urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:alpinesun VM Fanfiction and Rambling «--imagine life 2007-01-03T21:19:03Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:alpinesun:1558 2006-12-25T19:57:38Z 2007-01-03T21:19:03Z Title: Olive Branch<br />Author: Alpinesun<br />Pairing/Character: Logan/Lilly<br />Word Count: 1,500 <br />Rating: PG-13<br />Warnings: Logan curses. <br />Summary: Fluffy pre-season Christmas angst. <br />Spoilers: 1x01<br />A/N: I &lt;3 feedback of any kind. <br /><br /> <a name="cutid1"></a>The sea is surprisingly calm tonight. The waves are still rolling in, but slowly, crashing gently into the sand and then retreating. The reflection of the moon in water is clear, and he can almost make out the North Star in the distance. He comes here to think, usually. Tonight, he plans to be too drunk to think. Getting drunk sounds like a plan. He stretches slowly, and his back aches. He doesn’t have to look; he knows that there are tell-tale red marks staining his shirt, one for every bad review. Logan fucking hates Christmas, hates the house lights twinkling in the distance, hates the series of crappy blockbusters starring his dad that are always released today and booed tomorrow. <br /><br /> He sees her before she sees him. She’s radiant in the moonlight, gliding across the sand. She approaches him slowly, almost cautiously. She’s probably remembering the scene in the hallway on the last day before break. He certainly can’t forget it, seeing her pressed up against some nameless freshman in front of his locker.<br /> <br /> “What are you doing here, Lilly?” He sighs. He isn’t drunk enough for this.<br /><br /> She laughs, a high-pitched girly laugh that echoes in the darkness.<br /><br /> “Enjoying the moonlight,” she giggles. She’s always giggling, damn her. It makes her whole face light up and her cheeks go rosy. He wants to kiss her. He needs more Jack Daniels. He needs to get completely hammered and forget how soft her lips look, how soft her hair looks. He hates moonlight. It keeps playing tricks on him, compromising his already lax judgment. <br /><br /> “Escaping the Celeste-beast. Waiting for that stripper I ordered to arrive,” she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. He hadn’t realized that she was still talking. <br /> “Looking for you. Pick one,” she finishes. <br /><br /> The damn girl grins. It’s a mischievous grin that creeps across her whole face, and her eyes are almost twinkling. They look like polished sapphires in the twilight. She lets her golden hair fall across her pale face, twirling a tiny strand of it absently. She keeps on smiling, staring up at him innocently. She’s trouble. Lilly has always been trouble. He really needs more alcohol, needs it yesterday. <br /><br /> “I meant what are you doing here, with me?” he spits out bitterly. It comes out more caustically than he’d intended. He wants to get pleasantly drunk. He reaches into his khaki pocket, trying to ferret out his silver flask. <br /><br /> And she’s already giving him that damnable grin again. It looks somehow naughtier now as Lilly twirls his flask in front of him, taking a big shot from it and raising her eyebrows. She wipes her lips daintily, too daintily for a girl wearing a shirt that low-cut. How she got past Celeste in that is anybody’s guess. She looks decidedly amused as she starts talking again.<br /><br /> “I had to get away from the house that Christmas puked on,” she shrugs. She looks cold, and he thinks that maybe he should offer her his jacket. Except she’s not his girlfriend today. He keeps his jacket on and raises his hand, gesturing for her to continue.<br /><br /> “I would’ve gone to la casa de Mars for some eggnog and heated games of Scramble,” she starts, giving him a surprisingly sad look, “but I didn’t think that I could handle the sugar shock this year. I kind of doubt that the Sheriff would appreciate me spiking the eggnog at any rate.” <br /><br /> And there is that smirk again. Lilly should get a patent on it. She really should. <br /><br /> “Lilly, where’s Duncan?” <br /><br /> When Logan had started drunk dialing, he was pretty sure that he had called Duncan, not his slutty sister. Seeing her wasn’t exactly at the top of his lists of thing to do. More like top of his list of things not-to-do. Not that those lists weren’t one in the same for him. He grabs the flask back in one harsh gesture, briefly enjoying the sting of cold metal touching his hand before gulping down its remaining contents in one swallow.<br /><br /> “Oh, Donut? My lips-permanently-attached-to-Celeste’s-tight-ass younger sib? ” She looks thoughtful for a moment. “I’m pretty sure that he is off playing the dutiful son again. For some reason, I’m guessing he didn’t appreciate my Christmas gift. And here I thought that I was being the cool big sister, leaving him his own personal copy of Kama Sutra under the tree.”<br /><br /> She smiles wickedly and then pretends to look innocent. Lilly, innocent. He has to stifle a laugh at the thought. <br /><br /> “Interfering with your brother’s sex life again, Lils?” he deadpans.<br /> <br /> “Always,” she whispers solemnly. “Is it a crime to give him some sisterly advice?”<br /><br /> “He’s your brother. You don’t exactly see me trying to give Trina sex advice, do you?” <br /><br /> He wants to laugh. He really should have brought more to drink.<br /><br /> “Like she needs it,” Lilly cackles. “I’m just doing Veronica a favor,” she continues sweetly.<br /><br /> “Veronica asked you to give your brother Kama Sutra for Christmas?” He has to grin, picturing virginal Veronica’s cheeks flushing at the very mention of sex. <br /><br /> “It was implied,” Lilly winks, the phantom of a smile still suspended on her face.<br /><br /> “Implied?” He raises his eyebrows doubtfully.<br /><br /> “She’s a little shy,” Lilly shoots back, a tad defensive. “Plus,” that wicked grin spreads across her face again, “I left a matching a matching copy under the Mars’s family tree for her.”<br /><br /> “Let me guess,” Logan snorts. “The card reads “To Veronica. With love, your passionate lover, Duncan.”<br /><br /> Lilly beams up at him. Right in one. He should have given her his jacket, if only to cover up that shirt of hers. She looks too pretty, standing there in front of him. He wants to bend down and kiss her, sweep her off her feet and dance with her on the sand. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that last shot. <br /><br /> “You are so going to Hell, Lilly,” he laughs with drunken amusement.<br /><br /> “And you are so going down with me, lover,” she coos. “So what do you think of our Christmas tree?” <br /><br /> It’s the first time he notices the olive branch in her hand. It’s an almost pathetic branch, short and stubbly and completely lacking in green. It’s almost endearing the way Lilly is smiling up at him, searching his face for approval.<br /><br /> “It’s a branch,” he finally says.<br /><br /> “I’m blindingly attractive, lover, not blind. Have you never been force fed A Charlie Brown Christmas Story around this time of year?”<br /><br /> He bristles a little at that. Lynn loved that movie, used to sit him down in front of the big television every year and teach him all of the lines. One year, he had woken her up Christmas morning to Lionel’s version of the Christmas story. He’d needed five stitches for his trouble, but the little smile that came across her sleeping face at the familiar speech made it worthwhile. His back begins to ache again, and he shakes the flask upside down over his mouth hopefully.<br /><br /> “It’s a fucking branch, Lilly.”<br /><br /> “Now you’re calling our first Christmas tree a branch?” Lilly almost looks hurt as she takes a star off of her charm bracelet and hangs it on the branch. “What will you call our first born? A fucking fetus?” She looks comically scandalized.<br /> <br /> Logan has to smirk at that.<br /><br /> “I was thinking more along the lines of son of a bitch, myself.”<br /><br /> Lilly raises her eyebrows and looks down at her flat stomach, patting it gently.<br /><br /> “He doesn’t mean it, baby. Daddy’s just a little jealous because Mommy’s social.”<br /><br /> Logan snorts. “Is social the code word for whore these days, Lilly?” <br /><br /> “Always know just what to say to make a girl’s heart flutter,” she shakes her head, but he can just make out a grin under all that hair. Lilly turns away slowly, then pauses. Looking out over her shoulder, she shouts “Merry Christmas, Logan. I need to go give Dickie boy some holiday cheer.”<br /><br /> And then she walks away, smirking. He stands there for a few moments, listening to the waves crashing gently into the shore and shaking sand out of his shoes. He looks up briefly at the sky, mentally tracing the constellations his mother had taught him when he was younger, before she’d become chronically drunk long before the sun had set. Then he looks back at Lilly and starts running after her. New item on the to do list, he decides: less Jack. He catches up with her easily, turns her around, and gently kisses her, savoring her taste, a mix of strawberries and sex. Lilly fiddles with the edges of his shirt, making light circles on his flesh with her delicate fingers. She grabs his arm, deepening the kiss, and then drags him back to his car. She leans over, turns on his car radio, and rests her head on his shoulder. Within minutes, she's asleep. <br /><br /> “Merry Christmas, Lilly,” he whispers into her ear, draping his jacket over her tiny shoulders.