no matter his intentions for being one.
Justice said nothing, and Logan noticed it, the silence all the more uncharacteristic. Justice quietly looked at his glass and drank from it and did not make anything of the moment, and Logan was thankful for it.
The desert wind knocked on the saloon’s windows, but the silence between them kept until it turned into something comfortable, the way it always did between them three.
Eventually, the conversation found its way to other things, something unspoken but agreed upon to steer away from the topic at least for the rest of the night. Justice finished the rest of the sandfish sticks as he told a story about a bounty in the desert, and Logan and Owen openly laughed at it.
"Another round?" Owen asked.
Logan glanced at him. Owen's expression was easy, uncomplicated, the face of a man who had said what needed saying and was ready to let the evening be what it was.
“How about me, Owen? Ain’t I your best bud?” Justice chimed.
“It’s the last one for you,” Owen replied, but still poured one for Justice. “Seriously, you’re going to wake up with a headache in the morning.”
Logan felt something settle, even if everything still felt thick and heavy within him. Not all the way, still. Knowing all that they had spoken of throughout the evening he can no longer unknow, and the knowledge of the kiss was still there sitting on top of it all, doing its quiet thing. But settled enough.
Logan smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."
“But he gets a pass?” Justice raised an eyebrow.
“Clearly Owen’s got a favorite,” Logan said, smirking. “It ain’t you, bud.”
The Blue Moon held them in its warmth. Outside, Sandrock had gone to the quiet that was particular to desert nights. He let himself bask in the familiarity of his friends’ chatter, the laughter. Whatever sat with him, he would sit with at a later time. For now, he allowed himself the respite.
.
.
.
The walk home after their parting was quiet, the way it was always quiet at the late hours in a small town that has folded itself for the night. The sand crunching under his boots with every step carrying him to his old home.
He checked Andy first, and was sincerely glad he was already knocked out asleep and was actually home. Out cold with his blanket half-kicked off in the rumble in his sleep, sprawled throughout his bed without a care in the world. Logan pulled the blanket back up on him, sure that it wouldn’t stay for long.
He watched his adopted son before turning back to the bedroom door, staring at nothing in the dark for a while. “It’s fine,” he thought. “Nothing wrong. It’s fine.”
The thing of the matter was that Logan couldn’t do much in the way of the fancy stuff but he was sure he could love her hard and to the fullest. That as long as she looked at him and only him, he could endure everything. The notion almost made him cackle – he didn't know when he became so greedy even though he used to be a bandit who took hardly nothing and just the necessities.
With Owen though, it stuck a little. The details. It was intimate, in a way. It was a… date. That wasn't a grand gesture, but an intimate one. To Logan, Owen doing that was right. His friend would do that because he was a decent man – not that the others weren’t, but he knew something the others didn’t. It was different from unsigned notes, or a letter, or a poem. The masquerade came close, he supposed, but that was still a grand gesture. Logan knew by now that Cerise liked the small things rather than the great things.
Cerise would have appreciated what Owen did. Logan felt something dreadful and nasty rise in his chest yet again and he knew what that was completely and shamefully – pettiness; it was pettiness for feeling an immense relief that she turned Owen down and had possibly broken his heart. His childhood friend’s heart. That was not a good thought, and he knew that fully, and with all the shame he had, he was still glad for it, anyway.
He left the bedroom and went back down, settling in the sofa, hoping to think and understand his own thoughts and judgments, if he could even tame them then. They were already flooding his mind, and he couldn’t really stop them even if he wanted to.
She chose him. He kept coming back to the thought. And in the same range of pettiness, he would hold on to her tightly, and if he had to be the petty boyfriend who wanted to keep her all to himself, then it was just tough luck for everyone else. This was hard for him to swallow, but he would, even if it made him something horrible. It would never leave the confines of his mind, but it would be there.
Logan had an adopted kid, and an even more undesirable past, and yet she chose him. He really didn't understand how and why but if she loved him, he must have done something right. Whether he deserved it or not – “probably not,” he thought – but that was a thought for whenever; the outcome wasn't going to change, anyway.
He didn't even last long thinking, not even five minutes of him sitting down, he put his boots back on. Logan’s feet were already moving towards the direction of her home.