Title: View From the Afternoon
Author: Marianna
Characters: Logan, Veronica, Lilly.
Spoilers/Warnings: None, because it's pretty AU.
Word Count: 1105
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU, set about 10 years in the future. Logan and Lilly are married, but it's really obvious who he Logan really loves. Written for the 100_situations prompt 'hot'.
Author's Notes: I know, I know, TWO FICS in ONE DAY? How do I do it? I don't know, but I've still got more in me, I think. I hope you like it.




Sometimes, he likes to pretend that he is a normal boy and she is a normal girl.



Sometimes, he likes to pretend that their history isn’t available for viewing in the backdated newspapers section of any local library, sometimes, with extra viewing options like video and sound if the researcher is lucky enough.



Sometimes, he likes to pretend that if he were to google himself, nothing special would pop up, except maybe that he lectured at UC Santa Cruz late last month, or, more importantly, that he’ll be doing it again in a few weeks.



Sometimes he just likes to pretend.



Logan; she’s muttering, and she’s sitting up in bed, and stretching her arms up high, her fists making pumping motions in the air as her eyes squeeze tight against the onslaught of sunlight. What are you doing?


It’s called getting dressed, Mars; he responds back, and she almost flinches, and he’s not sure why, even though there are a plethora of options to chose from for an answer.


And you had to open the curtains to do that? She mutters back, but she isn’t facing him anymore, and she’s jamming the pillow over her eyes, and burrowing back into the covers, and he wishes he could climb back in there with her, and wrap his arms around her frail, skinny body, and let the curtains fall to keep the sunlight out and never let her go.



He can’t do that though, so he doesn’t even let himself think about it.



I’ll see you. He mutters, once the buttons on the cuffs of his shirt have slipped through their respective holes, and his shoes are neatly tied, and he’s almost to the door on the opposite side of the room.


I guess; she mutters back, and she doesn’t even move her head to look at him, and he hates the white-hot rage that goes through him, even though it’s gone a second later, and he can’t really blame her.



He doesn’t blame her. He can’t.



He wishes he didn’t blame himself.


We’re launching a new office in Tampa, so you know. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Her voice is icy, even though it’s muffled by thinning cotton sheets and pillows full of goose feathers that she’s wrapped around her like a cocoon.


So…next month? He asks, and he hates that his voice rises a little at the end, hates that she’s doing this to him again and still and always.


Next month. She responds, and this time she does lift up her head. Her hair is tangled, unruly curls hanging down around her shoulders, and even though he shouldn’t be able to read them, her eyes are icy cold and just as frozen as her voice.



She’s just in time to see him slip the band back over his finger, the untanned expanse of skin hidden once more.



He doesn’t miss the look on her face, and he wishes…he wishes a lot of things.



Oh and Logan? She’s calling, and her voice is enough to draw him back, even though he doesn’t want it, and he doesn’t want to, and her eyes are flashing, live and wild and turbulent. Make sure to send my regards to Lilly.



He knows that this is the standard cliché.



He knows that she’ll spend the next hour in the shower, scouring herself with scalding water, and trying to erase his memory from her skin. He knows she’ll cry even though she doesn’t want to, and that even if he were to slip back in, he wouldn’t be able to hear the sounds over the pounding of the water.



He knows she hates herself, and he wishes he could change that, because she shouldn’t. Because this is no more her fault than it is his, but even if he were to tell her that, he doubts that she’d believe him.



His phone buzzes in his pocket, and for a crazy second, he thinks it’s her; calling him back to…to what? Apologize? For what? They’ve been doing this long enough that regrets are a thing of the past, and his millionth wish of the day is that he could erase all that.



It’s a stupid one, completely insane, but it’s far closer to the truth than anything else he’s thought of lately. He wishes that they still lived in a time where Lilly’s opinion of them mattered. Where his marriage mattered.



It’s pretty needless to say it doesn’t. Nothing matters anymore, and he’s got a sneaking suspicion that it never did.



The phone buzzes again, loud and obnoxious and without even checking, he knows who it is.



How was she this time? Lilly asks, as he answers, and her voice isn’t crackling with anger, or malice, or anything really, other than the faint sounds of amusement. On his more whimsical days, he imagines that she’s just resigned herself to it; that every month when he comes home two days late, and disheveled and smelling of someone else’s perfume, she cares.



She doesn’t, and they both know she’s only asking due to some sort of sick fascination that she has with the whole thing.



Gosh, you know; he responds, squinting as he pushes out of the hotel and into the bright sunlight, his free hand up and shielding his face. I really hate the weather here in Florida. You’d think that as they’re both sunshiny states something would be different, but it just isn’t. It’s hot as hell down here, babe.



He hears her sharp intake of breath, because the last bit wasn’t expected, and they’re both silent for a moment as he sprints across the parking lot to where he’d left the rental car, and she inspects her nails and thinks of the harshest barb she can to skewer him with.



When she hasn’t responded by the time he gets to the car, he knows he’s won, this battle at least.



I’ll see you when I get home; he mutters, his voice low as he slides onto the cracked leather interior, heated from the beating sunlight.



He’s holding his breath, waiting for the words that never come, but that he always hopes for; wishes for.



Yes, see you; she says, and as the line goes dead, he realizes that he’s not the one who won this round after all.



He’ll never win, and this vicious cycle will never, ever end. He wants to be surprised, but he isn’t, and he doubts he ever will be.



His phone buzzes again, the casing hitting at the plastic of the cup holder, but he ignores it. It doesn’t matter.



Nothing ever does.