Ficlet: Solid, Liquid, Gas (Veronica, Logan, Duncan) R
Title: Solid, Liquid, Gas
Author: sadiekate
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan, Duncan
Word Count: 518
Rating: R, for language
Summary: Brief character studies.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the finale.
Note: I woke up this morning feeling artsy and pretentious.
Veronica is surprised by how she feels these days. Substantial and solid, and all too real.
She supposed she thought she'd feel different, experience some shift of state. Solid to liquid. She supposed she thought a burden would lift, and she would go from hard to languid, softened by her lack of a cross to bear.
But Lilly’s still dead, and Lianne is still gone, and Veronica can’t slip away from the world. She was made for feet hitting the ground squarely. Gravity and knowledge are both synonyms for resistance in her world - things she can’t forget, things to weigh her down.
She dreams of gasoline and flame. Thinks about no rescue, just heat and smoke and fire illuminating the shadows. She wonders what would have happened if help had arrived too late - would she have charred away to nothing? Would they have opened her twisted metal coffin to find nothing but ashes, floating beyond reach? She still feels the flames licking at her whenever she thinks of it. She should be ashes by now.
But she is not ashen and ephemeral. She is solid. Flesh and muscle, sinew and bone.
Lilly is dead. Lianne is gone.
Veronica is still alive.
Most days, she thinks she can live with that.
* * *
A river runs through Logan’s veins.
He has homicidal/suicidal blood, and he dilutes with 100-proof anything-he-can-find. He thinks if he drinks enough he can liquefy himself, wash away the DNA that imprisons him.
Lilly left him and fucked his father. Lynn left him with his fucking father. Logan’s treading water, watching from the pool as his girlfriend falls dead to the concrete over and over again. Logan’s washed out to sea on a wave of single-malt, looking for his mother’s bloated body.
Lynn couldn’t drown herself in the booze fast enough, but Logan can. Logan doesn’t have to pretend anything. He doesn’t have to maintain an unrippled surface. Who he is, it’s written on his skin. He is the progeny of crazy people. He is violence personified. He is the reflection of Narcissus in the pool
He opens another bottle of scotch and waits to be washed away.
* * *
Duncan has spent the last year peering through the haze. He has come to realize it is because he is himself insubstantial. He is like air. Everyone knows he’s there, but they don’t really notice him.
He wonders if it’s the drugs, or if it’s always been like this. Perhaps his lack of substance, his absence of presence, allow people to ascribe titles to him that don’t apply. Future politican. Golden boy. Murderer. Rapist. He’s not these things. But then, he doesn’t know what he is.
Lilly was fire, and Celeste is ice, and he is what happened when you got between them. And now Lilly is dead, and Celeste is pinning all her goals on a son who barely knew he was alive in the first place.
He would protest, but he is insubstantial. He is only as insistent as the air.
Author: sadiekate
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan, Duncan
Word Count: 518
Rating: R, for language
Summary: Brief character studies.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through the finale.
Note: I woke up this morning feeling artsy and pretentious.
Veronica is surprised by how she feels these days. Substantial and solid, and all too real.
She supposed she thought she'd feel different, experience some shift of state. Solid to liquid. She supposed she thought a burden would lift, and she would go from hard to languid, softened by her lack of a cross to bear.
But Lilly’s still dead, and Lianne is still gone, and Veronica can’t slip away from the world. She was made for feet hitting the ground squarely. Gravity and knowledge are both synonyms for resistance in her world - things she can’t forget, things to weigh her down.
She dreams of gasoline and flame. Thinks about no rescue, just heat and smoke and fire illuminating the shadows. She wonders what would have happened if help had arrived too late - would she have charred away to nothing? Would they have opened her twisted metal coffin to find nothing but ashes, floating beyond reach? She still feels the flames licking at her whenever she thinks of it. She should be ashes by now.
But she is not ashen and ephemeral. She is solid. Flesh and muscle, sinew and bone.
Lilly is dead. Lianne is gone.
Veronica is still alive.
Most days, she thinks she can live with that.
* * *
A river runs through Logan’s veins.
He has homicidal/suicidal blood, and he dilutes with 100-proof anything-he-can-find. He thinks if he drinks enough he can liquefy himself, wash away the DNA that imprisons him.
Lilly left him and fucked his father. Lynn left him with his fucking father. Logan’s treading water, watching from the pool as his girlfriend falls dead to the concrete over and over again. Logan’s washed out to sea on a wave of single-malt, looking for his mother’s bloated body.
Lynn couldn’t drown herself in the booze fast enough, but Logan can. Logan doesn’t have to pretend anything. He doesn’t have to maintain an unrippled surface. Who he is, it’s written on his skin. He is the progeny of crazy people. He is violence personified. He is the reflection of Narcissus in the pool
He opens another bottle of scotch and waits to be washed away.
* * *
Duncan has spent the last year peering through the haze. He has come to realize it is because he is himself insubstantial. He is like air. Everyone knows he’s there, but they don’t really notice him.
He wonders if it’s the drugs, or if it’s always been like this. Perhaps his lack of substance, his absence of presence, allow people to ascribe titles to him that don’t apply. Future politican. Golden boy. Murderer. Rapist. He’s not these things. But then, he doesn’t know what he is.
Lilly was fire, and Celeste is ice, and he is what happened when you got between them. And now Lilly is dead, and Celeste is pinning all her goals on a son who barely knew he was alive in the first place.
He would protest, but he is insubstantial. He is only as insistent as the air.