Fic: Life Goes On (Logan) R
Title: Life Goes On
Author: bfragrant
Pairing/Character:Logan
Word Count:2671
Rating: R (for language)
Summary: Sometimes moving on is your only option.
Spoilers: 3-16
Warnings: Angst
Disclaimer: Like I have said time and time again, it's not mine. Please don't sue.
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Instead, go where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Logan tapped his foot impatiently against the hospital floor. Even though blue as a colour was found to be soothing, Logan could feel nothing but uneasiness as he stared at the powder blue wall. Neptune Memorial Hospital was by far the last place he would have liked to be in. Yet, emotionally trapped, he waited with his mother for his father to get out off his surgery.
What a laugh. The two-timing bastard had finally gotten a taste of his own medicine. Sure, being whipped with a belt was no way close to being stabbed with an ice pick. Yet Logan was sure that, the emotional repercussions of such a traumatic event had the same consequences. He was glad. He was sure he was going to go to hell for thinking such a thing. Yet, he didn’t give a fuck. If an outside observer could explain his facial expressions and his posture, it would be the one of grief. However, inside he was laughing so hard that his soul was crying.
“Logan. Logan?” Lynn asked, snapping his attention back to reality. “Your father is out of his surgery. He desires to see us now”. Desire? Logan chuckled to himself. Way to over-romanticize it mom, don’t you mean more like demands? The fucker wanted their presence. All Logan wanted to do was sit in that ridiculously painted hospital corridor and stare at the wall.
He shuffled his feet his as he followed his mom. He stood in the doorway as his mom flung herself on his father, smoothing back his hair and asking how he was doing in that hushed way that only lovers used. It made him sick to his stomach. His mom was a doormat. She was a doormat to an emotional abuser who wiped his feet on her on a regular basis. She poured drink after drink, getting herself drunk not to think about his infidelities, yet here she was, attending to him. Attending to him knowing that it were the same infidelities of his that had got him here in the first place. He did everything…every goddamn thing and she still loved him. Logan could actually feel the nonexistent weight of the scars on his back.
“Son! You have got quick fingers. Your mom told me that you were the one quick enough to call 911. Thanks a lot son, for looking out for your old man”. Logan had to bite his tongue. He had to bite it so hard that he had a mental image of it falling out of his mouth, and messing up the beige colour of the floor. Looking out for him huh? He remembered thinking for a second, how easier life would be if he had died. As his finger had hovered over the call button, he had thought of a life without belts or alcohol or insults. A world where he would have been at peace with himself, the shadows of his youth replaced by the bright lights of his future. He had thought for just a second, how free he would have been if he died. How elated he would have felt while his father had bled to death. Just for a tiny second…Unfortunately that second had passed, he had pressed the call button and asked for an ambulance. He still felt proud/repulsed for doing the right thing.
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And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
And a coward does it with a kiss…
Oscar Wilde
Veronica Mars had kissed him. Him! She had kissed him, and everything was alright. It didn’t matter if she accused him of rape or murder or any other fucking thing. She had kissed him and he had never felt more alive. And he needed her…And it scared him more than anything he had ever felt.
There he was, standing outside her door, covered in dirt and sweat and blood. It ached to even breathe. Still she was looking at him like he was someone. Someone who was worth something. Someone who could be loved. Someone who was loved by her?
“I was hoping it would be you”. That’s what she said. She had hoped it was him. She thought of him too, just like he thought of her. Every-second-of-every-week-of-every-day-of-every-hour-of-every-minute. From the moment she had kissed him. And he had kissed her back.
He had woken with a knife in his hand; a dead boy’s glassed over eyes staring at…
She had kissed him; he was the one she had been hoping for. It was alright, everything was alright.
---
Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
Shakespeare
They had gone to dinner that night. To this little Italian place on Main Street. He had clumsily spilled the water as he had reached for her hand. This was so unlike him. He was suave on dates. He was always charming but slightly mysterious. He fucking didn’t spill things because his hand was shaking so hard.
She had assured him that it was okay. After the waiter had wiped the table, he had hesitantly reached for her hand again. She had smiled shyly as she had let him.
It was as if he had never taken a girl to dinner before.
Or maybe Veronica was nothing like the girls he had taken to dinner before.
Afterwards, they had taken a stroll on the beach. Hand in hand. It had seemed so foreign to him. The only time he had ever taken a girl… Not just any girl really but Lilly (his-first-love/heartbreaker/father-fucker), he had been told to strip. He could still remember that day. The water had been freezing, but Lilly was so soft and her hands had felt oh-so-hot as she had wrapped them around his flesh. His breath had become a vapour in the chilly air, as he had panted.
He had taken her home afterwards. They had slipped to the backseat for some making out. He tried to be gentle, even though his body disagreed most of the time. She had been through to much already; he didn’t want to spook her with his lust. So he kept his cool (he had gotten used to taking long showers after every date anyway).
He couldn’t stop touching her. He couldn’t stop.
He let it slip that he loved her. He hadn’t planned to tell her then. But it had felt so right. She didn’t tell him she loved him back, but smiled so brightly that he let it past. After all, they still had time.
A shattered window also shattered every thing he had dared to hope.
---
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.
Samuel Beckett
He sat staring transfixed at the couple before him. This full circle desk arrangement was pure crap. Hypothetically it helped create a friendly environment and helped students communicate better. For Logan however, it was an arrangement in which one could make eye contact with anyone and see every fucking thing that everyone did. It annoyed the hell out of him, being obligated to sit like this.
There she was, touching his arm again. She touched him all the time. He watched as he leaned closer to whisper something in her ear. She laughed. It was the laugh of a carefree person. A person who didn’t have any burdens left in the world. A person who had everything she wanted. The laughter of a person who was content with her life. Logan felt like something was twisting him from the inside. Twisting and twisting andtwistingand...
She had never laughed with him like that.
---
In this world there are two tragedies,
One is not getting what one wants and the other is getting it.
Oscar Wilde
She never told him that she loved him. But she loved him. He was sure. She had hugged him tightly as Dick’s little brother (friend/killer/rapist/Beaver/Cassidy) had leapt to his death. He needed her. She hugged him like she needed him too.
He held her, like she had held him, a year ago, when he was covered in dirt and sweat and blood (like she was on that roof). It had hurt her to breathe like it had hurt him too. When she had thought she had lost everything. She hadn’t. But for just a few hours, they were equals. They were all each other had.
She was his someone. She had always been his someone (ever since she had kissed him).
She told him that everything would be alright. That she could feel it this time. Logan was long past the promise of “alright”. Still he looked at her and agreed. She was laughing with him this time. She seemed as if she couldn’t stop touching him.
She never told him that she loved him.
Except when Logan whispered in her ear she laughed.
That had to mean something. It had to mean something.
---
The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He couldn’t exactly recall what had happened. Sure, he knew what had happened (that was pretty clear); he just couldn’t remember how he got in this situation, with this particular person.
He missed running his hands through her golden locks. He missed surprising her with a kiss that left her breathless afterwards. He missed how she would go on and on about some art show, or book signing (whatever-the-fuck was “in” that week) knowing full well that she found them to be boring as well. He missed the good/bad/painful/ugly/breathtaking.
He missed her.
All the same here he was, lying next to a face from the past. A girl he had seen everyday while he was growing up, yet knew nothing about but her name.
---
Who so loves believes the impossible.
Elizabeth Barret Browning.
She had blushed when he had given her his room key. She was beautiful when she blushed. It was the only time her past and her present collided. It created a sort of jaded innocence.
He had imagined the times when she would use his room key.
She would use it when the finals were over. He would come home to find that she had filled the bathtub with bubbles. There would be all kinds of candles (big/small, scented, plain, white/colourful). And she would run up to him and throw her arms around him. Blushing, she would place a kiss on his lips and whisper in his ear that they both had deserved to let off some steam.
Or she would use it to smuggle in this huge birthday cake that she had baked. Of course it would be a little lopsided, like all her cakes. (Not that she had baked him anything, but he took her word for it.)
Or she would use it to sneak in one night when he was asleep. He would wake up to find her curled up next to him. He would place butterfly kisses all over her face so she would wake up with a smile. They would then proceed to have their way with each other.
Or he would come to the suite one day to find her sitting on the couch, one hand clutching the remote and the other a huge bowl of popcorn. DVD’s would be scattered on the table before her. They would have cuddled while watching one crappy movie after another.
He had imagined many scenarios, in which she would have used his room key.
Yet he had never imagined that she would use it to break up with him.
He had been so sure that this time he wouldn’t have been as clumsy when he reached for her hand.
---
If, after having been exposed to someone’s presence,
You feel as if you’ve lost a quart of plasma,
Avoid that presence.
William Burroughs
Fuck it. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
That was what was in his head as he sped away from Neptune. Like a tape stuck on a loop, it kept repeating the same word over and over again.
He had left all of his belongings back at the hotel. All he had were the clothes on his back and the car he was driving. He didn’t even consider going back to retrieve anything. He laughed bitterly to himself as he thought, “well Dick, enjoy”.
He couldn’t face her again. He couldn’t face anyone. Not Parker, or Mac, or Dick, or Piz.
Or Veronica.
Even though it sounded like clichéd bullshit, he really had given her his all. Every single part of his presence. The past he was ashamed of and the future in which he was hopeful.
And all he had got back was a “yeah” in return.
Until everything he had dared hope, were shattered by her words.
---
We should be careful to get out of an experience
Only the wisdom that is in it and stop there;
Lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid.
She will never sit on a hot stove lid again and that is well;
But also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Mark Twain
“We buy coffee from the same place”.
That was the pick up line she had used on him. He had found it to be pretty lame, but had still gone along with it. Her name was Tess. She was a brunette. Who wore glasses because she read too much (or so she said). She was average looking, with an average height and average weight. Basically she was just plain average. She was just what Logan was looking for.
He had asked her out on a date. They had watched a romantic comedy in the newly built theatre. She had found the movie to be hilarious. Logan had been nearly bored to tears. But it was ok. He was glad she wasn’t into spy movies.
Sex with her was pretty tame the first couple of times. Until she got used to his style that is.
She was his fifth girlfriend since he moved to a new city. They dated for approximately three months until one day she tilted her head while asking him for a favour.
He dumped her the next day.
He always dumped them when they did something that reminded him of her.
---
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He watched as his son climbed back up to the slide to have another go. His hair dark brown just like his mom’s (girlfriend number twenty-three, they had only lasted for six months, until she had accused him of having no aim in his life.)
He could remember the day he was born. How his ex-girlfriend had thrown insult after insult his way, all the while holding his hand. She was a good mom. She was married to an architect now. She had given birth to her second child only three months ago. So, she and her husband had their hands full, which was all the better. He got to keep his son on the weekdays, while they got the weekends (that was the arrangement now). It was ironic that they all got along.
The four of them (now five), had dinner together once a week. Bob (her husband) never got jealous of the two of them.
He probably understood that Logan had never loved her in the first place.
He opened up his arms as his son (Luke), came running towards him. He giggled as Logan swirled him around like an airplane. Logan smiled, and thanked God for second chances.
Logan made it a point to never wear a belt.
---
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life:
It goes on
Robert Frost
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