Fic: Silent Night (PG-13) Logan, Veronica
Title: Silent Night
Author: Marylane23
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Logan, Veronica
Word Count: 3,000
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas owns them all, not me. But think of the mayhem if he was willing to sell them....
Spoilers/Warnings: Through 1.10.
Summary: The night of Lynn Echolls’ last Christmas party, Veronica finds herself playing chauffer to an old friend.
Author’s Note: This should have been written a year ago, but considering I neither read nor wrote fanfic at the time, I think I can be forgiven for the slip up. :)
Written for herowlness for sarkastic’s L/V ficathon, with the commandments that there be angst, shirtless Logan, no fluff and no plotless smut, and it take place after An Echolls Family Christmas or later. Hope she likes.
Dec. 18, 1:32 AM EST. NEPTUNE, CA (AP) -- Oscar Winner Stabbed by Fan at Christmas Party
Academy Award Winner Aaron Echolls was rushed to the hospital late last night after a brutal attack by female fan. Echolls (45) star of ‘The Long Haul’ and ‘Breaking Point’ was hosting a Christmas party in his Neptune, CA home when the unidentified woman accosted him, stabbing him once in the abdomen, before being restrained by an unnamed party guest. Physicians at Neptune Memorial Hosp. describe the star’s condition as stable; Echolls is expected to make a full recovery. Among the attendees of the gathering were Echolls’ ‘Hair Trigger’ co-star Connor Larkin and Jake Kane, CEO of...
~~~
You haven’t slept well for, oh, call it a year. Surprise viewings of her best friend’s bloodied corpse tend to do that to a girl. And nights like tonight certainly don’t improve things.
So when it gets to be 2:51, nine unending minutes from the six hour anniversary of your first celebrity stabbing, and your eyes still aren’t even tempted to close, you give up the ghost. Sleep just isn’t going to happen.
Your internal mantra since you got home has been that it’s just about the car. That knot in your stomach, the constant checking in with news channels and wire reports.
In reality, you’re well aware that you’re lying through your mental teeth, that you’re worried about him, and beyond that, you’re infinitely bothered that you would still worry about him.
But you don’t let that stop you. It feels healthier to lie to yourself than to be subject to the fetters of a friendship that doesn’t exist anymore.
~~~
When you can’t stand being alone with such thoughts anymore, you retreat to an old standby: You toss the covers aside, pile into your robe and fuzzy bunny slippers, swoop up your discman and Tom Petty’s greatest hits, and shuffle out to the pool.
The bunny slippers get to stand watch as you dip your bare feet over the edge, let the crisscrossing reflections and the warmth radiating out from the water’s surface calm you as the music overtakes your senses. As always.
As always, with the possible distinction that this time your nemesis was waiting for you.
~~~
The last strains of “Breakdown” are fading in your ears when you finally notice him. Sitting there behind the wheel of your car, staring into the dashboard as if the answers to everything were to be found in some fixed point twenty inches directly before his eyes.
You doubt you’re allowed to consider it a surprise, even in light of the previous year. It’s not as if the events of the night were unknown to you. Or as if this wasn’t a logical outcome.
That he’d be here waiting for you. That there’d be this bizarre holiday truce.
Even if last time you checked, he was still Logan, and you were still the same convenient target.
~~~
No. You decide surprise is something you can’t get away with this time.
After all, you were quite lucid when you slipped the keys into his palm, curling his fingers around them and silently praying for him to subdue his nature long enough to accept a kindness when it was offered. Even if it was from you.
You didn’t even have to bother with explanations. See, your car will have been blocked in by the valets, by the cops, by the cameras, and mine is parked outside the gates where the rest of the riffraff are allowed...
A dazed look giving way to comprehension and a terse nod later, and he was speeding off after the ambulance.
When your dad asked, you’d said Weevil brought you to the party, that the Lebaron was still at school. No sense in trying to explain something you really don’t understand yourself.
~~~
It’s a brand new type of anxious you invent as you approach him. Clad in your plaid pajama bottoms and tank top, wrestling your robe back around you and wondering exactly how bad a case of bedhead you might be sporting.
Not that you’re desperate to astound him with your nighttime splendor or any such garbage. But with his tendency to use your failings against you, you’d rather not look like shit. If at all possible.
But a brisk once-over is all you get. One glance, then he lifts himself over the gearshift and into the passenger seat, jingling the keys as he goes in a Logan Echolls approximation of the subtle hint that you’re to drive him home now.
You bite back the annoyance, and that petty little craving for recognition of the favor you did him, the kind you’d be due from any half-decent human being. Because his eyes are puffy and his knuckles bruised from punching some unknown object, the unfortunate symbolic stand-in for the root of his problems.
And even you know these are the textbook signs of Logan-In-Pain.
So you slide in, put your right bunny to the gas pedal, and start off into the night. Without a word from either side.
~~~
The drive to the estate is conducted in a silence so absolute that your thoughts seem to multiply in the void. The exact malady you left your bed to escape, amplified by Logan’s tacit presence slumped in the neighboring seat.
You never imagined that quiet, night, and an open road could be stifling, but here you are. And you begin an internal countdown of mileposts to stave off the panic as you make your way into the hills.
And, of course, just as you reach zero and are about to breathe that sigh of relief that your vehicle and your world and your Christmas will be yours again, you see the cameras. The throng swarming the gates even at this hour, waiting patiently for an aftermath soundbyte and a local Emmy.
You hear his breath hitch, see him slide down in his seat in horror, suddenly a little boy regretting admission to his first scary movie. And you find that you can’t let the monsters get him.
You can’t restart your countdown once you drive past, because you have no clue where you’re going. But somehow you’re more upset at the suspicion that Logan Echolls might have just smiled at you.
~~~
There’s an all-night diner off the PCH, just outside the city limits. What the Camelot motel is to illicit trysts, the diner is to corporate espionage and other less... intimate... assignations: the place to go to take care of business without being recognized.
You know it well, in your professional capacity. But personally, you’ve never had such a need for anonymity. Until tonight.
So that’s where you take him.
You’re so focused on the idea of a destination that it doesn’t occur to you until you get there that you’re still in your robe and pajamas. And with that comes the realization that nowhere in that robe and pajamas is there a driver’s license, cell phone, or any form of currency.
Your prospects of being allowed entrance to even this dive of a diner are pretty slim in your current ensemble, regardless or whether you can pay once you get there.
You’re digging frantically through the backseat of you car in the hope of some forgotten jacket when your “arch-enemy’s” sweater lands in your lap. The sudden chivalry doesn’t include waiting for you to accept the gesture; he’s already headed through the door.
~~~
3:21AM finds you and the son of the most famous face in America (for the night, anyway) slinking into the deserted excuse for a restaurant. You, sliding across the threshold in an increasingly dirty pair of bunny slippers and a shirt borrowed from your dead best friend’s boyfriend, and him shivering in a tattered undershirt, with a blood spatter on his pants you only notice now that you’ve stepped into the light.
Oh, you can’t even gauge how quickly you’re going to get kicked out. You both look like refugees from a slasher flick, or perhaps its soft-core takeoff. And you really should be focusing on that rather than quietly enjoying the residual body-heat in his sweater.
You slide into the booth nearest the door, and call out an order for two black coffees, emboldened once Logan slaps twenty bucks on the formica tabletop and retreats into the corner, rubbing his closed eyelids with his palms and sighing.
You get a suspicious look from the waitress along with your coffee. But at least you made it this far.
~~~
Thirty-five minutes and two coffees later, you’re wondering how you ever thought this could be an improvement.
You must have opened your mouth to say something a dozen times, immediately clamping it shut again when you couldn’t figure out if you wanted to offer jokes or barbs or condolences, and your jaw is starting to ache from your indecision.
You have no idea what’s wrong with you. It’s the middle of the night and you’re on some lunatic coffee date with Logan Fuckstick Echolls, who this morning might as well have been the devil himself. And try as hard as you might, you can’t even talk.
This isn’t you. It doesn’t matter that you’re pitying him, and empathizing with him, and that your hate has somehow been suspended. You still should be brave enough to talk.
Somewhere in all this the silence has gone from annoying you to killing you. And something, anything, has to happen or you’re going to have to scream and rant and just leave him here.
But you know you won’t leave him here.
~~~
Your waitress makes the decision for you. You’re so lost in your thoughts that you barely catch on before it’s too late.
The CNN ticker on the muted TV set mounted behind the counter has given him away, and the suddenly attentive waitress quickly vanished to the rear of the restaurant, following the signs for the pay phones.
And you find your voice at last: “We have to go.”
You literally have to pull him from the booth, even after a muttered explanation. And you realized that at some point, while you were having your quiet little meltdown, he gave up. He might even smile for the cameras when they arrive.
And whatever is wrong with you tonight, it’s not about to let that happen.
~~~
Once you’re on the road again, your well-timed yank on his collar is all that keeps him out of sight long enough for the NEWS-4 van to pass by. You’re starting to wonder if your efforts are even worth it, if he’s just going to sit there.
He’s still staring blankly off into the passing scenery, one hand unconsciously scratching at the bloody spot on his pant-leg.
He’s gone Stepford right in front of you. And aside from being all sorts of disturbing, this hush is as much not him as it isn’t you.
You keep reminding yourself that you don’t like him. You should be ecstatic at the reversal of fortune. You should be reveling, MCing the parade in celebration of Logan Echolls helpless. This is like some strange little Christmas gift from the cosmos.
But the real phenomenon of the night is that for the first time since last year you can see through your anger in the way Logan still can’t. See that he’s really the only one you know who’s hurting as much as you are. And see that he needs someone to take him somewhere safe.
Dog beach sounds as good as anywhere.
~~~
And that’s where it all boils over.
You don’t realize that asking if he’s okay is such a transgression, but it sends him out of the car like a shot.
He kicks a metal trashcan until it’s warped around the chains that keep it in place. Gives himself a limp you’re sure will be with him into the new year. You’d take offense at the behavior but you’re pretty sure from the look in his eyes that you aren’t even in his universe at the moment.
You’re okay with keeping out of it until he takes off running toward the water, losing clothes frantically as he goes, until he’s reduced to what looks like a pair of cartoon reindeer boxers as he half-sprints, still limping, into the waves.
You call his name over and over, terrified that he’ll dive into a sandbar, or a riptide, or maybe just choose not to come back in.
Instead, he shoots up from the water, stands waist deep, raises his arms to the clear night sky and lets out the most impressive string of expletives you’ve ever heard.
And it isn’t until after he reaches the creative limits of his profanity and drops to his knees in the shallow water that you feel the tears streaming down your own face.
~~~
“Better?”
It’s all you can think of to say as he hobbles back to you after his ten minute tirade against the world. He plants his feet before you in the sand, rivulets of water dripping from his hair down his almost bare body, and you know instinctually that something unfathomable hangs upon his answer.
He’s shivering, reduced to little hissing intakes of breath between chattering teeth. But he meets your eyes, reaches up and pushes wet hair out of his eyes, and the corner of his mouth curls up ever so slightly in the beginnings of a smile you never thought you’d want to see again.
You just stare. He’s Logan again, and you don’t seem to mind.
And because you can’t think of what else to do, you wrap your robe around him, busy yourself drying him off in the December chill.
And smile back.
~~~
“I had to call information,” he exposits out of nowhere, as you mop up his wet hair with the terrycloth, his teeth still rattling from the cold. “I didn’t even know you’d fucking moved.”
And you have to laugh, even if it’s just a muted little exhale half-buried your hand.
Because it’s the first thing he’s said to you all night.
~~~
Sometime later, the two of you have gathered up his clothes and are both pretending he didn’t just catch you peeking. But that’s not the revelation it could be: it’s no secret that Logan’s good looking, and not as if you’ve never been caught looking before. As if he hasn’t looked too.
“We egged your old house after the bong thing. After the headlights.” He announces. And you hear it this time. The slight lilt in the voice.
Humor returning to him. He’ll be his old self in no time, and it scares you a little. His old self and your new self don’t seem to get along.
“I know.” You murmur, and despite your fear you find another smile slipping past your control.
This can’t be normal.
~~~
Another hour finds you both sprawled on the hood of the Lebaron. You’d call it stargazing, but that’s at best a euphemism for staring off into space. Tom Petty is echoing through your speakers and draining the hell out of your battery, but you’ve achieved this odd zone of comfort.
And it’s keeping those terrifying thoughts at bay.
You’re still having them, still recognizing them. Still wondering why you helped your enemy...If that’s still a valid title, and if it ever really was.
But something inexplicable has shifted, and those thoughts can’t compete with the realization that you’re almost enjoying tonight.
And it’s that shift, and the gentle vibration of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” that finally allows you to fall asleep.
~~~
His cell phone summons you back to reality after who knows how long, but apparently long enough for you to have curled into his side. You have no idea if he’s been awake this whole time, how deep your blush should be, but he has no trouble answering his phone after the first ring.
You blink at the sudden light. The sun is just threatening to rise, and you realize it won’t be too long before you’re missed.
Seems Logan already has been, you glean from one side of his conversation. His mother, calling from the hospital. Alarmed, ironically, by the fact that the press can’t seem to find him.
Seems like playtime is over.
~~~
The real miracle in all of this turns out to be the fact that your car still starts.
Morning and harsh light have hit you by the time the Lebaron rolls into the main lot of Neptune Memorial. Another in a night full of unspoken agreements has settled that you’ll drop him off here, where he can take the pedestrian bridge into the hospital proper and make his way unnoticed into the emergency department.
As the car idles there’s nothing for you to do but wait for him to make his exit. But he won’t move.
Your breath catches as his fingers suddenly surround the hand you have perched on the gearshift.
~~~
“Veronica.”
His hand lingers on yours. One of your better angels pipes in, demanding that you decipher any meaning behind this, and that little devil on your shoulder again counters with you shouldn’t care, and what’s wrong with you that you do.
“Last night...”
You shouldn’t be so desperate to hear this.
“Last night you... you were kicking our asses, so... I’ll make sure you get your money.”
Your jaw drops, you stare on in admiration at his unprecedented ability to disregard the last 9 hours. Then you snort with laughter, because you absolutely can’t help it.
You remove your hand from his, reach out to touch his cheekbone and look him square in the eye. And you say, with emphasis, the words which on some level you know are the bravest sentiments you’ve voiced in a long while.
“You’re welcome, Logan.”
~~~
He stares at you, and there’s something in that look that was never between the two of you before this morning.
You don’t miss the panic in his eyes as he bolts out of your car, cutting his injured leg no slack as he dashes into the building without another word.
But you understand. Hell, for that panicked feeling, you may as well have been looking in a mirror.
You stare after him as he goes, aware that whatever else among the night’s revelations, at the very least you aren’t going to be able to hate him the same way anymore. If you can still find it in you to hate him at all.
He may not be the boy you knew, but this Logan’s not a stranger anymore.
You wonder if you’re still a stranger to him.
Author: Marylane23
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Logan, Veronica
Word Count: 3,000
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas owns them all, not me. But think of the mayhem if he was willing to sell them....
Spoilers/Warnings: Through 1.10.
Summary: The night of Lynn Echolls’ last Christmas party, Veronica finds herself playing chauffer to an old friend.
Author’s Note: This should have been written a year ago, but considering I neither read nor wrote fanfic at the time, I think I can be forgiven for the slip up. :)
Written for herowlness for sarkastic’s L/V ficathon, with the commandments that there be angst, shirtless Logan, no fluff and no plotless smut, and it take place after An Echolls Family Christmas or later. Hope she likes.
Dec. 18, 1:32 AM EST. NEPTUNE, CA (AP) -- Oscar Winner Stabbed by Fan at Christmas Party
Academy Award Winner Aaron Echolls was rushed to the hospital late last night after a brutal attack by female fan. Echolls (45) star of ‘The Long Haul’ and ‘Breaking Point’ was hosting a Christmas party in his Neptune, CA home when the unidentified woman accosted him, stabbing him once in the abdomen, before being restrained by an unnamed party guest. Physicians at Neptune Memorial Hosp. describe the star’s condition as stable; Echolls is expected to make a full recovery. Among the attendees of the gathering were Echolls’ ‘Hair Trigger’ co-star Connor Larkin and Jake Kane, CEO of...
~~~
You haven’t slept well for, oh, call it a year. Surprise viewings of her best friend’s bloodied corpse tend to do that to a girl. And nights like tonight certainly don’t improve things.
So when it gets to be 2:51, nine unending minutes from the six hour anniversary of your first celebrity stabbing, and your eyes still aren’t even tempted to close, you give up the ghost. Sleep just isn’t going to happen.
Your internal mantra since you got home has been that it’s just about the car. That knot in your stomach, the constant checking in with news channels and wire reports.
In reality, you’re well aware that you’re lying through your mental teeth, that you’re worried about him, and beyond that, you’re infinitely bothered that you would still worry about him.
But you don’t let that stop you. It feels healthier to lie to yourself than to be subject to the fetters of a friendship that doesn’t exist anymore.
~~~
When you can’t stand being alone with such thoughts anymore, you retreat to an old standby: You toss the covers aside, pile into your robe and fuzzy bunny slippers, swoop up your discman and Tom Petty’s greatest hits, and shuffle out to the pool.
The bunny slippers get to stand watch as you dip your bare feet over the edge, let the crisscrossing reflections and the warmth radiating out from the water’s surface calm you as the music overtakes your senses. As always.
As always, with the possible distinction that this time your nemesis was waiting for you.
~~~
The last strains of “Breakdown” are fading in your ears when you finally notice him. Sitting there behind the wheel of your car, staring into the dashboard as if the answers to everything were to be found in some fixed point twenty inches directly before his eyes.
You doubt you’re allowed to consider it a surprise, even in light of the previous year. It’s not as if the events of the night were unknown to you. Or as if this wasn’t a logical outcome.
That he’d be here waiting for you. That there’d be this bizarre holiday truce.
Even if last time you checked, he was still Logan, and you were still the same convenient target.
~~~
No. You decide surprise is something you can’t get away with this time.
After all, you were quite lucid when you slipped the keys into his palm, curling his fingers around them and silently praying for him to subdue his nature long enough to accept a kindness when it was offered. Even if it was from you.
You didn’t even have to bother with explanations. See, your car will have been blocked in by the valets, by the cops, by the cameras, and mine is parked outside the gates where the rest of the riffraff are allowed...
A dazed look giving way to comprehension and a terse nod later, and he was speeding off after the ambulance.
When your dad asked, you’d said Weevil brought you to the party, that the Lebaron was still at school. No sense in trying to explain something you really don’t understand yourself.
~~~
It’s a brand new type of anxious you invent as you approach him. Clad in your plaid pajama bottoms and tank top, wrestling your robe back around you and wondering exactly how bad a case of bedhead you might be sporting.
Not that you’re desperate to astound him with your nighttime splendor or any such garbage. But with his tendency to use your failings against you, you’d rather not look like shit. If at all possible.
But a brisk once-over is all you get. One glance, then he lifts himself over the gearshift and into the passenger seat, jingling the keys as he goes in a Logan Echolls approximation of the subtle hint that you’re to drive him home now.
You bite back the annoyance, and that petty little craving for recognition of the favor you did him, the kind you’d be due from any half-decent human being. Because his eyes are puffy and his knuckles bruised from punching some unknown object, the unfortunate symbolic stand-in for the root of his problems.
And even you know these are the textbook signs of Logan-In-Pain.
So you slide in, put your right bunny to the gas pedal, and start off into the night. Without a word from either side.
~~~
The drive to the estate is conducted in a silence so absolute that your thoughts seem to multiply in the void. The exact malady you left your bed to escape, amplified by Logan’s tacit presence slumped in the neighboring seat.
You never imagined that quiet, night, and an open road could be stifling, but here you are. And you begin an internal countdown of mileposts to stave off the panic as you make your way into the hills.
And, of course, just as you reach zero and are about to breathe that sigh of relief that your vehicle and your world and your Christmas will be yours again, you see the cameras. The throng swarming the gates even at this hour, waiting patiently for an aftermath soundbyte and a local Emmy.
You hear his breath hitch, see him slide down in his seat in horror, suddenly a little boy regretting admission to his first scary movie. And you find that you can’t let the monsters get him.
You can’t restart your countdown once you drive past, because you have no clue where you’re going. But somehow you’re more upset at the suspicion that Logan Echolls might have just smiled at you.
~~~
There’s an all-night diner off the PCH, just outside the city limits. What the Camelot motel is to illicit trysts, the diner is to corporate espionage and other less... intimate... assignations: the place to go to take care of business without being recognized.
You know it well, in your professional capacity. But personally, you’ve never had such a need for anonymity. Until tonight.
So that’s where you take him.
You’re so focused on the idea of a destination that it doesn’t occur to you until you get there that you’re still in your robe and pajamas. And with that comes the realization that nowhere in that robe and pajamas is there a driver’s license, cell phone, or any form of currency.
Your prospects of being allowed entrance to even this dive of a diner are pretty slim in your current ensemble, regardless or whether you can pay once you get there.
You’re digging frantically through the backseat of you car in the hope of some forgotten jacket when your “arch-enemy’s” sweater lands in your lap. The sudden chivalry doesn’t include waiting for you to accept the gesture; he’s already headed through the door.
~~~
3:21AM finds you and the son of the most famous face in America (for the night, anyway) slinking into the deserted excuse for a restaurant. You, sliding across the threshold in an increasingly dirty pair of bunny slippers and a shirt borrowed from your dead best friend’s boyfriend, and him shivering in a tattered undershirt, with a blood spatter on his pants you only notice now that you’ve stepped into the light.
Oh, you can’t even gauge how quickly you’re going to get kicked out. You both look like refugees from a slasher flick, or perhaps its soft-core takeoff. And you really should be focusing on that rather than quietly enjoying the residual body-heat in his sweater.
You slide into the booth nearest the door, and call out an order for two black coffees, emboldened once Logan slaps twenty bucks on the formica tabletop and retreats into the corner, rubbing his closed eyelids with his palms and sighing.
You get a suspicious look from the waitress along with your coffee. But at least you made it this far.
~~~
Thirty-five minutes and two coffees later, you’re wondering how you ever thought this could be an improvement.
You must have opened your mouth to say something a dozen times, immediately clamping it shut again when you couldn’t figure out if you wanted to offer jokes or barbs or condolences, and your jaw is starting to ache from your indecision.
You have no idea what’s wrong with you. It’s the middle of the night and you’re on some lunatic coffee date with Logan Fuckstick Echolls, who this morning might as well have been the devil himself. And try as hard as you might, you can’t even talk.
This isn’t you. It doesn’t matter that you’re pitying him, and empathizing with him, and that your hate has somehow been suspended. You still should be brave enough to talk.
Somewhere in all this the silence has gone from annoying you to killing you. And something, anything, has to happen or you’re going to have to scream and rant and just leave him here.
But you know you won’t leave him here.
~~~
Your waitress makes the decision for you. You’re so lost in your thoughts that you barely catch on before it’s too late.
The CNN ticker on the muted TV set mounted behind the counter has given him away, and the suddenly attentive waitress quickly vanished to the rear of the restaurant, following the signs for the pay phones.
And you find your voice at last: “We have to go.”
You literally have to pull him from the booth, even after a muttered explanation. And you realized that at some point, while you were having your quiet little meltdown, he gave up. He might even smile for the cameras when they arrive.
And whatever is wrong with you tonight, it’s not about to let that happen.
~~~
Once you’re on the road again, your well-timed yank on his collar is all that keeps him out of sight long enough for the NEWS-4 van to pass by. You’re starting to wonder if your efforts are even worth it, if he’s just going to sit there.
He’s still staring blankly off into the passing scenery, one hand unconsciously scratching at the bloody spot on his pant-leg.
He’s gone Stepford right in front of you. And aside from being all sorts of disturbing, this hush is as much not him as it isn’t you.
You keep reminding yourself that you don’t like him. You should be ecstatic at the reversal of fortune. You should be reveling, MCing the parade in celebration of Logan Echolls helpless. This is like some strange little Christmas gift from the cosmos.
But the real phenomenon of the night is that for the first time since last year you can see through your anger in the way Logan still can’t. See that he’s really the only one you know who’s hurting as much as you are. And see that he needs someone to take him somewhere safe.
Dog beach sounds as good as anywhere.
~~~
And that’s where it all boils over.
You don’t realize that asking if he’s okay is such a transgression, but it sends him out of the car like a shot.
He kicks a metal trashcan until it’s warped around the chains that keep it in place. Gives himself a limp you’re sure will be with him into the new year. You’d take offense at the behavior but you’re pretty sure from the look in his eyes that you aren’t even in his universe at the moment.
You’re okay with keeping out of it until he takes off running toward the water, losing clothes frantically as he goes, until he’s reduced to what looks like a pair of cartoon reindeer boxers as he half-sprints, still limping, into the waves.
You call his name over and over, terrified that he’ll dive into a sandbar, or a riptide, or maybe just choose not to come back in.
Instead, he shoots up from the water, stands waist deep, raises his arms to the clear night sky and lets out the most impressive string of expletives you’ve ever heard.
And it isn’t until after he reaches the creative limits of his profanity and drops to his knees in the shallow water that you feel the tears streaming down your own face.
~~~
“Better?”
It’s all you can think of to say as he hobbles back to you after his ten minute tirade against the world. He plants his feet before you in the sand, rivulets of water dripping from his hair down his almost bare body, and you know instinctually that something unfathomable hangs upon his answer.
He’s shivering, reduced to little hissing intakes of breath between chattering teeth. But he meets your eyes, reaches up and pushes wet hair out of his eyes, and the corner of his mouth curls up ever so slightly in the beginnings of a smile you never thought you’d want to see again.
You just stare. He’s Logan again, and you don’t seem to mind.
And because you can’t think of what else to do, you wrap your robe around him, busy yourself drying him off in the December chill.
And smile back.
~~~
“I had to call information,” he exposits out of nowhere, as you mop up his wet hair with the terrycloth, his teeth still rattling from the cold. “I didn’t even know you’d fucking moved.”
And you have to laugh, even if it’s just a muted little exhale half-buried your hand.
Because it’s the first thing he’s said to you all night.
~~~
Sometime later, the two of you have gathered up his clothes and are both pretending he didn’t just catch you peeking. But that’s not the revelation it could be: it’s no secret that Logan’s good looking, and not as if you’ve never been caught looking before. As if he hasn’t looked too.
“We egged your old house after the bong thing. After the headlights.” He announces. And you hear it this time. The slight lilt in the voice.
Humor returning to him. He’ll be his old self in no time, and it scares you a little. His old self and your new self don’t seem to get along.
“I know.” You murmur, and despite your fear you find another smile slipping past your control.
This can’t be normal.
~~~
Another hour finds you both sprawled on the hood of the Lebaron. You’d call it stargazing, but that’s at best a euphemism for staring off into space. Tom Petty is echoing through your speakers and draining the hell out of your battery, but you’ve achieved this odd zone of comfort.
And it’s keeping those terrifying thoughts at bay.
You’re still having them, still recognizing them. Still wondering why you helped your enemy...If that’s still a valid title, and if it ever really was.
But something inexplicable has shifted, and those thoughts can’t compete with the realization that you’re almost enjoying tonight.
And it’s that shift, and the gentle vibration of “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” that finally allows you to fall asleep.
~~~
His cell phone summons you back to reality after who knows how long, but apparently long enough for you to have curled into his side. You have no idea if he’s been awake this whole time, how deep your blush should be, but he has no trouble answering his phone after the first ring.
You blink at the sudden light. The sun is just threatening to rise, and you realize it won’t be too long before you’re missed.
Seems Logan already has been, you glean from one side of his conversation. His mother, calling from the hospital. Alarmed, ironically, by the fact that the press can’t seem to find him.
Seems like playtime is over.
~~~
The real miracle in all of this turns out to be the fact that your car still starts.
Morning and harsh light have hit you by the time the Lebaron rolls into the main lot of Neptune Memorial. Another in a night full of unspoken agreements has settled that you’ll drop him off here, where he can take the pedestrian bridge into the hospital proper and make his way unnoticed into the emergency department.
As the car idles there’s nothing for you to do but wait for him to make his exit. But he won’t move.
Your breath catches as his fingers suddenly surround the hand you have perched on the gearshift.
~~~
“Veronica.”
His hand lingers on yours. One of your better angels pipes in, demanding that you decipher any meaning behind this, and that little devil on your shoulder again counters with you shouldn’t care, and what’s wrong with you that you do.
“Last night...”
You shouldn’t be so desperate to hear this.
“Last night you... you were kicking our asses, so... I’ll make sure you get your money.”
Your jaw drops, you stare on in admiration at his unprecedented ability to disregard the last 9 hours. Then you snort with laughter, because you absolutely can’t help it.
You remove your hand from his, reach out to touch his cheekbone and look him square in the eye. And you say, with emphasis, the words which on some level you know are the bravest sentiments you’ve voiced in a long while.
“You’re welcome, Logan.”
~~~
He stares at you, and there’s something in that look that was never between the two of you before this morning.
You don’t miss the panic in his eyes as he bolts out of your car, cutting his injured leg no slack as he dashes into the building without another word.
But you understand. Hell, for that panicked feeling, you may as well have been looking in a mirror.
You stare after him as he goes, aware that whatever else among the night’s revelations, at the very least you aren’t going to be able to hate him the same way anymore. If you can still find it in you to hate him at all.
He may not be the boy you knew, but this Logan’s not a stranger anymore.
You wonder if you’re still a stranger to him.