Fic: The Fallen - Duncan/Logan
Title: The Fallen
Author(s): duckytears & atomic_eyes.
Pairing/Characters: Logan/Duncan, mentions of V/L & V/D, Veronica.
Rating: R for sexual situations (It's not graphic) and mild violence, language. Also obviously SLASH.
Word Count: 2,883
Summary: Logan's answer is Duncan's undoing. He won't be wailing on a SUV this time. Spoilers for ALL OF SEASON 1 but mostly "Leave it to Beaver"
A/N: OMG. We are entirely too insane. This came about during random commenting and became the solution to 'OMG LET'S WRITE A JOINT FIC" not like a joint fic, gah you people think too much like Logan. "Omg, joint. That's funny, man." Anyway, this is like our child, man. Enjoy.
So they say you're troubled boy,
Just because you like to destroy,
You are the word - the word is Destroy,
I break this bottle and think of you fondly
-The Fallen by Franz Ferdinand
Logan never does this, not with anyone else at least. It's one of those things in which he'll never say a word but do stupid things like sit on his best friend's lap, grind his backside into him, and occasionally come over drunk enough so Duncan thinks it's just the alcohol that provokes him into kissing him.
Logan's not drunk now though. He's had an unhealthy dose of salt water and sand in his lungs and hair, but he's definitely not drunk.
Duncan can't think, can't breathe, all he can see is Logan's body drifting under the swell of the waves before his eyes. He pays no mind to the water clinging to his jeans or the weight of the salt and sand in his hair. Instead he tries to force the urge to ram his fist into his Logan’s face away; he’s not that forceful when it comes down to it.
Duncan is anything but amused by the nonchalant way his best friend acts after having almost drowned, even if the kiss they'd just shared had sent off a torrent of emotions he can't even begin to put into words
Logan sputters once, and then twice; water leaking from the corner of his mouth. He coughs like he's going to cough up a lung whole, hacking hard into Duncan's shoulder. A sense of deja-vu comes over Duncan then, like they'd been here before. Or maybe he’s been here; maybe it’s too much like things he can’t seem to remember.
"Goddamn it, Logan. You fucking asshole." - he curses loudly, obscenely like Logan would have wanted him too. "How can you be so fucking stupid?"
The kiss. That kiss and the way Logan just keeps on sinking, it's going to drive him crazy or reduce him into a comatose zombie -like before. Logan just can't straighten up his life, can he? No matter how hard Duncan tries to pull him up and out of the water he just smiles and grins like nothing is wrong.
"Take a chill pill, man."
And Logan pulls him under, briefly submerging him in this ocean of holy water. Clean, clean, clean. It's all so fucking clean.
Duncan would never admit it, even to Logan but sometimes he wishes he could just get lost in the tide too, that his life could be washed clean and christened new; that or he could just drift off and let the ocean dwellers rend his bones fleshless. Morbidity has broken into every facet of his mind since Lilly died and he still chases away the details.
He just didn't chase it away like Logan - a swig of JD and dancing on the ledge of the Coronado Bridge.
It seems like hours to Logan, he silently prays that his end would be here with Duncan. Maybe they'd jump together. If he’s going to end up like one of his parents he’ll choose his dear old suicidal mother over the filth who he hopes will be rotting in jail. News spreads fast in Neptune and if he weren’t trying to get lost, trying to drag Duncan with him, maybe his best friend would have tried to tell him the news - tell him what he’d heard from a fucking radio instead.
Instead, it's maybe a minute before Duncan regains his sense of control - survival - and he pulls their heads above the dark waters. Sputtering laughter fills his ears but Duncan grips stronger this time, stronger and faster as he pulls Logan’s reluctant body from the trench of the tides. He would not lose Logan too - no fucking way.
At the beach, he throws Logan’s body against the sand and falls to his knees beside him, coughing and struggling for breath. It takes one moment for it all to come back, Lilly’s form laying at a weird angle on the white pristine concrete by the pool, her blood soaking deep into each crevice- his own scream echoes in his ears and he can practically feel the lukewarm congealing smudge of blood across his chin. Logan looks like her now, briefly, before he starts into this mixture of coughing and laughing.
Asshole.
That’s all it takes for him to grab Logan, pull him up and shove him back down on the ground.
“What the fuck are you doing!” he screams it this time because he can’t think and still can’t breathe, he only see the two images in fucking spilt screen in his mind. Lilly covered in blood, Logan face down, hand still clutching his flask as if that’s the most important thing.
Logan moves as if he's going to take another sip from the flask, but he doesn't. He brings it to his lips, but never drinks. When Duncan doesn't take it from him, he lets it fall from his hand and drain onto the sand. Salt, sand and Sir Jack of Daniels, it sounds disgusting.
Even with Duncan screaming at him, it's like they've changed places. Duncan's the one trying to provoke him into feeling something, but his face isn't animated. For a full minute, he can't bring himself to do anything, but when a bubble of another cough makes its way through his throat and out of his mouth his face crumbles. He crumbles like the summer sandcastles do when the tide pulls them in and levels them out.
It's a shudder of a breath out and the intense brown eyes that stare into Duncan's glaze over (with tears? sea water?). Logan looks away and shuts his eyes tightly.
"Why did you jump, D? Why did you jump in after me?" It sounds like there's a strangled animal in Logan's voice. To his own ears, it sounds pathetic. If he was Duncan he'd go back to beating his own body against the sand of the shore.
Neither questions how they're still alive. In fact, it's still clear that Logan just doesn't want to be.
Fuck you. Fuck you, Logan. Why wouldn't I? Duncan would shout at him, but his throat just feels raw. Logan grimaces under his arms.
"You know, I never thought I'd wish myself dead." Logan's bitter laughter rings through the air briefly before it fades away or is cut off by a strangled cry and an attempt to try to beat Duncan off of him. He uses his fists, but his fists are weak and he hits nothing.
Duncan's mind barely even registers his movement, when it finally caught up with his body - emotions - he was leaning over Logan, shirt clenched too tightly in his hands. He ignores the dull ache and the white pallor of his skin, contrasting sharply with Logan's sea-water soaked green shirt. His arms repeat the violent push and pull, knocking Logan's torso against the rough uneven sand below him.
"God damn you! God damn you, you selfish prick! God damn you!" Duncan can't think past those words and he hauls Logan completely to his feet before sending him violently back to the ground with his fist.
Suddenly Logan wishes he hadn't let the Jack join the sand and he picks himself up slowly, his back aching almost as much as his heart, if he has one anymore.
Duncan's breath comes out harsh and rough as he futilely attempts to keep his anger in control. He isn't Aaron Echolls, he doesn't beat away his problems, but fuck if he doesn't want to beat Logan into wanting to live again, beat him into caring.
He waits for a typical response, a sarcastic remark, a fist in his face - anything but it doesn't come. It doesn't come and Duncan is nowhere close to being in his right mind. Lilly's blood stains his soul and he can't even let Logan know what will happen to him if he's not around.
Logan is crying. He's actually crying. When he wipes the mixture of snot, sand and a touch of blood from under his nose with the back of his hand, he tastes salt. Salt and copper.
Duncan hasn't seen Logan cry since he was eight and then again when he was ten and Logan had broken his nose on his birthday. Logan never cried at his own mother's memorial, he didn't cry at Lilly's funeral (though he was seen with red puffy skin under his eyes). Until this point, Duncan thought that Logan had become completely incapable of shedding tears - now he knows that's not the case.
Logan sits ass first on the shore, sand sticking to the wet denim of his jeans, head in his hands and he just cries. A rush of SeventeenTenEight floods through Duncan's brain and maybe - just maybe - he thinks that all Logan's actions have been tears this whole time.
It takes a moment but while Duncan stares at Logan with no idea what to do - helplessness incapacitating him - Logan collects himself, all on his own, so he starts smiling through tightened drying cheeks.
It hurts just to look at him.
"Go ahead," he muses, quietly at first - dangerously intense as a sour bitter taste settles inside his throat. "Go ahead, Duncan. Do it again."
Logan moves to undo his belt to hand it to Duncan, but the seaweed has made it sticky and it only comes half undone before he gives up.
In a breathless tone, Logan coerces Duncan again. His voice rises to the yell and the reaction. "Hit me, man! What are you waiting for!"
Duncan's still for a full minute as Logan stares up at him and into him and the world seems to spin around him before he takes action, moves one fraction and then two and then he's on his knees in front of Logan grabbing his shirt again just as tightly as before but this time he pulls and then pushes. Rough, salty, callous lips meet hard and fast and it takes Logan, the one who’s only ever started something like this, a full minute to realize what's happening - usually he's drunk or dreaming.
Logan isn't drunk and he isn't dreaming and now he's the one who can't think but this kind of thing, he knows, doesn't require thought - it never has before. He opens his lips and licks his tongue across Duncan’s; he can't suppress his moan when Duncan's tongue invades his mouth. Logan grabs the back of Duncan's head and pulls him closer, they fall back against the sand and before he even realizes that Duncan's moving, he feels his best friend’s thighs surrounding his hips.
They kiss again, hungrily devouring at the other's mouth. His nails dig into too hard into the material of Logan's soaked shirt and underneath he feels cold hard flesh. That's when Logan's hips rotate against his, a chorus of whispered Again, again, against his lower lips before it's sucked into the hot heat of Logan's mouth.
He doesn't think of the fact that this is Duncan or he that gets off on the idea of his best friend being so fucking pissed at him. It's just Duncan and these are just his lips pressing - bruising - against his. Logan can taste the flavor on Duncan's lips and it tastes just like him.
They fumble awkwardly together, laugh at the proper moments, moans carried away by the wind. The waves crash in time to thrusts against hands against denim. It's never been like this, never would be like this, greedy teenagers grinding and violent until they feel the water collide with their ankles. Duncan shivers at the cold. What a mess. It's just a mess and neither of them can seem to care.
Duncan collapses against Logan as the kisses slow down and ebb off until they are just staring at each other, eyes saying things that can't be voiced, refuse to be voiced.
"We should go home," Duncan says, removing his hand from Logan's fully undone jeans suddenly unable to make eye contact.
"You should." Logan's voice sounds numb again - or tired maybe. "You should. I need to stay here a little longer."
Duncan's going to settle on tired; he can't stand to think that maybe Logan just really doesn't want to be here. His eyes meet Logan's again for a second, there's no movement not a sound besides the breaths they take. Even the sea seems to wait for one of them to say something. It's only a beat before they separate and Logan starts to do up his pants again.
"You'll be okay, right?" Duncan asks, finally standing, zipping up his own pants and straightening out his wrinkled clothes. He wants Logan to say no, to make him haul his ass up off the beach and take him back to the Kane mansion where he can be safe - or at least with Duncan himself.
"I'll be okay, D," he nods, and a haunting, all knowing yet smug smile passes over his face and Duncan turns and leaves.
Two days later, Duncan sees Logan again.
Duncan's arm is casually draped over Veronica's shoulder, her tears soaking the jacket of his suit but all he can see is Logan sitting across from him with that smug smile.
"It's my fault, if I hadn't accused him …" Veronica's voice trails off it feels like it's pushed to the background when Logan starts to laugh. Like he's not allowing the words to make it to Duncan's ears and maybe he's not.
"You know man, if you'd just been there five minutes sooner all of this could have been avoided." Logan's smirk is what hits him hardest, the way the words slip through his lips coldly, he's seen this expression before, but rarely directed at him.
"No," Is all he manages to say.
Duncan can feel Veronica shift in his arms; he can even hear her protest vaguely behind the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
"What are you saying that if you'd gotten there sooner you'd have pushed me off? Come on D, all you had to do was leave the sheriff’s station five minutes sooner and Lilly wouldn't have a friend in hell," Logan's smirk was eating away at Duncan's soul just as much as his words were.
Duncan's jaw clenches, his eyes close and he wishes the image away, wishes that he'd open his eyes and be able to give Veronica his attention, console her somehow, let her console him - it didn't matter.
When he opens his eyes Logan is on his knees on the floor of the limo, his face inches from Duncan's, he tells his body to close his eyes again but it doesn’t cooperate.
"Jesus," Logan laughs. "Do you ever just wonder who's going to be next? Is it going to be you or Veronica who one day stares while you're shaving and decides to start dragging the razor blade across your skin just because there's nothing left to do? Remember," Logan's voice drops low, "it's better if you go up the road, not across the street."
"Shut up!" Duncan whispers vehemently and Veronica pulls away from him with shocked tears falling down her face. He's finally able to turn his head from his dead best friend and look at her, tears falling freely but she doesn't look scared - Veronica Mars doesn't get scared, unless she's being burned to death in a refrigerator but those are just semantics.
He closes his eyes for a split second, trying to regain his composure.
"I'm sorry. I just … I wasn't … It's like I can hear him in my head telling me it's my fault." Duncan risks a glance at Logan's amused raised eyebrows quickly before running his hand through his hair.
Veronica's tears rise anew and her jaw shakes, her cheeks wet, as she takes his hand in hers, "Duncan, it wasn't your fault either. You tried to get him out of the water. It was just too late." Her voice cracks and he winces at the sound.
"Fucking crock," Logan mutters.
Duncan doesn't know if he's talking about Veronica or himself but he nods towards Veronica instead because Duncan doesn't argue with Veronica - he's not Logan, he'll never be Logan - but silently he tells himself that it is his fault and it's her fault and most of all it's Logan's fault.
Duncan remembers that night, calling Logan's cell phone hearing the drunken voicemail welcome " You've reached Logan and here's today's inspirational message: Live fast and die young - sounds like a good idea to me". He remembers running from the sheriff’s station and heading towards the Echolls house, seeing Logan's X-Terra on the bridge, doors wide open but no Logan. He remembers panicking and looking over the edge of the bridge and seeing the body bobbing against surface and not thinking before diving in after it. He should have died too but something saved him and left Logan’s lungs full of dirty seawater.
As Veronica fits herself back to his side he looks as Logan's haunted, all knowing yet smug smile grows and wishes he'd blacked it all out. He wishes he didn't have the same dream every night and sometimes he even wishes Logan would go to hell with Lilly and leave him alone.
It's my fault, he whispers to himself, but silently.
Author(s): duckytears & atomic_eyes.
Pairing/Characters: Logan/Duncan, mentions of V/L & V/D, Veronica.
Rating: R for sexual situations (It's not graphic) and mild violence, language. Also obviously SLASH.
Word Count: 2,883
Summary: Logan's answer is Duncan's undoing. He won't be wailing on a SUV this time. Spoilers for ALL OF SEASON 1 but mostly "Leave it to Beaver"
A/N: OMG. We are entirely too insane. This came about during random commenting and became the solution to 'OMG LET'S WRITE A JOINT FIC" not like a joint fic, gah you people think too much like Logan. "Omg, joint. That's funny, man." Anyway, this is like our child, man. Enjoy.
So they say you're troubled boy,
Just because you like to destroy,
You are the word - the word is Destroy,
I break this bottle and think of you fondly
-The Fallen by Franz Ferdinand
Logan never does this, not with anyone else at least. It's one of those things in which he'll never say a word but do stupid things like sit on his best friend's lap, grind his backside into him, and occasionally come over drunk enough so Duncan thinks it's just the alcohol that provokes him into kissing him.
Logan's not drunk now though. He's had an unhealthy dose of salt water and sand in his lungs and hair, but he's definitely not drunk.
Duncan can't think, can't breathe, all he can see is Logan's body drifting under the swell of the waves before his eyes. He pays no mind to the water clinging to his jeans or the weight of the salt and sand in his hair. Instead he tries to force the urge to ram his fist into his Logan’s face away; he’s not that forceful when it comes down to it.
Duncan is anything but amused by the nonchalant way his best friend acts after having almost drowned, even if the kiss they'd just shared had sent off a torrent of emotions he can't even begin to put into words
Logan sputters once, and then twice; water leaking from the corner of his mouth. He coughs like he's going to cough up a lung whole, hacking hard into Duncan's shoulder. A sense of deja-vu comes over Duncan then, like they'd been here before. Or maybe he’s been here; maybe it’s too much like things he can’t seem to remember.
"Goddamn it, Logan. You fucking asshole." - he curses loudly, obscenely like Logan would have wanted him too. "How can you be so fucking stupid?"
The kiss. That kiss and the way Logan just keeps on sinking, it's going to drive him crazy or reduce him into a comatose zombie -like before. Logan just can't straighten up his life, can he? No matter how hard Duncan tries to pull him up and out of the water he just smiles and grins like nothing is wrong.
"Take a chill pill, man."
And Logan pulls him under, briefly submerging him in this ocean of holy water. Clean, clean, clean. It's all so fucking clean.
Duncan would never admit it, even to Logan but sometimes he wishes he could just get lost in the tide too, that his life could be washed clean and christened new; that or he could just drift off and let the ocean dwellers rend his bones fleshless. Morbidity has broken into every facet of his mind since Lilly died and he still chases away the details.
He just didn't chase it away like Logan - a swig of JD and dancing on the ledge of the Coronado Bridge.
It seems like hours to Logan, he silently prays that his end would be here with Duncan. Maybe they'd jump together. If he’s going to end up like one of his parents he’ll choose his dear old suicidal mother over the filth who he hopes will be rotting in jail. News spreads fast in Neptune and if he weren’t trying to get lost, trying to drag Duncan with him, maybe his best friend would have tried to tell him the news - tell him what he’d heard from a fucking radio instead.
Instead, it's maybe a minute before Duncan regains his sense of control - survival - and he pulls their heads above the dark waters. Sputtering laughter fills his ears but Duncan grips stronger this time, stronger and faster as he pulls Logan’s reluctant body from the trench of the tides. He would not lose Logan too - no fucking way.
At the beach, he throws Logan’s body against the sand and falls to his knees beside him, coughing and struggling for breath. It takes one moment for it all to come back, Lilly’s form laying at a weird angle on the white pristine concrete by the pool, her blood soaking deep into each crevice- his own scream echoes in his ears and he can practically feel the lukewarm congealing smudge of blood across his chin. Logan looks like her now, briefly, before he starts into this mixture of coughing and laughing.
Asshole.
That’s all it takes for him to grab Logan, pull him up and shove him back down on the ground.
“What the fuck are you doing!” he screams it this time because he can’t think and still can’t breathe, he only see the two images in fucking spilt screen in his mind. Lilly covered in blood, Logan face down, hand still clutching his flask as if that’s the most important thing.
Logan moves as if he's going to take another sip from the flask, but he doesn't. He brings it to his lips, but never drinks. When Duncan doesn't take it from him, he lets it fall from his hand and drain onto the sand. Salt, sand and Sir Jack of Daniels, it sounds disgusting.
Even with Duncan screaming at him, it's like they've changed places. Duncan's the one trying to provoke him into feeling something, but his face isn't animated. For a full minute, he can't bring himself to do anything, but when a bubble of another cough makes its way through his throat and out of his mouth his face crumbles. He crumbles like the summer sandcastles do when the tide pulls them in and levels them out.
It's a shudder of a breath out and the intense brown eyes that stare into Duncan's glaze over (with tears? sea water?). Logan looks away and shuts his eyes tightly.
"Why did you jump, D? Why did you jump in after me?" It sounds like there's a strangled animal in Logan's voice. To his own ears, it sounds pathetic. If he was Duncan he'd go back to beating his own body against the sand of the shore.
Neither questions how they're still alive. In fact, it's still clear that Logan just doesn't want to be.
Fuck you. Fuck you, Logan. Why wouldn't I? Duncan would shout at him, but his throat just feels raw. Logan grimaces under his arms.
"You know, I never thought I'd wish myself dead." Logan's bitter laughter rings through the air briefly before it fades away or is cut off by a strangled cry and an attempt to try to beat Duncan off of him. He uses his fists, but his fists are weak and he hits nothing.
Duncan's mind barely even registers his movement, when it finally caught up with his body - emotions - he was leaning over Logan, shirt clenched too tightly in his hands. He ignores the dull ache and the white pallor of his skin, contrasting sharply with Logan's sea-water soaked green shirt. His arms repeat the violent push and pull, knocking Logan's torso against the rough uneven sand below him.
"God damn you! God damn you, you selfish prick! God damn you!" Duncan can't think past those words and he hauls Logan completely to his feet before sending him violently back to the ground with his fist.
Suddenly Logan wishes he hadn't let the Jack join the sand and he picks himself up slowly, his back aching almost as much as his heart, if he has one anymore.
Duncan's breath comes out harsh and rough as he futilely attempts to keep his anger in control. He isn't Aaron Echolls, he doesn't beat away his problems, but fuck if he doesn't want to beat Logan into wanting to live again, beat him into caring.
He waits for a typical response, a sarcastic remark, a fist in his face - anything but it doesn't come. It doesn't come and Duncan is nowhere close to being in his right mind. Lilly's blood stains his soul and he can't even let Logan know what will happen to him if he's not around.
Logan is crying. He's actually crying. When he wipes the mixture of snot, sand and a touch of blood from under his nose with the back of his hand, he tastes salt. Salt and copper.
Duncan hasn't seen Logan cry since he was eight and then again when he was ten and Logan had broken his nose on his birthday. Logan never cried at his own mother's memorial, he didn't cry at Lilly's funeral (though he was seen with red puffy skin under his eyes). Until this point, Duncan thought that Logan had become completely incapable of shedding tears - now he knows that's not the case.
Logan sits ass first on the shore, sand sticking to the wet denim of his jeans, head in his hands and he just cries. A rush of SeventeenTenEight floods through Duncan's brain and maybe - just maybe - he thinks that all Logan's actions have been tears this whole time.
It takes a moment but while Duncan stares at Logan with no idea what to do - helplessness incapacitating him - Logan collects himself, all on his own, so he starts smiling through tightened drying cheeks.
It hurts just to look at him.
"Go ahead," he muses, quietly at first - dangerously intense as a sour bitter taste settles inside his throat. "Go ahead, Duncan. Do it again."
Logan moves to undo his belt to hand it to Duncan, but the seaweed has made it sticky and it only comes half undone before he gives up.
In a breathless tone, Logan coerces Duncan again. His voice rises to the yell and the reaction. "Hit me, man! What are you waiting for!"
Duncan's still for a full minute as Logan stares up at him and into him and the world seems to spin around him before he takes action, moves one fraction and then two and then he's on his knees in front of Logan grabbing his shirt again just as tightly as before but this time he pulls and then pushes. Rough, salty, callous lips meet hard and fast and it takes Logan, the one who’s only ever started something like this, a full minute to realize what's happening - usually he's drunk or dreaming.
Logan isn't drunk and he isn't dreaming and now he's the one who can't think but this kind of thing, he knows, doesn't require thought - it never has before. He opens his lips and licks his tongue across Duncan’s; he can't suppress his moan when Duncan's tongue invades his mouth. Logan grabs the back of Duncan's head and pulls him closer, they fall back against the sand and before he even realizes that Duncan's moving, he feels his best friend’s thighs surrounding his hips.
They kiss again, hungrily devouring at the other's mouth. His nails dig into too hard into the material of Logan's soaked shirt and underneath he feels cold hard flesh. That's when Logan's hips rotate against his, a chorus of whispered Again, again, against his lower lips before it's sucked into the hot heat of Logan's mouth.
He doesn't think of the fact that this is Duncan or he that gets off on the idea of his best friend being so fucking pissed at him. It's just Duncan and these are just his lips pressing - bruising - against his. Logan can taste the flavor on Duncan's lips and it tastes just like him.
They fumble awkwardly together, laugh at the proper moments, moans carried away by the wind. The waves crash in time to thrusts against hands against denim. It's never been like this, never would be like this, greedy teenagers grinding and violent until they feel the water collide with their ankles. Duncan shivers at the cold. What a mess. It's just a mess and neither of them can seem to care.
Duncan collapses against Logan as the kisses slow down and ebb off until they are just staring at each other, eyes saying things that can't be voiced, refuse to be voiced.
"We should go home," Duncan says, removing his hand from Logan's fully undone jeans suddenly unable to make eye contact.
"You should." Logan's voice sounds numb again - or tired maybe. "You should. I need to stay here a little longer."
Duncan's going to settle on tired; he can't stand to think that maybe Logan just really doesn't want to be here. His eyes meet Logan's again for a second, there's no movement not a sound besides the breaths they take. Even the sea seems to wait for one of them to say something. It's only a beat before they separate and Logan starts to do up his pants again.
"You'll be okay, right?" Duncan asks, finally standing, zipping up his own pants and straightening out his wrinkled clothes. He wants Logan to say no, to make him haul his ass up off the beach and take him back to the Kane mansion where he can be safe - or at least with Duncan himself.
"I'll be okay, D," he nods, and a haunting, all knowing yet smug smile passes over his face and Duncan turns and leaves.
Two days later, Duncan sees Logan again.
Duncan's arm is casually draped over Veronica's shoulder, her tears soaking the jacket of his suit but all he can see is Logan sitting across from him with that smug smile.
"It's my fault, if I hadn't accused him …" Veronica's voice trails off it feels like it's pushed to the background when Logan starts to laugh. Like he's not allowing the words to make it to Duncan's ears and maybe he's not.
"You know man, if you'd just been there five minutes sooner all of this could have been avoided." Logan's smirk is what hits him hardest, the way the words slip through his lips coldly, he's seen this expression before, but rarely directed at him.
"No," Is all he manages to say.
Duncan can feel Veronica shift in his arms; he can even hear her protest vaguely behind the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
"What are you saying that if you'd gotten there sooner you'd have pushed me off? Come on D, all you had to do was leave the sheriff’s station five minutes sooner and Lilly wouldn't have a friend in hell," Logan's smirk was eating away at Duncan's soul just as much as his words were.
Duncan's jaw clenches, his eyes close and he wishes the image away, wishes that he'd open his eyes and be able to give Veronica his attention, console her somehow, let her console him - it didn't matter.
When he opens his eyes Logan is on his knees on the floor of the limo, his face inches from Duncan's, he tells his body to close his eyes again but it doesn’t cooperate.
"Jesus," Logan laughs. "Do you ever just wonder who's going to be next? Is it going to be you or Veronica who one day stares while you're shaving and decides to start dragging the razor blade across your skin just because there's nothing left to do? Remember," Logan's voice drops low, "it's better if you go up the road, not across the street."
"Shut up!" Duncan whispers vehemently and Veronica pulls away from him with shocked tears falling down her face. He's finally able to turn his head from his dead best friend and look at her, tears falling freely but she doesn't look scared - Veronica Mars doesn't get scared, unless she's being burned to death in a refrigerator but those are just semantics.
He closes his eyes for a split second, trying to regain his composure.
"I'm sorry. I just … I wasn't … It's like I can hear him in my head telling me it's my fault." Duncan risks a glance at Logan's amused raised eyebrows quickly before running his hand through his hair.
Veronica's tears rise anew and her jaw shakes, her cheeks wet, as she takes his hand in hers, "Duncan, it wasn't your fault either. You tried to get him out of the water. It was just too late." Her voice cracks and he winces at the sound.
"Fucking crock," Logan mutters.
Duncan doesn't know if he's talking about Veronica or himself but he nods towards Veronica instead because Duncan doesn't argue with Veronica - he's not Logan, he'll never be Logan - but silently he tells himself that it is his fault and it's her fault and most of all it's Logan's fault.
Duncan remembers that night, calling Logan's cell phone hearing the drunken voicemail welcome " You've reached Logan and here's today's inspirational message: Live fast and die young - sounds like a good idea to me". He remembers running from the sheriff’s station and heading towards the Echolls house, seeing Logan's X-Terra on the bridge, doors wide open but no Logan. He remembers panicking and looking over the edge of the bridge and seeing the body bobbing against surface and not thinking before diving in after it. He should have died too but something saved him and left Logan’s lungs full of dirty seawater.
As Veronica fits herself back to his side he looks as Logan's haunted, all knowing yet smug smile grows and wishes he'd blacked it all out. He wishes he didn't have the same dream every night and sometimes he even wishes Logan would go to hell with Lilly and leave him alone.
It's my fault, he whispers to himself, but silently.