Fic: Stranger in a Strange Land (Logan, Veronica) R
Title: Stranger in a Strange Land
Author: boyfriendincoma
Pairing/Character: Logan, Veronica
Word Count: 4,847
Rating: R (for disturbing themes)
Summary: All teenagers, except one, grow up.
Spoilers: Takes place some time after 1.19.
Warnings: One really outrageous premise and disturbing themes.
Notes: Thank you, eolivet for your beta work and encouragement. All mistakes are mine.
From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.
It hurt.
Five minutes earlier
"Get out," she said.
"What?" I asked, not comprehending what prompted her to stop the car and open my car door.
"Fuck off," she repeated, the angry scowl still in place.
"You are kicking me out in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, because I insulted your car?"
"And here I thought you were one of those children who were left behind." There was no humor in her voice.
"And I get home.... how?"
"Don't care. Hitchhike. Call a cab. Just get out."
She didn't look at me, just looked at the empty road in front of her. I gave up and got out of the car.
"Hey," she said, finally looking at me again. "Don't forget your spray cheese." She threw the can at me, shut the door and took off.
Bitch.
Five minutes later
So there I stood in the middle of nowhere, armed with only a can of spray cheese, good looks and charm. No cellphone, no money, dependent on the kindness of strangers.... But I was lucky - soon after Queen Bitch kicked me out, an old Chevy stopped and a guy who looked like he had survived solely on smack longer than Iggy Pop asked me where I wanted to go. "Anywhere but here," I said to Iggy, who promptly invited me into his 69 Impala.
Iggy started to quiz me about my age, my family, my friends and I quickly spun a yarn about my dead mom, my abusive dad, my bitchy girlfriend with the commitment issues and my best friend on the run... Okay, I didn't spin a yarn. I wanted to, ripping off a bit of J.T. Leroy, a bit of Palahniuk, a bit of Kerouac, but for some reason every time I wanted to lie... I just didn't, no matter how hard I tried.
Just when Iggy's creepy quotient and success rate with his twenty questions had me considering jumping out of the car at sixty miles an hour, I felt the guy burying his face into the crook of my neck, which was more than a litte bit gay.
Now I am hot stuff, but I don't really swing that way when I am sober, however much Dick Casablancas might pray for otherwise. 'Next stop I'm calling Dick to pick me up. At least he will buy me dinner first,' I thought when I felt the guy's teeth burying themselves in my jugular. Which hurt (a lot), but was thankfully a lot less gay than the necking earlier.
"Hey...," I said weakly before I realized that there would be no need for Dick buying me dinner anymore since I was currently on the menu. And not in the good 'get off on it' way either, but rather in that soon-to-be-dead way.
I pushed Iggy away, pulled the handbrake, got out of the car and ran into what appeared to be some sort of woods. But the blood running from my neck wound soaked my t-shirt and so I quickly lost interest in my surroundings. Unsurprisingly - considering the amount of blood, I had lost and was still losing - I collapsed pretty quickly, but at least the ground felt cool and soft under my body. I closed my eyes, not caring anymore if Iggy caught up with me, and tried to think of Lilly. Instead I thought of Veronica. I wish I could say that I was angry. I wish I could say that I was mean. I wish I could say I was a jackass when I died.
Five hours later
I opened my eyes and the sun hurt. I crawled into the shade of a neighbouring tree was greeted by the toothy grin of Iggy. The sunlight made him paler and sicklier looking than ever, yet was reflected so brightly in his grin that the Crest people would have sold their first-borns for it.
"Oh fuck."
Five days later
The view from Veronica's ceiling was excellent; she nearly had cleavage from my vantage point.
"Okay, I believe you," she said, throwing up her hands in defeat, before getting quickly back to business. "So what happened with your father?"
"Say what you want about him," I came back to the ground and less exciting prospects. "But he never let me hunger."
Veronica didn't find this funny. I guess patricide is only funny when it's hypothetical.
"He killed Lilly," I said flatly, trying not to think of the bastard and how his body had sagged in my arms when I drained the life out of him.
Her eyes grew wide with surprise. "He did what?"
"He... I....." I shook my head, shaking off the taste of his blood on my tongue like sticky spiderwebs and started again. "You know I died and... then... I didn't. So when I came home...," my voice broke for a second. "I tried to talk to him. I... I listed all the shit that happened to me. Lately... and in general. When I mentioned Lilly his heart rate picked up."
"His heart rate picked up?" Veronica stared at me disbelievingly.
I could see why that wasn't exactly a winning argument to convince Veronica of Daddy Dearest's guilt. "So I questioned him about Lilly and his heart raced like a Formula One car." I said remembering the empty expression on his face, his fiddling hands, his evasive eyes, the smell of cold sweat. "I asked and asked until he practically admitted it."
"But... Logan, you should have called...."
"The Sheriff? What I was supposed to say, Veronica? 'My daddy is going to fail a lie detector test if questioned about the Lilly Kane murder'? A crime someone else is already on death row for?" God, how could she be so naive sometimes? "Pull the other leg."
"But you can't kill people." There were tears standing in her eyes. "This is not how things work. This is not how I work. We don't do..." Her voice became a hoarse whisper. "We are not Charles Bronson, Logan. We have a system, we have laws, we have...."
"Oh, that's why they aquitted O.J.? I see it now," I gave a her bitter and insincere smile." Come on, my father wouldn't have spent one day in prison and you know it."
"But...."
"What do you want to do, Veronica? Go to Lamb and tell him that Aaron Echolls was just bit too anemic to drive his last and fatal drive on the Pacific Coast Highway? Even if he believes you, who is this going to help?"
She turned away from me and shook her head. Her heart beat faster than my father's had when I asked him if he had fucked Lilly. She took a few, supposedly calming breaths, then turned around again.
"If you ever... ever," she emphasized the word 'ever' with pointed stabs of her index finger to my sternum, "ever kill another human being again, I am going to kill you. Believe me, I'm going to keep my eyes out for any mysterious disappearances and deaths."
I raised my hands in surrender, since I figured that baring my throat in submission would not win any points with her right now. "I don't even need human blood to survive. That's just a myth."
"You'll forgive me if I am currently not really seeing that."
"Iggy said...," I said before she interrupted me.
"Who?"
"Well, he did look like Iggy Pop's drug habit personified." Seeing her blank look, I added: "The guy who killed me. I don't know his real name."
"You talked to him?" The blank look had been quickly replaced by one of disgust. "And what do mean with 'looked like'?"
"Since he volunteered to give me the 101, I could hardly say no, could I? And I am getting to this, trust me" I smiled at her. "Anyway he gave me the basics. Strengths: increased everything.... you know - the usual. Weaknesses: none." Turned out the stuff about sunlight and holy water was just crap. Which was a relief, considering I lived in Southern California and had no plans to move to Alaska.
"None at all?" Veronica sounded surprised.
"Well, I have one for a hot blonde."
She rolled her eyes and signaled me to continue.
"Food: blood of mammals and birds. Reptiles and fish are acceptable, but supposedly suck. No pun intended. Oh, and the only way to die is by decapitation."
She pulled a face. And I hadn't even told her yet what happened to poor expired Iggy. Oh, man, I was so gonna be in the doghouse tonight.
Five weeks later
"So when are you going to turn me into Elvira, Mistress of Darkness?"
Trust Veronica to turn the post-coital bliss into a talk about my ignorance about my own existence. Maybe she was trying to be cute or wanted to me to imagine her in a black corset. As if that was necessary to convince me of the necessity for another round. Instead I now had to own up to not actually being as omniscient as I pretended to be. "I have no idea how that could be even done."
She propped herself on one elbow, looking my into the eyes. My eyes were too preoccupied with her naked body to reciprocate in kind. "What do you mean with 'you don't know'?"
I covered my eyes for a second, the afternoon sun seemed to shine too brightly through Veronica's blinds. "I don't know. Iggy never told me. For all I know I would have to drive the PCH up and down while endlessly repeating 'mimblewimble.'"
She laughed, then got serious again. "But you must remember your own death."
I sat up and pulled the cover up to my waist. I counted the threads in the fabric, then turned to her. "I am not going to play trial and error with you. Not when the error is fatal." I smiled. "And if I play trial and error with someone else, you are going to kill me. Either way, the odds of one of us ending up dead are.... Well," I shrugged and my smile turned into a nasty grin. "You don't need to worry about me drinking any human blood though. Cats are procreating too fast anyway."
Her face turned into one of shock and disgust. I laughed. "I'm joking. I would never touch a cat." I laid a hand on the spot where my heart was no longer beating. "Scouts honor."
She elbowed me into the ribs. "Not. Funny."
"Ouch." I exclaimed. "That hurt."
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "I thought you were indestructible. Like the Terminator."
"You mean, like Superman."
"Like Robocop."
"Or like Superman?"
"Like Walker Texas Ranger?"
"Or Superman? Ring a bell?"
"Or...," her eyes grew wide in mirth. "Count Duckula."
"Oh, come on!"
"Duckula." She laughed. "Of course, you are so Duckie."
"I'm not Duckie. If anything, I'm James Spader."
"Duckie. Duckie. Duckie."
"Duckie was gay!"
"And you're not?"
"I'm definitely not gay!"
"The lady doth protest too much."
"I'm not a lady!"
She giggled.
"And I'm not gay!"
"Seriously, dressing up as Tom Cruise..."
"Duncan dressed up as Duckie!"
"And you can do this hand gesture," she waved her spread hands across her chest in a quite exaggerated manner. "better than Gina Gershon."
"That doesn't make me gay! Hey, wait, does watching Showgirls not automatically prove that I'm not gay?"
She shook her head and looked at me with something that could have counted for pity if the mocking tone of her voice hadn't indicated otherwise. " Awww," she pouted for a second, before she openly laughed at me again. "No. The camp factor is too high."
"That movie came out when I was nine! That's like Granny-vision!"
"Well, if the shoe fits...."
"I'm not gay! And I'm not into grannies. Do you want a demonstration of both?"
Her smile grew wide. "I thought you would never ask."
"Oh, you bitch."
Five months later
"Logan, could you stop for a moment. I think I have to tell you something."
She couldn't have thought of a worse moment for a talk. Well, except one or two. "You know that I don't need to breathe, right?"
"That's kind of the problem...." She left the rest unsaid.
I frowned, not comprehending what she was saying.
She started again: "You know, your diving technique is really, really... really excellent, but your.... body temperature is kind of around seventy degrees...." She didn't look me in the eyes, but rather looked into some far away corner of my living room. "And your mouth and tongue are around room temperature as well. It's... weird."
I stared at her a second in shock before I realized what she was trying to tell me. "You are not really comparing my tongue with a slug, are you?!"
The guilty look in her eyes and the accelerated heartbeat said it all, although her words belied the facts: "You said that!"
"But you thought it!"
"I didn't say that!"
"But you thought 'slug'!"
"I did not!
"Did."
"Did not."
I took a breath I didn't need, then got off the floor and stalked into the direction of the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" She ran after me.
"I'm gonna nurse my wounded pride with some spray cheese."
"Oh, no." Her face grew angry. "You're not going to pull that guilt trip number on me for something I didn't even say."
"What guilt trip number?" I turned around and looked her into the eyes. "Oh, you mean the thing were you PMS-ed and kicked me out of your car with nothing but a can of spray cheese to get killed? I'm sorry, Veronica, that my body can't produce enough heat anymore to give good head. But whose fault is that anyway?"
"See, you are doing it again! Every time I do something you don't like you're giving me the spray cheese monologue!"
"What - can't cope with the truth?"
"Look...," she sighed, her shoulders dropped in defeat. If I played my cards right she would be back on her back on the couch in less than five minutes.
"I'm sorry," she continued, her shoulders slumping further. "And believe me, there will be never a day when I am not going to be sorry, but... I just don't want.... just let's lay off the part where I am supposed to be gratified by.... you know." She thought for a second. "Outside of a sauna anyway."
I turned around to search for the nearest phone.
"What are you doing?"
"I always wanted a sauna in this house."
She sat down on the couch and let out a hysterical laugh and buried her face in her hands. "This is so fucking surreal." Then she turned to me: "It must be nice to be an independently wealthy, emancipated minor. But really, you shouldn't waste your money on this... on me."
"Who says I'm doing it for you?"
"Well, I figured...."
Oh, she was too cute. "Oh, man, you're such a virgin."
"Am not."
"Yes, you are."
She shook her head once more, then chose to change topics: "Will you ever lay off the spray cheese?"
"No." She frowned at me and I tried to placate her for a second: "But I'm pretty sure that the FDA is going to ban it sooner or later."
She looked heavenwards and folded her hands in a gesture of prayer: "Oh, please, FDA!" She looked at me. "You think they'll react to a letter-writing campaign? Blackmail? Incriminating photos?"
"Well, if they do I just have to smuggle them in from Mexico in bulk."
She threw a pillow at me.
Five years later
Mars Investigations still retained the same 'stained-glass, cheap wood backwater office' look it had when I first set my foot in it. Only the 'Keith' on the glass door had been replaced by 'Veronica' and the calls were made by a boring brunette with glasses, while the hot blonde with the useless college degree waited for me to pick her up for our daily lunch date. 'Waiting' meaning working and telling me "to go ahead," because she needed another five (as in fifteen) minutes.
Not that I minded, having successfully avoided a career that involved anything that could be interpreted as work, I had nothing but time. Thirty minutes after she had told me to go ahead, Veronica finally sat down at my table.
I smiled at her. Resassuringly, not showing my teeth. "I thought about our future."
She raised her eyebrows.
"I figured.... well, if we don't get married now, you'll look like a total perve in our wedding pictures."
She stared at me for a second, as if she didn't understand what I just said. But her heart raced in her chest and blood rushed to her cheeks.
"So what do you think about a Christmas wedding?"
She picked at some non-existent lint on the tablecoth, then picked it from her jacket. After she finally let go of the imaginary piece of lint, she looked at me and asked: "Do you think this is a good idea?" She shook her head once more. "You know, I'm not getting any younger." She let out a snort, but continued: "And you're not getting any older."
"That's just.... appearances. Who gives a shit?"
She didn't appear to hear me: "And maybe I just... want a normal life. A normal husband.... kids, the white garden fence.... not this freak show."
She was trying to bait me, I was sure of it. Time for the last resort of the desperate. "Veronica, have I ever told you how I died?"
She didn't look at me. She didn't react at all.
"I was lying there, bleeding to death and all I could think of was you." She looked at me and I looked her in the eyes and grabbed her right hand with both of mine. "I wasn't angry, Veronica, that my life was over. I had no regrets except for one." I held her hand against my cold cheek. "That I would never see you again."
She looked back down on the tablecloth, studying it intensively.
"Veronica, I love you. I want to be with you."
She still didn't look at me.
"Do you love me, Veronica?"
She looked up, dry-eyed and replied with a bitter tint in her voice: "Will you leave me if I say no?"
I laughed: "As if."
"What's the point of answering then?"
"Come on. Don't be an ass. Is it that horrible to marry me?"
"Now?" Her mouth twisted into a sad mimicry of a smile. "I don't know. But in fifteen years though when I am going to look like I could be your mom...."
"That's the genius of it, really," I said enthusiastically.
She looked at me like I had gone mad. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"We get married now, Veronica. We have big wedding and then we get a house and a white garden fence and a dog...." I smiled at her. "And then we are going to live like normal people for the next fifteen years."
"And then...?" she asked.
"And then... I will 'die'." I winked at her. "Believe me, I make a very convincing corpse." I thought for a second. "I have a problem with doing a good rigor mortis though." A good rigor mortis is really quite difficult, especially if you are ticklish.
She pulled a face.
"Anyway," I continued. "You'll be my very rich widow and grief-stricken as you are you'll move far, far away, where you and your son Logan Echolls Junior will live in another normal house with a white garden fence and a dog and all the normalcy you could ever want."
"You mean, except the part where I screw my new son?" She sounded upset.
I didn't really get why that upset her, but gave her my most winning smile: "Incest is a game the whole family can play."
She stood up, borrowed a glass of red wine from a neigboring table, emptied it over my head and left.
What a bitch.
Five decades later
"Mrs. Henrickson just asked if I adopted you," Veronica said, coming back from outdoors. She was apparently quite upset, her heart flickered irregularly.
"What did you tell her?" I asked sorting through the letters she had brought with her.
"That it's none of her business."
"Go you," I said and went into the living room.
"Have you heard anything I just told you," she asked coming after me.
"I heard you very well. Mrs. Henrickson was being a bitch."
"Mrs. Henrickson is right, you know," she said pensively. "I'm seventy-three. I shouldn't have a seventeen-year old son."
"Who cares anyway?"
"Logan...," there were tears standing in her eyes. "The white in my hair is not peroxide-based, it grows that way. I am old." She said the word like it was dirty. "And you're not."
I sighed and gave in. "Okay, let's move then. I always wanted to be Logan Echolls the Third anyway."
She smiled sadly at me, then bit her bottom lip: "Don't you think we should just... stop. This is absolutely ridiculous and... you look.... and I'm...."
"What? Is this about me being a pervert because you have white hair and wrinkles?" I couldn't believe it. "Are you serious?"
She didn't even dignify that with a response.
"You're screwing the re-animated corpse for half a century and I'm the pervert for not looking like the seventy-two years I spent on this planet."
Her heart fluttered in her chest. Obviously she hadn't liked the dig at her supposed necrophilia. "This is not about me...."
"Oh, yes," I interrupted her. "It is."
I sighed and embraced her slightly dumpy frame. "I love you. I want you. I don't care how old you are. I just...." I smiled in her hair. She was right, it did grow white now. "...want you. You're the only person that makes life worth living. You're my life." I tilted up her face to look into her eyes. "We've been creepy all our lives, Veronica. Why stop now?"
I kissed her and ran my tongue along her false teeth.
...So maybe she was right and I am pervert and this was wrong. But really, some things are just so wrong, they are right. If there ever was a list of things that are so wrong that they're right, Veronica would definitely take the number two spot - after my very own perpetual hotness.
Five years later
"So what did the good doctor say?"
Veronica had finally come home, one hand still curled around the handle of her cane. She put her cane away, then went through the long process of removing her coat and her shoes. It pained me to watch her, but I know she would reject my help like the thousand times she had rejected it before. "You're not my nurse" she always said and that distinction gave her so much pleasure, so much satisfaction....
She had finally gotten off her shoes and sat next to me on the couch. She didn't say anything for a long time.
"The doctor said...," she stopped herself for a second then the corners of her mouth lifted in a bittersweet smile. "I'm old and my body is failing me. That's what she said."
She seemed to cheer up and got up to move to the kitchen. "But don't worry, it's going to end all very soon."
"What?!" I shot up from the couch and within a split-second stood in front of her. "What did you say?"
She gave me a very clear look that showed that no matter how weak her body had grown in the past months, her mind was as strong as ever. "My body is failing and I'm going to die."
"You're lying"
"I'm not." She gave me a steely glare. "Logan, that's the natural order of things and you cannot argue it away like a high schooler in a debate competition. Grow up already."
"You're not leaving me alone."
"Oh, I didn't even know this was about you." She pointed to herself. "I'm dying. This has nothing to do with you."
"It has everything to do with me and...." I swallowed but felt like a lump in my throat. "You are not going to die."
"Try me," she replied angrily.
She turned around and went into the garden, into the sunshine. I didn't follow her.
Five months later
She had wanted to move back to Neptune, back home. So we did.
The white garden fence was replaced with an ocean view, and the cane with a wheelchair as Veronica grew weaker. Nurses came daily doing all the things she never wanted my help for.
Soon after we moved she asked me to show her the spot where I had died. I hesitated for only a second, then drove her to the spot that I remembered being green and uninhabited and was only mildly surprised to find a supermarket where Iggy had turned to dust. Joni Mitchell always had struck me as a crazy-eyed Cassandra. But the whole thing was just anti-climactic.
Even the terminally-ill woman beside me noticed: "This is not exactly how I envisioned it."
"It's not exactly as I remember it either."
We stared at shoppers leaving, carrying vegetables and bottled water. It was a long time before I broke the silence: "What did you envision?"
She didn't answer, but her heart fluttered like a little sick bird.
I looked at her small frame, having grown thin and frail in the last three months - veins peeking through the too-pale skin of her arms, her arthritic hands, her bowed posture, her wispy white hair. Veronica. My Veronica.
"I could...." I swallowed tears I didn't allow myself to cry. She had made pretty clear that she didn't want to see them. "I could change you."
She smiled indulgently at me as if I was child who had brought flowers stolen from the neighbor's garden. "You don't even know how to do that."
I gave her a wide smile without any warmth, showing all of my teeth in their shiny perfection. "Trust me, I have a pretty good idea how it's done."
She snorted: "Oh, really?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Your teeth are not getting within a two miles radius of me."
"But...."
"No," she said resolutely. "I don't want any discussion on this." She frowned at the supermarket - or perhaps Iggy's imaginary sad remains (Who can tell with women anyway?) - then asked: "Can we go home now?"
Five weeks later
"Please think about it."
"No."
"Please, Veronica." She had reduced me to begging, but she still showed no signs of changing her mind. "Don't leave me."
"Logan," she sighed, in her eyes the same steely resolve she had since I first brought it up. "No. I don't want to be like you. I...." She stopped and closed her eyes. Laying in the bed she hadn't left in a week, she looked like she was already dead. Only the sound of her heartbeat betrayed the illusion.
"Keep breathing! Damnit." I wanted to scream, but all what came out was a choked sob.
She opened her eyes again and her chest rose when she breathed in again.
"Logan, please," she raised her hand to my face. It felt cold. "Let it be."
I grabbed her hand. "Please?"
She looked away from me, through the window out of the ocean. The sky was gray, the horizon clouded in morning fog. She spoke as if from far away, as if she was talking with someone else: "I want to see my friends again."
I couldn't contain my cynicism. "Who says that you will? Who says that there is something after you...." I couldn't finish the sentence... I couldn't finish the thought.
"There's gotta be something better than this." She sounded exhausted. I suppressed the urge to hug her close, like a tired child. "And even if there isn't...." She closed her eyes again and her words became a soft, silent murmur. "This is not the kind of life I want to last forever."
Five days later
She had stopped eating. Her body smelled like it was already decaying, although her heart was still beating. I held her hand, which seemed to grow more fragile with every second. Through the windows the morning sun shone. It was spring and there was a promise of new life in the air everywhere, except in this room.
She opened her eyes, her dim eyes fixated on me.
"Logan?"
I nodded, I didn't dare to speak out of fear that I would break down and upset her.
"When I said earlier," her voice was hoarse and crumbling. "That I want to see all my friends again...." She coughed. Water was already collecting in her lungs. I grabbed her hand tighter. "You are one of my friends too." She gave me a weak smile. "I want to see you again."
"Oh, Veronica." I started crying.
Five hours later
I didn't let go of her hand. Her heart fluttered and faltered, her breathing became more and more labored and painful. The sun shone through the open window and crowned her white hair with a golden halo.
For the last time, she opened her eyes. She smiled at me. Then she died while I helplessly looked on.
Five minutes later
I've never been afraid to find out how it feels to die. And if Veronica wanted to see me again, then I would make sure that she wouldn't miss me for even a second.
I remembered that day long ago, when I had grabbed Iggy's head with my bare hands and torn it from his body, watching him turn to dust. It would be so much more difficult to do that to my own body, but not impossible - I knew that I had the strength for it.
I gave the body that had been my Veronica for so long a last glance and then....
Five seconds later
It hurt.
This is was originally conceived as the cracktastic answer to the vmwhat_if challenge given to me: "What if (in Afternoon Delight) Veronica and Logan end up fighting the whole ride back to Neptune and Veronica won’t speak to Logan for a few days?"
Author: boyfriendincoma
Pairing/Character: Logan, Veronica
Word Count: 4,847
Rating: R (for disturbing themes)
Summary: All teenagers, except one, grow up.
Spoilers: Takes place some time after 1.19.
Warnings: One really outrageous premise and disturbing themes.
Notes: Thank you, eolivet for your beta work and encouragement. All mistakes are mine.
From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.
It hurt.
Five minutes earlier
"Get out," she said.
"What?" I asked, not comprehending what prompted her to stop the car and open my car door.
"Fuck off," she repeated, the angry scowl still in place.
"You are kicking me out in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, because I insulted your car?"
"And here I thought you were one of those children who were left behind." There was no humor in her voice.
"And I get home.... how?"
"Don't care. Hitchhike. Call a cab. Just get out."
She didn't look at me, just looked at the empty road in front of her. I gave up and got out of the car.
"Hey," she said, finally looking at me again. "Don't forget your spray cheese." She threw the can at me, shut the door and took off.
Bitch.
Five minutes later
So there I stood in the middle of nowhere, armed with only a can of spray cheese, good looks and charm. No cellphone, no money, dependent on the kindness of strangers.... But I was lucky - soon after Queen Bitch kicked me out, an old Chevy stopped and a guy who looked like he had survived solely on smack longer than Iggy Pop asked me where I wanted to go. "Anywhere but here," I said to Iggy, who promptly invited me into his 69 Impala.
Iggy started to quiz me about my age, my family, my friends and I quickly spun a yarn about my dead mom, my abusive dad, my bitchy girlfriend with the commitment issues and my best friend on the run... Okay, I didn't spin a yarn. I wanted to, ripping off a bit of J.T. Leroy, a bit of Palahniuk, a bit of Kerouac, but for some reason every time I wanted to lie... I just didn't, no matter how hard I tried.
Just when Iggy's creepy quotient and success rate with his twenty questions had me considering jumping out of the car at sixty miles an hour, I felt the guy burying his face into the crook of my neck, which was more than a litte bit gay.
Now I am hot stuff, but I don't really swing that way when I am sober, however much Dick Casablancas might pray for otherwise. 'Next stop I'm calling Dick to pick me up. At least he will buy me dinner first,' I thought when I felt the guy's teeth burying themselves in my jugular. Which hurt (a lot), but was thankfully a lot less gay than the necking earlier.
"Hey...," I said weakly before I realized that there would be no need for Dick buying me dinner anymore since I was currently on the menu. And not in the good 'get off on it' way either, but rather in that soon-to-be-dead way.
I pushed Iggy away, pulled the handbrake, got out of the car and ran into what appeared to be some sort of woods. But the blood running from my neck wound soaked my t-shirt and so I quickly lost interest in my surroundings. Unsurprisingly - considering the amount of blood, I had lost and was still losing - I collapsed pretty quickly, but at least the ground felt cool and soft under my body. I closed my eyes, not caring anymore if Iggy caught up with me, and tried to think of Lilly. Instead I thought of Veronica. I wish I could say that I was angry. I wish I could say that I was mean. I wish I could say I was a jackass when I died.
Five hours later
I opened my eyes and the sun hurt. I crawled into the shade of a neighbouring tree was greeted by the toothy grin of Iggy. The sunlight made him paler and sicklier looking than ever, yet was reflected so brightly in his grin that the Crest people would have sold their first-borns for it.
"Oh fuck."
Five days later
The view from Veronica's ceiling was excellent; she nearly had cleavage from my vantage point.
"Okay, I believe you," she said, throwing up her hands in defeat, before getting quickly back to business. "So what happened with your father?"
"Say what you want about him," I came back to the ground and less exciting prospects. "But he never let me hunger."
Veronica didn't find this funny. I guess patricide is only funny when it's hypothetical.
"He killed Lilly," I said flatly, trying not to think of the bastard and how his body had sagged in my arms when I drained the life out of him.
Her eyes grew wide with surprise. "He did what?"
"He... I....." I shook my head, shaking off the taste of his blood on my tongue like sticky spiderwebs and started again. "You know I died and... then... I didn't. So when I came home...," my voice broke for a second. "I tried to talk to him. I... I listed all the shit that happened to me. Lately... and in general. When I mentioned Lilly his heart rate picked up."
"His heart rate picked up?" Veronica stared at me disbelievingly.
I could see why that wasn't exactly a winning argument to convince Veronica of Daddy Dearest's guilt. "So I questioned him about Lilly and his heart raced like a Formula One car." I said remembering the empty expression on his face, his fiddling hands, his evasive eyes, the smell of cold sweat. "I asked and asked until he practically admitted it."
"But... Logan, you should have called...."
"The Sheriff? What I was supposed to say, Veronica? 'My daddy is going to fail a lie detector test if questioned about the Lilly Kane murder'? A crime someone else is already on death row for?" God, how could she be so naive sometimes? "Pull the other leg."
"But you can't kill people." There were tears standing in her eyes. "This is not how things work. This is not how I work. We don't do..." Her voice became a hoarse whisper. "We are not Charles Bronson, Logan. We have a system, we have laws, we have...."
"Oh, that's why they aquitted O.J.? I see it now," I gave a her bitter and insincere smile." Come on, my father wouldn't have spent one day in prison and you know it."
"But...."
"What do you want to do, Veronica? Go to Lamb and tell him that Aaron Echolls was just bit too anemic to drive his last and fatal drive on the Pacific Coast Highway? Even if he believes you, who is this going to help?"
She turned away from me and shook her head. Her heart beat faster than my father's had when I asked him if he had fucked Lilly. She took a few, supposedly calming breaths, then turned around again.
"If you ever... ever," she emphasized the word 'ever' with pointed stabs of her index finger to my sternum, "ever kill another human being again, I am going to kill you. Believe me, I'm going to keep my eyes out for any mysterious disappearances and deaths."
I raised my hands in surrender, since I figured that baring my throat in submission would not win any points with her right now. "I don't even need human blood to survive. That's just a myth."
"You'll forgive me if I am currently not really seeing that."
"Iggy said...," I said before she interrupted me.
"Who?"
"Well, he did look like Iggy Pop's drug habit personified." Seeing her blank look, I added: "The guy who killed me. I don't know his real name."
"You talked to him?" The blank look had been quickly replaced by one of disgust. "And what do mean with 'looked like'?"
"Since he volunteered to give me the 101, I could hardly say no, could I? And I am getting to this, trust me" I smiled at her. "Anyway he gave me the basics. Strengths: increased everything.... you know - the usual. Weaknesses: none." Turned out the stuff about sunlight and holy water was just crap. Which was a relief, considering I lived in Southern California and had no plans to move to Alaska.
"None at all?" Veronica sounded surprised.
"Well, I have one for a hot blonde."
She rolled her eyes and signaled me to continue.
"Food: blood of mammals and birds. Reptiles and fish are acceptable, but supposedly suck. No pun intended. Oh, and the only way to die is by decapitation."
She pulled a face. And I hadn't even told her yet what happened to poor expired Iggy. Oh, man, I was so gonna be in the doghouse tonight.
Five weeks later
"So when are you going to turn me into Elvira, Mistress of Darkness?"
Trust Veronica to turn the post-coital bliss into a talk about my ignorance about my own existence. Maybe she was trying to be cute or wanted to me to imagine her in a black corset. As if that was necessary to convince me of the necessity for another round. Instead I now had to own up to not actually being as omniscient as I pretended to be. "I have no idea how that could be even done."
She propped herself on one elbow, looking my into the eyes. My eyes were too preoccupied with her naked body to reciprocate in kind. "What do you mean with 'you don't know'?"
I covered my eyes for a second, the afternoon sun seemed to shine too brightly through Veronica's blinds. "I don't know. Iggy never told me. For all I know I would have to drive the PCH up and down while endlessly repeating 'mimblewimble.'"
She laughed, then got serious again. "But you must remember your own death."
I sat up and pulled the cover up to my waist. I counted the threads in the fabric, then turned to her. "I am not going to play trial and error with you. Not when the error is fatal." I smiled. "And if I play trial and error with someone else, you are going to kill me. Either way, the odds of one of us ending up dead are.... Well," I shrugged and my smile turned into a nasty grin. "You don't need to worry about me drinking any human blood though. Cats are procreating too fast anyway."
Her face turned into one of shock and disgust. I laughed. "I'm joking. I would never touch a cat." I laid a hand on the spot where my heart was no longer beating. "Scouts honor."
She elbowed me into the ribs. "Not. Funny."
"Ouch." I exclaimed. "That hurt."
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "I thought you were indestructible. Like the Terminator."
"You mean, like Superman."
"Like Robocop."
"Or like Superman?"
"Like Walker Texas Ranger?"
"Or Superman? Ring a bell?"
"Or...," her eyes grew wide in mirth. "Count Duckula."
"Oh, come on!"
"Duckula." She laughed. "Of course, you are so Duckie."
"I'm not Duckie. If anything, I'm James Spader."
"Duckie. Duckie. Duckie."
"Duckie was gay!"
"And you're not?"
"I'm definitely not gay!"
"The lady doth protest too much."
"I'm not a lady!"
She giggled.
"And I'm not gay!"
"Seriously, dressing up as Tom Cruise..."
"Duncan dressed up as Duckie!"
"And you can do this hand gesture," she waved her spread hands across her chest in a quite exaggerated manner. "better than Gina Gershon."
"That doesn't make me gay! Hey, wait, does watching Showgirls not automatically prove that I'm not gay?"
She shook her head and looked at me with something that could have counted for pity if the mocking tone of her voice hadn't indicated otherwise. " Awww," she pouted for a second, before she openly laughed at me again. "No. The camp factor is too high."
"That movie came out when I was nine! That's like Granny-vision!"
"Well, if the shoe fits...."
"I'm not gay! And I'm not into grannies. Do you want a demonstration of both?"
Her smile grew wide. "I thought you would never ask."
"Oh, you bitch."
Five months later
"Logan, could you stop for a moment. I think I have to tell you something."
She couldn't have thought of a worse moment for a talk. Well, except one or two. "You know that I don't need to breathe, right?"
"That's kind of the problem...." She left the rest unsaid.
I frowned, not comprehending what she was saying.
She started again: "You know, your diving technique is really, really... really excellent, but your.... body temperature is kind of around seventy degrees...." She didn't look me in the eyes, but rather looked into some far away corner of my living room. "And your mouth and tongue are around room temperature as well. It's... weird."
I stared at her a second in shock before I realized what she was trying to tell me. "You are not really comparing my tongue with a slug, are you?!"
The guilty look in her eyes and the accelerated heartbeat said it all, although her words belied the facts: "You said that!"
"But you thought it!"
"I didn't say that!"
"But you thought 'slug'!"
"I did not!
"Did."
"Did not."
I took a breath I didn't need, then got off the floor and stalked into the direction of the kitchen.
"Where are you going?" She ran after me.
"I'm gonna nurse my wounded pride with some spray cheese."
"Oh, no." Her face grew angry. "You're not going to pull that guilt trip number on me for something I didn't even say."
"What guilt trip number?" I turned around and looked her into the eyes. "Oh, you mean the thing were you PMS-ed and kicked me out of your car with nothing but a can of spray cheese to get killed? I'm sorry, Veronica, that my body can't produce enough heat anymore to give good head. But whose fault is that anyway?"
"See, you are doing it again! Every time I do something you don't like you're giving me the spray cheese monologue!"
"What - can't cope with the truth?"
"Look...," she sighed, her shoulders dropped in defeat. If I played my cards right she would be back on her back on the couch in less than five minutes.
"I'm sorry," she continued, her shoulders slumping further. "And believe me, there will be never a day when I am not going to be sorry, but... I just don't want.... just let's lay off the part where I am supposed to be gratified by.... you know." She thought for a second. "Outside of a sauna anyway."
I turned around to search for the nearest phone.
"What are you doing?"
"I always wanted a sauna in this house."
She sat down on the couch and let out a hysterical laugh and buried her face in her hands. "This is so fucking surreal." Then she turned to me: "It must be nice to be an independently wealthy, emancipated minor. But really, you shouldn't waste your money on this... on me."
"Who says I'm doing it for you?"
"Well, I figured...."
Oh, she was too cute. "Oh, man, you're such a virgin."
"Am not."
"Yes, you are."
She shook her head once more, then chose to change topics: "Will you ever lay off the spray cheese?"
"No." She frowned at me and I tried to placate her for a second: "But I'm pretty sure that the FDA is going to ban it sooner or later."
She looked heavenwards and folded her hands in a gesture of prayer: "Oh, please, FDA!" She looked at me. "You think they'll react to a letter-writing campaign? Blackmail? Incriminating photos?"
"Well, if they do I just have to smuggle them in from Mexico in bulk."
She threw a pillow at me.
Five years later
Mars Investigations still retained the same 'stained-glass, cheap wood backwater office' look it had when I first set my foot in it. Only the 'Keith' on the glass door had been replaced by 'Veronica' and the calls were made by a boring brunette with glasses, while the hot blonde with the useless college degree waited for me to pick her up for our daily lunch date. 'Waiting' meaning working and telling me "to go ahead," because she needed another five (as in fifteen) minutes.
Not that I minded, having successfully avoided a career that involved anything that could be interpreted as work, I had nothing but time. Thirty minutes after she had told me to go ahead, Veronica finally sat down at my table.
I smiled at her. Resassuringly, not showing my teeth. "I thought about our future."
She raised her eyebrows.
"I figured.... well, if we don't get married now, you'll look like a total perve in our wedding pictures."
She stared at me for a second, as if she didn't understand what I just said. But her heart raced in her chest and blood rushed to her cheeks.
"So what do you think about a Christmas wedding?"
She picked at some non-existent lint on the tablecoth, then picked it from her jacket. After she finally let go of the imaginary piece of lint, she looked at me and asked: "Do you think this is a good idea?" She shook her head once more. "You know, I'm not getting any younger." She let out a snort, but continued: "And you're not getting any older."
"That's just.... appearances. Who gives a shit?"
She didn't appear to hear me: "And maybe I just... want a normal life. A normal husband.... kids, the white garden fence.... not this freak show."
She was trying to bait me, I was sure of it. Time for the last resort of the desperate. "Veronica, have I ever told you how I died?"
She didn't look at me. She didn't react at all.
"I was lying there, bleeding to death and all I could think of was you." She looked at me and I looked her in the eyes and grabbed her right hand with both of mine. "I wasn't angry, Veronica, that my life was over. I had no regrets except for one." I held her hand against my cold cheek. "That I would never see you again."
She looked back down on the tablecloth, studying it intensively.
"Veronica, I love you. I want to be with you."
She still didn't look at me.
"Do you love me, Veronica?"
She looked up, dry-eyed and replied with a bitter tint in her voice: "Will you leave me if I say no?"
I laughed: "As if."
"What's the point of answering then?"
"Come on. Don't be an ass. Is it that horrible to marry me?"
"Now?" Her mouth twisted into a sad mimicry of a smile. "I don't know. But in fifteen years though when I am going to look like I could be your mom...."
"That's the genius of it, really," I said enthusiastically.
She looked at me like I had gone mad. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"We get married now, Veronica. We have big wedding and then we get a house and a white garden fence and a dog...." I smiled at her. "And then we are going to live like normal people for the next fifteen years."
"And then...?" she asked.
"And then... I will 'die'." I winked at her. "Believe me, I make a very convincing corpse." I thought for a second. "I have a problem with doing a good rigor mortis though." A good rigor mortis is really quite difficult, especially if you are ticklish.
She pulled a face.
"Anyway," I continued. "You'll be my very rich widow and grief-stricken as you are you'll move far, far away, where you and your son Logan Echolls Junior will live in another normal house with a white garden fence and a dog and all the normalcy you could ever want."
"You mean, except the part where I screw my new son?" She sounded upset.
I didn't really get why that upset her, but gave her my most winning smile: "Incest is a game the whole family can play."
She stood up, borrowed a glass of red wine from a neigboring table, emptied it over my head and left.
What a bitch.
Five decades later
"Mrs. Henrickson just asked if I adopted you," Veronica said, coming back from outdoors. She was apparently quite upset, her heart flickered irregularly.
"What did you tell her?" I asked sorting through the letters she had brought with her.
"That it's none of her business."
"Go you," I said and went into the living room.
"Have you heard anything I just told you," she asked coming after me.
"I heard you very well. Mrs. Henrickson was being a bitch."
"Mrs. Henrickson is right, you know," she said pensively. "I'm seventy-three. I shouldn't have a seventeen-year old son."
"Who cares anyway?"
"Logan...," there were tears standing in her eyes. "The white in my hair is not peroxide-based, it grows that way. I am old." She said the word like it was dirty. "And you're not."
I sighed and gave in. "Okay, let's move then. I always wanted to be Logan Echolls the Third anyway."
She smiled sadly at me, then bit her bottom lip: "Don't you think we should just... stop. This is absolutely ridiculous and... you look.... and I'm...."
"What? Is this about me being a pervert because you have white hair and wrinkles?" I couldn't believe it. "Are you serious?"
She didn't even dignify that with a response.
"You're screwing the re-animated corpse for half a century and I'm the pervert for not looking like the seventy-two years I spent on this planet."
Her heart fluttered in her chest. Obviously she hadn't liked the dig at her supposed necrophilia. "This is not about me...."
"Oh, yes," I interrupted her. "It is."
I sighed and embraced her slightly dumpy frame. "I love you. I want you. I don't care how old you are. I just...." I smiled in her hair. She was right, it did grow white now. "...want you. You're the only person that makes life worth living. You're my life." I tilted up her face to look into her eyes. "We've been creepy all our lives, Veronica. Why stop now?"
I kissed her and ran my tongue along her false teeth.
...So maybe she was right and I am pervert and this was wrong. But really, some things are just so wrong, they are right. If there ever was a list of things that are so wrong that they're right, Veronica would definitely take the number two spot - after my very own perpetual hotness.
Five years later
"So what did the good doctor say?"
Veronica had finally come home, one hand still curled around the handle of her cane. She put her cane away, then went through the long process of removing her coat and her shoes. It pained me to watch her, but I know she would reject my help like the thousand times she had rejected it before. "You're not my nurse" she always said and that distinction gave her so much pleasure, so much satisfaction....
She had finally gotten off her shoes and sat next to me on the couch. She didn't say anything for a long time.
"The doctor said...," she stopped herself for a second then the corners of her mouth lifted in a bittersweet smile. "I'm old and my body is failing me. That's what she said."
She seemed to cheer up and got up to move to the kitchen. "But don't worry, it's going to end all very soon."
"What?!" I shot up from the couch and within a split-second stood in front of her. "What did you say?"
She gave me a very clear look that showed that no matter how weak her body had grown in the past months, her mind was as strong as ever. "My body is failing and I'm going to die."
"You're lying"
"I'm not." She gave me a steely glare. "Logan, that's the natural order of things and you cannot argue it away like a high schooler in a debate competition. Grow up already."
"You're not leaving me alone."
"Oh, I didn't even know this was about you." She pointed to herself. "I'm dying. This has nothing to do with you."
"It has everything to do with me and...." I swallowed but felt like a lump in my throat. "You are not going to die."
"Try me," she replied angrily.
She turned around and went into the garden, into the sunshine. I didn't follow her.
Five months later
She had wanted to move back to Neptune, back home. So we did.
The white garden fence was replaced with an ocean view, and the cane with a wheelchair as Veronica grew weaker. Nurses came daily doing all the things she never wanted my help for.
Soon after we moved she asked me to show her the spot where I had died. I hesitated for only a second, then drove her to the spot that I remembered being green and uninhabited and was only mildly surprised to find a supermarket where Iggy had turned to dust. Joni Mitchell always had struck me as a crazy-eyed Cassandra. But the whole thing was just anti-climactic.
Even the terminally-ill woman beside me noticed: "This is not exactly how I envisioned it."
"It's not exactly as I remember it either."
We stared at shoppers leaving, carrying vegetables and bottled water. It was a long time before I broke the silence: "What did you envision?"
She didn't answer, but her heart fluttered like a little sick bird.
I looked at her small frame, having grown thin and frail in the last three months - veins peeking through the too-pale skin of her arms, her arthritic hands, her bowed posture, her wispy white hair. Veronica. My Veronica.
"I could...." I swallowed tears I didn't allow myself to cry. She had made pretty clear that she didn't want to see them. "I could change you."
She smiled indulgently at me as if I was child who had brought flowers stolen from the neighbor's garden. "You don't even know how to do that."
I gave her a wide smile without any warmth, showing all of my teeth in their shiny perfection. "Trust me, I have a pretty good idea how it's done."
She snorted: "Oh, really?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Your teeth are not getting within a two miles radius of me."
"But...."
"No," she said resolutely. "I don't want any discussion on this." She frowned at the supermarket - or perhaps Iggy's imaginary sad remains (Who can tell with women anyway?) - then asked: "Can we go home now?"
Five weeks later
"Please think about it."
"No."
"Please, Veronica." She had reduced me to begging, but she still showed no signs of changing her mind. "Don't leave me."
"Logan," she sighed, in her eyes the same steely resolve she had since I first brought it up. "No. I don't want to be like you. I...." She stopped and closed her eyes. Laying in the bed she hadn't left in a week, she looked like she was already dead. Only the sound of her heartbeat betrayed the illusion.
"Keep breathing! Damnit." I wanted to scream, but all what came out was a choked sob.
She opened her eyes again and her chest rose when she breathed in again.
"Logan, please," she raised her hand to my face. It felt cold. "Let it be."
I grabbed her hand. "Please?"
She looked away from me, through the window out of the ocean. The sky was gray, the horizon clouded in morning fog. She spoke as if from far away, as if she was talking with someone else: "I want to see my friends again."
I couldn't contain my cynicism. "Who says that you will? Who says that there is something after you...." I couldn't finish the sentence... I couldn't finish the thought.
"There's gotta be something better than this." She sounded exhausted. I suppressed the urge to hug her close, like a tired child. "And even if there isn't...." She closed her eyes again and her words became a soft, silent murmur. "This is not the kind of life I want to last forever."
Five days later
She had stopped eating. Her body smelled like it was already decaying, although her heart was still beating. I held her hand, which seemed to grow more fragile with every second. Through the windows the morning sun shone. It was spring and there was a promise of new life in the air everywhere, except in this room.
She opened her eyes, her dim eyes fixated on me.
"Logan?"
I nodded, I didn't dare to speak out of fear that I would break down and upset her.
"When I said earlier," her voice was hoarse and crumbling. "That I want to see all my friends again...." She coughed. Water was already collecting in her lungs. I grabbed her hand tighter. "You are one of my friends too." She gave me a weak smile. "I want to see you again."
"Oh, Veronica." I started crying.
Five hours later
I didn't let go of her hand. Her heart fluttered and faltered, her breathing became more and more labored and painful. The sun shone through the open window and crowned her white hair with a golden halo.
For the last time, she opened her eyes. She smiled at me. Then she died while I helplessly looked on.
Five minutes later
I've never been afraid to find out how it feels to die. And if Veronica wanted to see me again, then I would make sure that she wouldn't miss me for even a second.
I remembered that day long ago, when I had grabbed Iggy's head with my bare hands and torn it from his body, watching him turn to dust. It would be so much more difficult to do that to my own body, but not impossible - I knew that I had the strength for it.
I gave the body that had been my Veronica for so long a last glance and then....
Five seconds later
It hurt.
This is was originally conceived as the cracktastic answer to the vmwhat_if challenge given to me: "What if (in Afternoon Delight) Veronica and Logan end up fighting the whole ride back to Neptune and Veronica won’t speak to Logan for a few days?"