Title: Mind Over Matter
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Logan Echolls/Ryan Wolfe
Fandom: Veronica Mars /CSI: Miami
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Logan Echolls or Ryan Wolfe, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Logan glanced nervously across the kitchen table at Ryan as he leaned back in his chair, wondering what to say next. They'd kept up a steady stream of inconsequential conversation throughout the meal, but now, he was running out of things to talk about.

He had told Ryan so much about himself -- except for the most important things. He hadn't told Ryan about how he'd spent so much of his life hiding who he really was, pretending to be something he wasn't, trying to fit in when he knew that he never would.

How could he sit here and tell Ryan about the physical and sexual abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his father? That would only make him sound like some kind of weirdo, a pervert who didn't know what he wanted. He'd seem as though he had wanted that abuse.

If he told Ryan about that, it might be assumed that his father had somehow made him gay, or that he had encouraged the sexual advances. He'd never told anyone else about the abuse for that very reason; it had seemed easier to pretend it didn't exist.

That had gotten harder and harder for him to do -- and he'd known that if he stayed in Neptune, it would have eventually come out in some way. So, here he was -- and he was with a man who he was more attracted to than he could ever have imagined.

Ryan was looking at him curiously, a small smile on those gorgeous lips. All Logan wanted to do was lean forward in his chair, until their faces were close together .... press his lips against Ryan's, to feel their softness beneath his own mouth ....

Clearing his throat, Logan pushed that tantalizing image out of his mind. He wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss Ryan right now, but how would that make him look? He didn't want to move too quickly and make himself seem overly eager.

"What are you thinking about?" Ryan asked softly, reaching across the table to lay his hand on top of Logan's. "I can tell there's something bothering you, Logan. And I can tell that there's a lot you're holding back that you're not ready to tell me yet."

Logan started to shake his head vehemently, to deny what Ryan had said. But he couldn't -- mainly because the other man was right. "H-how did you know that?" he stammered, surprised when those words came out instead of the polite denial he'd been intending to say.

"You forget what I do for a living," Ryan said with a laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly as he smiled. "I'm used to reading people, Logan. I can't help doing it, even when I don't mean to. And I know you've got secrets. That's okay. You don't have to tell them."

Logan looked down, feeling the telltale flush rise in his cheeks. "It's not that I don't want you to know about me," he murmured, feeling a little guilty that he was keeping things from Ryan when the other man seemed so open and honest with him. "I'm just ...."

"You're nervous about telling everything to someone you just met, right?" Ryan finished for him, his gaze not leaving Logan's face. "I understand that. I've been burned before too, y'know. I know how it feels to not trust people. Especially when you're in a new place."

Logan could only nod mutely, wondering how Ryan could see so much from what little he'd said about his past. He should have realized that someone who was on the police force would be able to tell that he was hiding things; Ryan could see beneath what was there on the surface.

"It's not that I want to hide things from you," he blurted out, making an instantaneous decision to trust this man. "I just .... have so much in my past that I've always had to keep hidden, and I'm not sure that I'm really comfortable with letting it out all at once."

"You don't have to do that," Ryan told him, squeezing Logan's hand gently. "Just tell me whatever you feel comfortable with, Logan. I can tell you some things about my past that I don't usually talk about because I"m not exactly fond of them."

Before Logan could speak again, Ryan continued. "I almost had to leave the force at one time because I took a nail gun to the eye. I thought my career was over. Hell, I thought my life was over. But I came back from that dark place I was in. You can do it, too."

"I keep telling myself that," Logan murmured, finally meeting Ryan's gaze. "I keep reminding myself that it's just a case of mind over matter. That I have to convince my mind to leap over the problems in front of me and face them head on."

Ryan nodded, his brow creasing in a frown. "But there's something that holds you back from doing that, isn't there?" he asked gently, his voice a little husky. Logan knew that he was probing for answers, but for once, he wanted to give them and not keep them back.

"Yeah," he mumbled, finding it hard to get the words out. "That's what my dad used to tell me. That life was just a case of mind over matter. But my dad and I .... didn't get along, to say the least. He wasn't what he might have appeared ot be on the outside."

"I know who your dad was," Ryan said, his voice a little hesitant now. "From everything I've heard about him, he was a model family man -- but there was some question about your mom's death, wasn't there? And I know there were other things said about him, too."

"What things?" Ryan lifted his head to look Ryan directly in the eye, his interest sharpened by what the other man had said. "What did you hear about him? Did anything you've heard mention me?" His voice was sharp, biting, the words clipped and precise.

"Calm down, Logan," Ryan soothed, squeezing his hand again. "No, nothing I heard about your dad ever mentioned you, other than in passing about you being his son. Just some stuff about extramarital affairs, and some suspected foul play about your mother's death."

Ryan nodded slowly, letting out his breath in a long, slow exhalation. "Then you haven't heard the worst of it," he whispered, wondering why these words were coming out now, when he'd least expected to say them. "You don't know what he was really like behind the facade."

"What are you saying, Logan?" Ryan's voice was equally soft, worry in his tone. "What do you need to get out that you've been hiding for so long? You can tell me, y'know. I'm not going to run to some tabloid. Or to anybody else. I'll keep your secrets."

Taking a deep breath, Logan tried to tell himself that this was what his father had always meant by mind over matter -- this was an obstacle in the path to his freedom from his past. He had to overcome it and be open with Ryan about what he was trying to move away from.

But it wasn't easy to get the words out. They seemed to stick in his throat; they didn't want to come out in any kind of way that would make sense. They were all jumbled up in his head, falling over themselves to finally be let out into the open where they could be heard.

"My dad abused me," Logan whispered, unable to look at Ryan as he spoke the words. "I was his sex toy for a hell of a long time. I can't remember a time when I wasn't. I .... don't know why I'm telling you this. I've never told anybody before. Even though my mom knew."

"She knew? She knew, and didn't do anything?" Ryan's voice was barely a whisper; Logan could hear the horror and disbelief in those words. "Oh god, Logan, I'm so sorry." Ryan had gotten up from his chair, coming to the other side of the table.

Logan didn't pull back when Ryan tugged him to his feet and wrapped those strong, protective arms around him. How long had it been since anyone had held him like this? Never, Logan realized with a shock. No one had ever given him the kind of comfort he needed.

But he had it now -- and he didn't want to let it go. "It's okay, Logan," Ryan whispered, one hand moving up and down his back. "Nobody's going to hurt you here. And I"ll keep your secret. You don't have to tell anybody else if you don't want to. You're safe here. I promise."

Logan nodded, letting himself relax in Ryan's arms. He didn't know where their future was headed, but he had a feeling that he'd done the right thing by telling this man the first little bit about his past that he'd always had to keep bottled up inside until now.

Mind over matter, he told himself, straightening up and stepping back to look directly at the man in front of him. There was still a lot for him to tell, but he'd made a start. And it felt good to have been able to leap over that first obstacle in his path without feeling as though he'd fallen on his face.

***