TITLE: 4x01 Cold Open - Lizzy Style!
AUTHOR:
herowlnessCHARACTER: Logan
RATING: R (language)
SPOILERS: all aired episodes
WORD COUNT: 1324
SUMMARY: The day begins just like any other - sun rises, man awakes, life goes on. This day, however, has something just a little different about it that Logan can't quite put his finger on.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for
v_d_d - this is what I'd like to have seen with the first episode of VM S4 - had the show been renewed.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I'd probably take better care of them if they were mine though. [just saying!]
With sunlight streaming through the bedroom window, Logan Echolls slowly awakens, rejoining the world to start the new day. The sunny skies tell him that it should be a good day - one filled with surfing and fun with his friends - but as opens his eyes, he knows that something is not quite right.
While his sleep-addled brain tries to determine what is so different, so off, Logan nuzzles the neck of his blonde girlfriend who lies spooned within his embrace. He doesn’t remember how Veronica got to his place - after all, she was with Piz the last time he saw her - but she is back with him, finally, and everything is as it should be.
Except - Veronica's hair doesn't smell like this, like honey and nectar and seduction and sex. Which could only mean one thing - he must have gotten drunk off his ass last night and gone out to pick up some girl whom he could fool himself into believing was Veronica.
He is such a fucking moron sometimes. Like having a girl who resembled Veronica would help him forget that Veronica was fucking that pussy guitar player. Veronica didn't love Piz - he knew that much. But that didn't stop her from doing everything she could to hurt him.
And since she'd known him for years - ever since they were in middle school - she knew just how to hurt him where it would cut the deepest.
He lets out a slow growl, "Fuck," which causes his woman of the night to awaken.
"What the hell, Logan?" she complains in a voice that is all too familiar. He knows that voice, spent a fair number of blissful nights with that voice moaning in his ear, shouting louder and louder for more, more, more.
But it can't be, not really. He couldn't possibly be this lucky.
"Lilly?" he asks reverently, afraid that verbalizing his hope will cause her to disappear with a puff of smoke.
"Forget my name already?" she asks with a smirk, turning in his embrace to face him.
"Lilly!" he exults with absolute joy, as he leans forward to kiss her soundly. He doesn't care how this happened, why Lilly is here in his bed, in his arms. The fact of the matter is that she is here, with him, and he doesn’t give a damn anymore about what she had with Weevil, or his father - although that last one is something he'd prefer to not think about ever again, especially since he made himself watch the tapes before he destroyed them.
Lilly is with him, only him, and even despite everything, he still loved her, still loves her. She's his Lilly, and she's here, and nothing else matters.
His lips barely graze her own before she's pulling back and staring him down, a fierce look in her eyes. "What the hell, Logan? Why the fuck are you so surprised to see me here. It's not like I snuck in while you were asleep or something, and if you've been fucking anyone else in our bed, I'll fucking kill you."
"No, no," Logan says, trying to make sense of this reality that he's fallen into. Not only is Lilly alive, but she's referring to his bed as their bed, which means he must be dreaming. But he can't be dreaming, right? Pinching his arm to be sure, he lets a wide grin spread over his features at the resultant pain. No, he is definitely not imagining this.
"I just had the strangest dream," he shares, not wanting to elaborate, to tell her that he'd feared at first that this had been the dreamworld. "I missed you."
"We've been asleep for all of five hours, Logan. I know that little Logan is insatiable sometimes, but a girl needs her beauty sleep," Lilly responds with a roll of her eyes.
God, those eyes. Those gorgeous, enchanting eyes. He'd spent so many nights with those being the last thing he saw before going to bed. Seeing them again, so filled with life and laughter, made it seem like everything was alright with the world.
"Sleep is for those who don't have anything better to do," he asserts, his predatory gaze staring her down and making his intentions clear. "I definitely have something - or someone - better to do."
Without waiting for her assent, he captures her lips in a kiss meant to both please and possess, to both satisfy and seduce. Lilly is here, with him, and he isn't going to waste this stolen moment by focusing on all the things that had gone wrong between them in the past.
He is so absorbed in tasting the kiss of the woman before him, the woman he's been without for years now, that he doesn't even hear the polyphonic ring tone until Lilly’s pulled away from him.
"Ignore it - they'll leave a message," he insists, pulling her head back to his own.
"It's Duncan," she responds, twisting herself from his grasp. "He knows better than to call before noon unless it's an emergency."
Duncan. The name hits him like a pile of bricks, and Logan can hardly believe that this is what’s real, that Duncan hasn't run off to Mexico or Brazil or wherever with his baby girl. He has his girlfriend, the love of his life, back with him again, and apparently he has his best friend once more as well. This is almost too much to hope for, beyond even his wildest dreams.
"Duncan. Duncan! Calm down, okay? We'll be right there. Everything will be okay - I promise."
Lilly hangs up the phone and starts reaching for her clothes. He thinks about objecting, about complaining, but from the way she was talking to Duncan, something is clearly very, very wrong.
Following her lead, he grabs some clean clothes from the bureau at the foot of the bed.
"What's going on?"
"After breakfast this morning, Duncan found Veronica by the pool. She'd dead, Logan. Someone killed her."
His mind swimming with memories, or what he once thought were memories but which now appear to be mere figments of his imagination, Logan fights to stay upright, to keep from succumbing to the uncomplicated dark that beckons.
"Logan!" Lilly's arm is around his waist, serving as a lifeline to reality, to this reality, to their reality. "What's wrong?"
"My dream, that I told you about before, it was that you'd died and that Veronica had spent at least a year finding your killer. And now, now you're awake and alive, and Veronica's dead, and it's just too much to process right now."
"It's okay, Logan. It's fine. I'm here, and I'll always be here. But right now we need to go help Duncan, okay? His wife is dead, he's falling apart, and baby Donnie probably needs to be fed or changed or something."
"They're married? There's a baby?" he asks inanely, knowing that Lilly wouldn't lie to him, especially not over something as inconsequential as this.
"Did you hit your head on the headboard one time too many last night? I know we were a bit wild, but it’s nothing you haven’t done before," she teases, running her hand through his hair under the guise of searching for a bump.
Standing on her tiptoes, she gives him a soft kiss on the mouth. "We'll talk later, go over everything that you remember from your dream and try to get your brain working on the right path again. But Duncan needs us now, so that'll have to wait."
Logan nods slowly, reaching for the keys on the bedside table. Keys to his Xterra, he notes with a smile. This reality was definitely better than the one he'd dreamed about - although that state of existence was more of a nightmare than anything else. Here, he had Lilly, he had Duncan, and he had his Xterra.
Maybe things were finally back to the way they were always meant to be.
END
Feedback would be adored. Especially since this is unbetaed and written largely at 3am. Yes, I really am that awesome. ;)