Sanders Sides One Shots & Shorts

It Could Have Been You (Logicality/Royality)

Date Published: Sept 10, 2021
Word Count: 1535
POV: 3rd Person

The dock is cold and a bit damp underneath Logan. It had rained all day yesterday, but the wind had been strong enough to carry away the clouds for this evening. The stars are out in full now. Or, as full as they can really be in the city. But they are bright enough, plenty dazzling to look at, and as good a reason as any to sit out here on the lake dock late at night.

"How are they tonight?" Patton asks. With his vision almost completely gone now, he can see the light of the sunrise, however has since lost his ability to see stars. But he remembers them, and on nights when he and Logan are out late, he will ask Logan to describe them to him.

"Fine. Mercury is visible tonight. But other than that, not much about them is particularly exciting."

Patton always liked stars. Logan is never sure how to describe them. It's possible that Patton was hoping for something more poetic, like that they appear like freckles of light on the face of the black sky, or something of that sort. But Logan worries that maybe it would only make Patton feel more isolated, make him sad at his inability to see them for himself. But Patton wouldn't tell him that, though, even if that was the case. He is always so peacefully cheerful. Grateful for all he's given, even if what he's been given is shit. He would likely say something about how his imagination is his new sight, and he's always loved imagining.

Because that's who Patton has always been, and his ability to be hopeful in every scenario is one of the attributes that Logan admires most about him. That, among other things.

"That's okay, then," says Patton, drawing Logan's attention back to the conversation at hand.

Patton pulls off his shoes, and allows his feet to lower over the side of the dock. He flinches a bit at the first feeling of water on his toes.

"It's cold," he laughs, before gently slipping his feet the rest of the way in.

Logan smiles a bit in spite of himself. He always loves these nights, when he and Patton come to sit on the dock that stretches over the lake behind Logan's house. These nights when it's simply the two of them under a sky that neither of them can see. Logan, because Patton is blinding. As for Patton... well, he hasn't been able to see Logan or the sky for some time.

Patton begins babbling about some project or another, accidentally splashing Logan when he gets particularly animated. The water is indeed icy cold, but Logan doesn't mind. He just allows himself to be pulled along as Patton tells him stories. He could listen to Patton talk for hours.

Patton loves him, Logan knows. But, it's not in the same way that Logan loves him. There's no one who loves anyone the way that Logan loves Patton. Logan loves in a way that hurts, that tears him apart inside, that burns.

After a while, Patton stalls. His excitement curbs in a way of sudden shyness and a seriousness that Logan doesn't see from him all that often. "Logan, I have something to tell you."

As he says it, Patton shifts a bit closer to him. So close that their shoulders could touch, if they wanted. Logan wants. Logan wants so badly that it hurts.

"We're engaged," Patton says quietly.

Oh.

It's the nail in the coffin, the epitaph on Logan's grave. It's the blue of Patton's eyes. It's stars that you just can't see no matter how much you long to. It's the years that Logan spent learning not to cry.

We're engaged.

It's the reminder that Logan is in love with his best friend, and he will never be his, not as long as he is alive.