This started as a response to a prompt at comment_fic for Alec/Logan, "Etiquette" but it grew from there.

True Stories Are Not Always Polite

Despite his attempts to reject his roots, Logan generally stuck to the rules of propriety he learned as a kid.

Etiquette prevented him from asking Alec whether he meant it when he curled up against Logan's chest after sex. Did Mr. Sarcastic really feel like cuddling? Or was it just that PsyOps taught him -- or, more accurately, brainwashed him -- with techniques to elicit emotional bonds from others?

And when Alec's tongue licked a long firm line on the underside of Logan's prick, Logan wondered whether this was a spontaneous desire, or whether insead it was the result of horrible, exploitative, abusive human programming.

And so Logan's pleasure was filled with guilt, not knowing for sure whether he was the recipient of Alec's lust or of Alec's trauma. But etiquette forbade him from asking.

And when Logan looked at Alec while thinking how desperately he wanted to push Alec onto the couch, pull his leg up, and just push into him hard and fast, Alec would smile amenably and lead Logan by the hand to the couch. As if reading Logan's mind. As if Alec's desires just happened to coincide so perfectly with Logan's.

But Logan wouldn't ever dare ask him if there was something inside of him, something ticking away slowly for years, that made him so agreeable to almost anything.

Sometimes after a guilty but stupendous orgasm, Logan would remember why he left the world of his youth. Because polite society is just a way of avoiding the truth.

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Logan looked guilty all the time. Guilty for not being impoverished when so many were. Guilty for not doing more to change the world. Guilty for surviving what others hadn't.

But especially guilty about the sex. Even without psychological training, Alec would have been able to see the guilt creep across Logan's face. He figured it was his WASP upbringing. Lots of repression.

And besides, the sex was good. Maybe better than it would be without the guilt. It's always better when you get to feel like you're doing something wrong.

The first time Alec had sex after escaping Manticore was tremendous. A lovely girl, who screamed lovely things. And by lovely, he meant incredibly dirty.

But the dirty talk wasn't necessary. Just by choosing to use his body for no mission, no purpose. Just his own pleasure and hers. He felt guilty. He felt like he was violating something great, like he was trespassing into an ancient pool of legend in hopes of washing himself clean. It was simultaneously the crime and the atonement.

Gradually he realized that sex wasn't some ritual of destruction, that everyone did it, or at least thought about it all the time. But some part of that early guilt stayed with him, all these lovers later, making him think sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry when he got hard. He sometimes wondered who he was saying it to, but he decided not to go too far down that line of questioning. Better safe than sorry.

But the guilt didn't ruin the sex. It brought just a little more shortness of breath, a certain tension that made it all the sweeter when the two of them would find the courage and trust to share in the crime together. A conspiracy of desire, equal parts weakness and strength.

So he never asked the source of the guilt that made Logan look away from him right before he came, breaking the eye contact that he had held so intently throughout. He never asked why the things that Logan wanted most would also make Logan the most hesitant, the most reluctant. All kids get messed up by their upbringing, Alec knew, so he would let Logan have his issues, his contradictions. He would let Logan cling to whatever was making his guilt rest on them so heavily. Alec would respect Logan's boundaries. The way normal people do. Ones who are brought up properly.

Alec would refrain from demanding the truth.

Until he couldn't.

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Logan wasn't going to bring it up. But he wasn't going to lie when Alec brought it up point blank, either.

He knew Alec would be frustrated. Hesitant to talk about his feeling, his experiences. But he had not expected Alec's face to go white and cold.

He didn't expect Alec to spit, "Sorry I kept calling you my boyfriend, Logan. Obviously we were in a totally fake relationship. Everything we had was just an unfortunate side effect."

Or this: "You think I'm going to apologize for being awesome in bed? Because that's not just the training, it's also that I don't have a giant repressive silver spoon up my ass. Unlike some people I know."

"You look at me and you just see a victim? You see something to pity? Honestly, how much of an asshole ARE you?"

"You think you're not programmed? Every girlfriend, every porno you've watched, hell, every cologne commercial you've seen has been training you how to act since birth, The only difference is the people who trained me to fuck actually knew what they were talking about."

That last one hurt. But Logan let him yell, let him slam the door, let him walk out. He knew that when Alec cooled down, he would come back. He'd still be pissed of course, but he had confidence that Alec would come back.

Logan kept feeling confident until he heard that Alec had been spotted leaving the sector. With all of his things.

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There are few things that can sabotage a relationship faster than pity, Alec knew. Knowing that someone pities you -- it's like an explosive going off between you, knocking you back, leaving shards in the space between.

It's not just pride, even though that was a big part of it. It's that pity means doubt. It means the end of trust.

Because when you find out someone feels sorry for you, has felt sorry for you all along, you lose something. Something you worked really hard to believe that you had.

When you find out someone pities you, it feels like a betrayal. And you know that they have let you down, that they've erased some part of you, that they've made you into something pathetic, and they've done it against your will.

'It means that when Logan sees I'm hard, he thinks of Manticore,' Alec thinks. 'When we're fucking, when we're holding each other, when we're laughing or crying or anything else -- he doesn't see me. He sees "trauma." He sees them and what they did.'

Yes, when the one you love pities you, they have betrayed you. They have let your enemies into the space that you worked so hard to get them out of.

Your bedroom. Your body. Your mind and your soul.

And here Alec had thought Logan couldn't get enough of him.

Here Alec had thought that the desire and the technique and the psychological perceptiveness finally had a purpose. And it wasn't to serve Manticore, and it wasn't even to get lost in a mess of limbs to forget Manticore.

It wasn't about them at all. It was finally about Alec. Alec and Logan.

It was only Logan who had made him feel like that. Like Alec was more than his makers intended.

Like the way Manticore built him was just the beginning.

Like Alec could choose what to build himself into next.

Like he was slowly transforming into something new, piece by piece. Like he could slowly re-stitch his psyche into something kinder, something wiser, something a hell of a lot more erotic.

His truer self.

But then he was stupid enough to ask Logan a question he didn't want the answer to.

And then it was all about Manticore. Again.

So Alec had to face the ugly truth. And he realized that his happy little fairy tale about Alec-and-Logan was just a delusion. That Logan would never see him as anything but a pathetic lab experiment in need of his help. And Alec's ideas about love, and profound connection, and the emergence of the real Alec -- the idea that Love could sweep away the dirt atop Alec's pysche like an archaeologist gently reveals a relic -- these stories were not real.

And Alec knew he would never, ever let himself fall apart in that particular way, he would never live his life as if his made-up stories of magic and redemption were true. That's the kind of shit that turns you crazy.

That's the kind of shit that makes you start hearing voices and collecting teeth.

These kinds of stories were dangerous. So Alec refrained from going back to cause of his delusions. He refrained from going back to Logan. He stayed as far away as possible.

But he knew that he was still hoping that Logan would be able to find him, even with his new ID's and new location and new job and new set of tactics for avoiding detection. He thought every day about whether Logan might somehow find him.

And he was disgusted with himself. Because he knew it was pathetic, to think that Logan would just show up one day at his door and demand another chance.

It was childish.

Worse, it was pitiful.

But in the end, it turned out to be correct.

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Alec ignored most of his pleas. Just stared at him stone-faced, not letting him through the door.

"You're right to hate me. But you were wrong to just ditch me. And it wasn't exactly easy finding you."

"I see why you're angry. I was patronizing. And I didn't trust you like I should have."

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry if I was an asshole. But I had to ask. I HAD to, Alec. I hate what they did and I had to know. Because I will never- I REFUSE to be a continuation of that. Of them. I. Will. Not. Be. Them."

That one finally got some response.

A tiny snort. And a mutter: "Like you could ever be them."

But as Logan kept trying, Alec kept refusing. That flame of rage wouldn't let Alec forget, made him push down the need to grab Logan, to taste him and hold him and drag him to the bed or hell, the kitchen table.

FInally, Logan just looked defeated. For a second, Alec was afraid he would give up, and it startled him to realize how acute that fear was. But Logan just looked at him, eyes starting to water, and said, "Please."

"Please, Alec. I don't know what else I can say to you. Please come back. I will never bring it up again. Or I'll apologize every day. Whatever you want. "

Alec stared at him, terrified that Logan had this power over him, to instantly make all the old stories about Alec-and-Logan seem like perfect truth, irrefutable as a theorem.

"Please, Alec. I don't care if this is pathetic. Please."

Finally, Alec stepped up to Logan, and softly rubbed the tear away from Logan's cheek. And he kissed Logan. And the taste and smell and feel overwhelmed him as he remembered why he had such faith that Logan would pull something new and truthful out of him. Because Logan always could.

So he said, "Fine. I'll come back. Just stop saying 'please,' Logan. You don't always have to be so polite."