(Belated) fic roundup 2014
BTVS/ATS
Never a Saint (Buffy/Angel)
The Marks We Leave (Buffy/Angel, Angel&Faith)
Harry Potter
To Marvel and to Praise (Lily/James)
Veronica Mars
If Two of Them Are Dead (Weevil&Veronica)
Wingspan (Logan/Veronica)
We Do Not Flinch (Logan/Veronica, Veronica&Mac)
Inhale, Exhale (Logan&Lynn Echolls)
The Inner Moonlight (Logan/Veronica)
The Holy Dark (Logan/Veronica)
Cushion My Fall with Cotton Wool (Sweetheart) (Logan/Veronica)
Miles Away (from the places we used to be) (Logan/Veronica)
It's Not Hard to See the Heart in It (Veronica&Wallace, Logan/Veronica)
One is Silver (Logan/Veronica)
An Intro to Logan's Life in Five Screwy Steps (Logan/Veronica, Duncan/Veronica)
Pillars to Support a Crumbling Sky (Logan/Veronica, Keith&Veronica)
The Uniform Code (Logan/Veronica)
The Evening Shadows and the Stars (Logan/Veronica)
Same Old Story (but it's told a different way) (Logan/Veronica)
Shifts in Light (Logan/Lilly, minor Duncan/Veronica, implied Logan/Veronica)
Come As You Aren't, Come As You Are (Logan/Veronica)
The Quiet Sense of Something Found (Logan/Veronica)
Multiverse Theory (Wallace&Veronica, Logan/Veronica)
A Sudden Onset of Spirit (Veronica&Wallace, Veronica&Lilly)
Adrift, Ashore (Logan&OFC)
The Aching Land (Wallace/Jade)
The Ninety-Nine Percent (Logan/Veronica, Logan/OFC)
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?:
Last year I wrote that I had stopped predicting, but this year it just felt like more. It felt like it was coming fast and hard. I wrote more chapter fic this year, and when you are writing and posting chapter fic, you don't get a break. It's always there, in the background. It doesn't end, so it feels like more.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
I wrote more Weevil and Wallace than I thought I would, and far more Veronica Mars in general. And I wrote Lily/James again!
3. What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Probably The Quiet Sense of Something Found. It kind of hits my sweet spot, fluff-wise, in that the journey is recognized but the moment is still really calm and sweet but not overwhelming. There isn't a lot of extraneous stuff, but it's pretty well-rounded. And I feel like the tone I wanted- soft and warm and sun-drenched- really came through.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I did a lot of work with original characters. Jade, who narrates the last story I wrote, has basically one line in the Veronica Mars movie. I worked on Emily from The Ninety-Nine Percent a lot, trying to clarify her character and her relationship with Logan. And I let a totally original character have free reign over Adrift, Ashore- it's pretty similar to a fic I wrote a couple of years ago, Scenes in the Life of a Metalcrafter. The last was probably the most nervewracking (will people even show up for basically original fiction?) but overall I was pleasantly surprised by how supportive people were. But I'm becoming more aware of the care I need to take with OCs.
The other thing I did was post chapterfic without prewriting. I wrote my first chapterfic last year and I thought I could handle posting what I thought was going to be a two or maybe three chapter story, The Ninety-Nine Percent. But as I was writing it, I realized that I needed to put in the effort to write more, so it's been basically a year, I'm five chapters in with one to go and basically blocked. I did post my story Wingspan on a live, weekly or biweekly basis, which was pretty successful. But overall I realized, or it was driven home for me, that I, at least now, need to prewrite all or most of my stories before I start posting. It's only fair to the reader, and it's better for me because I can fiddle and keep things consistent because it's not out in the world yet.
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Finish The Ninety-Nine Percent. I want to try to write some more, but that's basically it. Finish that story.
6. From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
Of my Veronica Mars stories, probably Shifts in Light, which makes some sense, because it's a gendershift story, which might not be everyone's favorite. But even that was more popular than To Marvel and to Praise, or either of my Buffy/Angel stories.
Most Fun:
Probably Same Old Story (but it's told a different way). It's not, like, fun-fun but it came out pretty easily, and it still feels good to read over.
Most Disappointing:
I wish so much that I could have finished The Ninety-Nine Percent. So so much. I wish that I had kept my momentum up during September and October. I really think I could have finished it if I had pushed myself.
I wish that I had put more effort into a few stories: To Marvel and to Praise, Come As You Aren't, Come As You Are, and Multiverse Theory. I think they each have positive pieces and seeds, but I wish I had spent more time teasing them out and writing them fully, feeling like the characters were acting consistently and that the dialog really enhanced the story rather than circling a little, instead of just posting them to post them or for deadlines.
Most Sexy:
One small part of Wingspan, the reunion in the last chapter, and in a more minor, almost tonal way, The Quiet Sense of Something Found.
Hardest to Write:
The Ninety-Nine Percent. Undoubtedly. More than any story this year or any other.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
I never know what to do with this one. To Marvel and to Praise probably, because a lot of it came from my own thoughts about the wizarding consideration of muggles and muggle life.
Choice Lines:
“I hate you. So much,” she says, muffled, tears in her voice too. But it sounds like she loves him, and Angel closes his burning eyes because he doesn’t know which is worse.
Angel’s back and arms ache in the moment of the collapse and as he pushes up to get them out from underneath. He is a simple Atlas, only human, but protecting a world beneath him. - Never a Saint
“Like any church would even have me,” she joked, and the part of him that had wandered alone for a hundred years, the part that wished he could pray the rosary softened, and he said yes.
There was an exhaustion in her voice that he knew too well, a drained feeling from a two-decade lifetime when she was expected to give and give and give, repeated and relentless. - The Marks We Leave
Logan is her friend now in a way he has not been in many years.
"Imagine," she starts, "That you have a ridiculous amount of money and you want to break the law."
Mac doesn't even turn. "Well, you already just described my life, so, done."
He is a man in two dimensions, as if life has finally given up on him, and even Wiedman can't make up the difference.
She leans to kiss him again and he returns it lingeringly. She is murmuring his name over and over against his mouth- Logan, Logan, a solid, heartbeat name- over and over. And that's odd, too, because it was always him who couldn't stop talking, who would whisper filth and prayers and her name as if it wouldn't stay in his chest. - Wingspan
"We don't actually call it a proposal when you look up from your fettuccini and say, 'Let's put a ring on that finger so I get on the priority mailing list," Mac heard Logan whisper loudly from over Veronica's shoulder, but he had his hands in his pockets in a grinning sort of slouch and no one had been fooled. - We Do Not Flinch
Logan answered after a minute looking confused but alert, his bare skin disappearing as he pulled on a shirt.
Shame, she thought automatically, and then blew out a little stream of air. Keep it cool, girl.
"What's wrong?" Logan gestured her in, turning around and leaning over to grab his badge from the nightstand. Even in the dim light, Veronica could see the slide of his spine where his shirt hadn't fully pulled down in the back and the capableness of his long fingers as he fixed the star at his waist. Reaaal cool. - The Inner Moonlight
These things, these tiny protections, are enough for now: the way she makes him laugh despite himself over dinner, her raised eyebrow and tiny, unwilling, foolish smile when his eyes meet hers in the bathroom mirror as they brush their teeth, her cool palm over his heart as he falls asleep. - Cushion My Fall with Cotton Wool
"And I need her more, so go find some other shmo to pull up by his English-challenged bootstraps." Logan flicked his finger around the room for half a second, already leaning over his desk to turn Veronica’s chair around to face him. - One Is Silver
When she starts shivering in the stagnant air of the waiting room, he strikes up a conversation with a nurse who happens to have a son stationed in the Gulf and, after listening to her tell him four times how proud his mother must be, Veronica gets to wrap herself in three blankets.
And Veronica understands why it’s okay that he hasn’t touched her: because she doesn’t need him to hold her hand or press her against his chest to know that he is behind her, her instinctive shadow, her steadfast partner, unquestioning, unquestioned. - Pillars to Support a Crumbling Sky
He was half sitting, half leaning on his desk. The badge at his waist jutted out at an angle, almost resting on the desktop. His shoulders tensed, just a little, as he heard her come in. He closed the file he held around his finger and turned toward her. "I know it's government issue so it's probably pointless," he said, gesturing with the folder, "but could you possibly close the door before you start eviscerating me?" - The Evening Shadows and the Stars
"Sorry, amateur detective day is next week. But we do have a Junior Investigator badge for you on your way out."
"Oh, and by the way? I'm not Ned anything. I'm Frank fucking Hardy, and don't forget it, babe." - Same Old Story
As she sees the glint of water on Logan’s slim shoulders, Veronica wishes that there were things she could unknow. As she sees the tilted back joy of Logan's head as Lilly whispers in her ear, there's a part of Veronica that wishes things hadn’t changed. - Shifts in Light
She presses her lips against his spine, not kissing, just leaving them there as she takes a breath. He holds his, butterfly-gentle. He thinks he can feel the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin...Veronica pulls away after a minute, goes to sit in the breakfast nook, crooking one leg up in the bench and resting her chin on the knee. The sun falls behind her, glinting on blonde wood and light hair, and suddenly every promise that this house had made when he bought it is fulfilled.
But the fights they have now aren't fights of fear, and when they make up it isn't with desperate, clinging fingers. There's something settled about them now, permanent, a sense of long journeys and coming home to roost.
There is an ache in his chest, contentment with a border of lust, as he watches the way his t-shirt, an old one from just after Officer Training, falls around her.
He has a sense of intense presentness in that moment, a recognition of the warmth of the sun coming in the window, the cinnamon of the French toast and the richness of coffee around him, the neighbors' children splashing distantly in their pool next door. Veronica's toes tucked absently against his calf. - The Quiet Sense of Something Found (clearly I’m obsessed with this story; I just quoted basically the whole thing)
“Lucky for you, I think there’s still space in fourth period Remedial Bitch.” - A Sudden Onset of Spirit
You’d never noticed, until he paused as he thought about what you’d said, that his shaggy hair looked comforting rather than childish, and his eyes were this kind of blue that made you think of the soprano in your mom’s church singing Ave Maria.
You sing him “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” the Peter, Paul and Mary version that has always made you feel snug. That has always been your special song. You sang it to him the night he was born. You sang it to him the night you laid him in his nursery, the hospital blanket and pajamas and cap still on him. You sang it to him the night before you left. You sing it now, softly and softly and softer, until he is long past asleep and Gabe is resting his eyes on you and not even asking about the flying, just asking “Laur, are you okay?” - Adrift, Ashore
He is drained and dizzy from the anesthesia; the effort it takes to focus on her is obvious in his face. She presses her fingers into the empty space of mattress beside his thigh and smiles at him. She isn’t sure what it is- the ugly hospital lights, or his slow, slurry blinks, or the curve of bandages from beneath his hospital gown that makes it a little hard to breathe- but he looks almost unfamiliar to her. - The Aching Land
"Fine," Logan says, and, tired of people second-guessing his decisions, he and Emily go to find Cliff, who calls them "you wacky kids," and tells them the contract will be ready on Wednesday.
"Not with seventy-five percent in it, it won't," Emily interjects firmly. "The baby doesn't need six on-call hookers and a Bengal tiger.”
The baby kicks again, somewhere off to the side, but still hard enough that Logan feels it, and just for that moment his panic fades. He stops thinking about labor and feedings and the right number of breaths. He doesn't remember cigarette burns and broken noses, doesn't wonder if his father ever held his hand against his mother like this. The baby kicks, and he just feels his child against his hand.
On the hottest night they've had all summer, Logan is woken from a dream about running beside the ocean by his ringing phone. It is three am. "V'ronica?" he mumbles as he reaches for it, because that's what middle of the night phone calls mean to him: Veronica whispering to him from her place slouched in front of the Camelot.
He is just beginning to accept that he is not broken, that he is past-present-future tense breaking, but that he can pick up the pieces again and again, that every time he fractures it gets easier to put himself back together.
Matthew gives a drooly little yawn, reaching blindly toward Logan's face, his absurdly sharp baby nails scratching at Logan's chin. Logan takes the hand and holds it gently in his, looking down at its delicacy.
Logan watched for something more ineffable than warming a bottle to the right temperature or knowing how to bathe the baby safely. He watched Alexandra's mouth, and her big, pretty eyes in the moments when Matthew spat up on her or when he shrieked in lengthy, nonsensical fury. He watched her hands to make sure that she supported the small body not only according to the textbook, but with care. He watched for the tiny signs that she would be the same person when there is no one watching.
"Ah, the Party Witch. I think I read about you in my Mother Buzzkill fairy tale anthology," Logan says, already thinking of who should make the guest list.
"If my dad were still alive," he starts, and then pauses, watching as Matthew brushes a hand across his face, seeming almost aggravated even in his sleep. He could tell Veronica this because she knows how he feels about Aaron. He can tell Emily because she's the only one in the world who feels this way about this boy. "If my dad were still alive, I would kill him." He stares down at Matthew, watching him through the dark. "If there was a chance that he could be a danger to Mattie, I would make sure he wouldn't be around to hurt him."
"Snookums," Logan finally calls out the window, batting his eyes and tapping his fingers against the side of the car. "I've got a roast waiting in the oven and I know how you like your meat tender." - The Ninety-Nine Percent
Never a Saint (Buffy/Angel)
The Marks We Leave (Buffy/Angel, Angel&Faith)
Harry Potter
To Marvel and to Praise (Lily/James)
Veronica Mars
If Two of Them Are Dead (Weevil&Veronica)
Wingspan (Logan/Veronica)
We Do Not Flinch (Logan/Veronica, Veronica&Mac)
Inhale, Exhale (Logan&Lynn Echolls)
The Inner Moonlight (Logan/Veronica)
The Holy Dark (Logan/Veronica)
Cushion My Fall with Cotton Wool (Sweetheart) (Logan/Veronica)
Miles Away (from the places we used to be) (Logan/Veronica)
It's Not Hard to See the Heart in It (Veronica&Wallace, Logan/Veronica)
One is Silver (Logan/Veronica)
An Intro to Logan's Life in Five Screwy Steps (Logan/Veronica, Duncan/Veronica)
Pillars to Support a Crumbling Sky (Logan/Veronica, Keith&Veronica)
The Uniform Code (Logan/Veronica)
The Evening Shadows and the Stars (Logan/Veronica)
Same Old Story (but it's told a different way) (Logan/Veronica)
Shifts in Light (Logan/Lilly, minor Duncan/Veronica, implied Logan/Veronica)
Come As You Aren't, Come As You Are (Logan/Veronica)
The Quiet Sense of Something Found (Logan/Veronica)
Multiverse Theory (Wallace&Veronica, Logan/Veronica)
A Sudden Onset of Spirit (Veronica&Wallace, Veronica&Lilly)
Adrift, Ashore (Logan&OFC)
The Aching Land (Wallace/Jade)
The Ninety-Nine Percent (Logan/Veronica, Logan/OFC)
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?:
Last year I wrote that I had stopped predicting, but this year it just felt like more. It felt like it was coming fast and hard. I wrote more chapter fic this year, and when you are writing and posting chapter fic, you don't get a break. It's always there, in the background. It doesn't end, so it feels like more.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
I wrote more Weevil and Wallace than I thought I would, and far more Veronica Mars in general. And I wrote Lily/James again!
3. What's your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Probably The Quiet Sense of Something Found. It kind of hits my sweet spot, fluff-wise, in that the journey is recognized but the moment is still really calm and sweet but not overwhelming. There isn't a lot of extraneous stuff, but it's pretty well-rounded. And I feel like the tone I wanted- soft and warm and sun-drenched- really came through.
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
I did a lot of work with original characters. Jade, who narrates the last story I wrote, has basically one line in the Veronica Mars movie. I worked on Emily from The Ninety-Nine Percent a lot, trying to clarify her character and her relationship with Logan. And I let a totally original character have free reign over Adrift, Ashore- it's pretty similar to a fic I wrote a couple of years ago, Scenes in the Life of a Metalcrafter. The last was probably the most nervewracking (will people even show up for basically original fiction?) but overall I was pleasantly surprised by how supportive people were. But I'm becoming more aware of the care I need to take with OCs.
The other thing I did was post chapterfic without prewriting. I wrote my first chapterfic last year and I thought I could handle posting what I thought was going to be a two or maybe three chapter story, The Ninety-Nine Percent. But as I was writing it, I realized that I needed to put in the effort to write more, so it's been basically a year, I'm five chapters in with one to go and basically blocked. I did post my story Wingspan on a live, weekly or biweekly basis, which was pretty successful. But overall I realized, or it was driven home for me, that I, at least now, need to prewrite all or most of my stories before I start posting. It's only fair to the reader, and it's better for me because I can fiddle and keep things consistent because it's not out in the world yet.
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
Finish The Ninety-Nine Percent. I want to try to write some more, but that's basically it. Finish that story.
6. From my past year of writing, what was...
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
Of my Veronica Mars stories, probably Shifts in Light, which makes some sense, because it's a gendershift story, which might not be everyone's favorite. But even that was more popular than To Marvel and to Praise, or either of my Buffy/Angel stories.
Most Fun:
Probably Same Old Story (but it's told a different way). It's not, like, fun-fun but it came out pretty easily, and it still feels good to read over.
Most Disappointing:
I wish so much that I could have finished The Ninety-Nine Percent. So so much. I wish that I had kept my momentum up during September and October. I really think I could have finished it if I had pushed myself.
I wish that I had put more effort into a few stories: To Marvel and to Praise, Come As You Aren't, Come As You Are, and Multiverse Theory. I think they each have positive pieces and seeds, but I wish I had spent more time teasing them out and writing them fully, feeling like the characters were acting consistently and that the dialog really enhanced the story rather than circling a little, instead of just posting them to post them or for deadlines.
Most Sexy:
One small part of Wingspan, the reunion in the last chapter, and in a more minor, almost tonal way, The Quiet Sense of Something Found.
Hardest to Write:
The Ninety-Nine Percent. Undoubtedly. More than any story this year or any other.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
I never know what to do with this one. To Marvel and to Praise probably, because a lot of it came from my own thoughts about the wizarding consideration of muggles and muggle life.
Choice Lines:
“I hate you. So much,” she says, muffled, tears in her voice too. But it sounds like she loves him, and Angel closes his burning eyes because he doesn’t know which is worse.
Angel’s back and arms ache in the moment of the collapse and as he pushes up to get them out from underneath. He is a simple Atlas, only human, but protecting a world beneath him. - Never a Saint
“Like any church would even have me,” she joked, and the part of him that had wandered alone for a hundred years, the part that wished he could pray the rosary softened, and he said yes.
There was an exhaustion in her voice that he knew too well, a drained feeling from a two-decade lifetime when she was expected to give and give and give, repeated and relentless. - The Marks We Leave
Logan is her friend now in a way he has not been in many years.
"Imagine," she starts, "That you have a ridiculous amount of money and you want to break the law."
Mac doesn't even turn. "Well, you already just described my life, so, done."
He is a man in two dimensions, as if life has finally given up on him, and even Wiedman can't make up the difference.
She leans to kiss him again and he returns it lingeringly. She is murmuring his name over and over against his mouth- Logan, Logan, a solid, heartbeat name- over and over. And that's odd, too, because it was always him who couldn't stop talking, who would whisper filth and prayers and her name as if it wouldn't stay in his chest. - Wingspan
"We don't actually call it a proposal when you look up from your fettuccini and say, 'Let's put a ring on that finger so I get on the priority mailing list," Mac heard Logan whisper loudly from over Veronica's shoulder, but he had his hands in his pockets in a grinning sort of slouch and no one had been fooled. - We Do Not Flinch
Logan answered after a minute looking confused but alert, his bare skin disappearing as he pulled on a shirt.
Shame, she thought automatically, and then blew out a little stream of air. Keep it cool, girl.
"What's wrong?" Logan gestured her in, turning around and leaning over to grab his badge from the nightstand. Even in the dim light, Veronica could see the slide of his spine where his shirt hadn't fully pulled down in the back and the capableness of his long fingers as he fixed the star at his waist. Reaaal cool. - The Inner Moonlight
These things, these tiny protections, are enough for now: the way she makes him laugh despite himself over dinner, her raised eyebrow and tiny, unwilling, foolish smile when his eyes meet hers in the bathroom mirror as they brush their teeth, her cool palm over his heart as he falls asleep. - Cushion My Fall with Cotton Wool
"And I need her more, so go find some other shmo to pull up by his English-challenged bootstraps." Logan flicked his finger around the room for half a second, already leaning over his desk to turn Veronica’s chair around to face him. - One Is Silver
When she starts shivering in the stagnant air of the waiting room, he strikes up a conversation with a nurse who happens to have a son stationed in the Gulf and, after listening to her tell him four times how proud his mother must be, Veronica gets to wrap herself in three blankets.
And Veronica understands why it’s okay that he hasn’t touched her: because she doesn’t need him to hold her hand or press her against his chest to know that he is behind her, her instinctive shadow, her steadfast partner, unquestioning, unquestioned. - Pillars to Support a Crumbling Sky
He was half sitting, half leaning on his desk. The badge at his waist jutted out at an angle, almost resting on the desktop. His shoulders tensed, just a little, as he heard her come in. He closed the file he held around his finger and turned toward her. "I know it's government issue so it's probably pointless," he said, gesturing with the folder, "but could you possibly close the door before you start eviscerating me?" - The Evening Shadows and the Stars
"Sorry, amateur detective day is next week. But we do have a Junior Investigator badge for you on your way out."
"Oh, and by the way? I'm not Ned anything. I'm Frank fucking Hardy, and don't forget it, babe." - Same Old Story
As she sees the glint of water on Logan’s slim shoulders, Veronica wishes that there were things she could unknow. As she sees the tilted back joy of Logan's head as Lilly whispers in her ear, there's a part of Veronica that wishes things hadn’t changed. - Shifts in Light
She presses her lips against his spine, not kissing, just leaving them there as she takes a breath. He holds his, butterfly-gentle. He thinks he can feel the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin...Veronica pulls away after a minute, goes to sit in the breakfast nook, crooking one leg up in the bench and resting her chin on the knee. The sun falls behind her, glinting on blonde wood and light hair, and suddenly every promise that this house had made when he bought it is fulfilled.
But the fights they have now aren't fights of fear, and when they make up it isn't with desperate, clinging fingers. There's something settled about them now, permanent, a sense of long journeys and coming home to roost.
There is an ache in his chest, contentment with a border of lust, as he watches the way his t-shirt, an old one from just after Officer Training, falls around her.
He has a sense of intense presentness in that moment, a recognition of the warmth of the sun coming in the window, the cinnamon of the French toast and the richness of coffee around him, the neighbors' children splashing distantly in their pool next door. Veronica's toes tucked absently against his calf. - The Quiet Sense of Something Found (clearly I’m obsessed with this story; I just quoted basically the whole thing)
“Lucky for you, I think there’s still space in fourth period Remedial Bitch.” - A Sudden Onset of Spirit
You’d never noticed, until he paused as he thought about what you’d said, that his shaggy hair looked comforting rather than childish, and his eyes were this kind of blue that made you think of the soprano in your mom’s church singing Ave Maria.
You sing him “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” the Peter, Paul and Mary version that has always made you feel snug. That has always been your special song. You sang it to him the night he was born. You sang it to him the night you laid him in his nursery, the hospital blanket and pajamas and cap still on him. You sang it to him the night before you left. You sing it now, softly and softly and softer, until he is long past asleep and Gabe is resting his eyes on you and not even asking about the flying, just asking “Laur, are you okay?” - Adrift, Ashore
He is drained and dizzy from the anesthesia; the effort it takes to focus on her is obvious in his face. She presses her fingers into the empty space of mattress beside his thigh and smiles at him. She isn’t sure what it is- the ugly hospital lights, or his slow, slurry blinks, or the curve of bandages from beneath his hospital gown that makes it a little hard to breathe- but he looks almost unfamiliar to her. - The Aching Land
"Fine," Logan says, and, tired of people second-guessing his decisions, he and Emily go to find Cliff, who calls them "you wacky kids," and tells them the contract will be ready on Wednesday.
"Not with seventy-five percent in it, it won't," Emily interjects firmly. "The baby doesn't need six on-call hookers and a Bengal tiger.”
The baby kicks again, somewhere off to the side, but still hard enough that Logan feels it, and just for that moment his panic fades. He stops thinking about labor and feedings and the right number of breaths. He doesn't remember cigarette burns and broken noses, doesn't wonder if his father ever held his hand against his mother like this. The baby kicks, and he just feels his child against his hand.
On the hottest night they've had all summer, Logan is woken from a dream about running beside the ocean by his ringing phone. It is three am. "V'ronica?" he mumbles as he reaches for it, because that's what middle of the night phone calls mean to him: Veronica whispering to him from her place slouched in front of the Camelot.
He is just beginning to accept that he is not broken, that he is past-present-future tense breaking, but that he can pick up the pieces again and again, that every time he fractures it gets easier to put himself back together.
Matthew gives a drooly little yawn, reaching blindly toward Logan's face, his absurdly sharp baby nails scratching at Logan's chin. Logan takes the hand and holds it gently in his, looking down at its delicacy.
Logan watched for something more ineffable than warming a bottle to the right temperature or knowing how to bathe the baby safely. He watched Alexandra's mouth, and her big, pretty eyes in the moments when Matthew spat up on her or when he shrieked in lengthy, nonsensical fury. He watched her hands to make sure that she supported the small body not only according to the textbook, but with care. He watched for the tiny signs that she would be the same person when there is no one watching.
"Ah, the Party Witch. I think I read about you in my Mother Buzzkill fairy tale anthology," Logan says, already thinking of who should make the guest list.
"If my dad were still alive," he starts, and then pauses, watching as Matthew brushes a hand across his face, seeming almost aggravated even in his sleep. He could tell Veronica this because she knows how he feels about Aaron. He can tell Emily because she's the only one in the world who feels this way about this boy. "If my dad were still alive, I would kill him." He stares down at Matthew, watching him through the dark. "If there was a chance that he could be a danger to Mattie, I would make sure he wouldn't be around to hurt him."
"Snookums," Logan finally calls out the window, batting his eyes and tapping his fingers against the side of the car. "I've got a roast waiting in the oven and I know how you like your meat tender." - The Ninety-Nine Percent