.echoes of angels that won't return.
Title: Sparks the Wildfire (part 5/5)
Author: suivreletoile
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan, Lilly, Duncan
Word Count: 2,230
Rating: PG-13 for sex
Spoilers: Season 1
Warnings: Talk of sex.
Author's notes: I kind of can't believe it took me over two years to post this entire story. I hope you enjoy it.
Previous parts
“Truth or dare? This is way too 10th grade, Lilly,” Duncan moaned.
We sat in a circle, with Lilly and I across from each other, and the guys between us.
“Not truth or dare. It’s Spin the Bottle Truth.”
“Basically,” I countered, “this is Lilly’s ‘I’m bored and slightly drunk and this is the best, most random thing I can come up with’ game.”
“It sounds fantastic to me,” Logan’s speech was slightly slurred.
“Shouldn’t this be Spin the Bottle Truth or Dare?” I wondered.
“Yeah but some of us aren’t drunk enough to play anything involving dares with Lilly,” Duncan pointed out.
“So how does it work, anyway?” Logan asked.
Lilly cleared her throat. “Ok, so let’s say you start. You spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on, you get to ask them a question. They have to answer, then it’s their turn to spin. Get it?”
“You’re just making this up!” Duncan was unusually combative tonight.
Logan took a gulp of the beer in his hand. “Dude, it’s not like we have much else to do.”
“Since when did we become such boring twenty-year-olds?” I asked.
“Can we just play or all go home?” Lilly whined.
“This IS our home, Lilly.”
“I’m not getting any younger here, guys.”
I turned to Logan, “Or any more sober.”
The other two laughed and finally Lilly leaned over to reach for the empty tequila bottle in the centre. “Ok, I’m going first,” she flicked her wrist and the bottle started to spin on the hardwood floor. It finally slowed and landed on Logan.
“Hit me,” he demanded, and Lilly grinned.
“Ok, Logan. How often do you jerk off?”
“What is this, high school?” I asked, before Logan got a chance to answer.
“Wasn’t that made obvious by the game itself?” Duncan replied.
“Once a day,” Logan said plainly. Whether he was telling the truth or not, I had no idea.
“Your turn to spin, Logan.” Lilly instructed.
He spun it and it landed on him first. He spun again, and it landed on me. He rubbed his hands together as if about to do something evil, but his question wasn’t actually too scandalous. “So... What made you go to France last summer?”
We all gave him a confused look.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh come on, you can’t tell me you actually wanted to hang out with a bunch of beret-wearing--”
Lilly reached over and smacked him in the arm. “God, you’re such a jerk.” I never realised that Lilly had become so politically correct.
“I’m kidding!” He cried. “About the berets, I mean. I’m actually asking you.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to stay here.”
“Why?”
I turned to Duncan, “I don’t believe it’s your turn to ask questions!”
“Why?” Logan mimicked.
I sighed. “I guess.... I wanted to get away.”
Lilly joined in on the interrogation. “From what?”
My eyes did a half-roll. This game was already becoming the Spanish Inquisition. “Somebody I knew had died.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly sad quietly.
“Who was he?” Logan asked.
“Who said it was a guy?”
“Well was it?” He pressed on.
Duncan remained quiet.
“Yes.”
“You loved him?” She wanted to know.
“I think I’ve answered enough questions for like, six turns. I’m spinning now.”
None of them protested, so I spun the bottle and it landed on Duncan. He shifted uneasily.
“Ok Duncan... I’ve been wondering. Do you actually want to become a politician?”
Pause. “Of course not.” He said directly, and Lilly, especially, wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
“What do you actually want to do?” Logan asked.
Duncan shrugged. “Teach, maybe.”
I’d never thought of it before, but I suddenly realised that that seemed like the perfect thing for Duncan. “I think you’d be really good at that.” I told him quietly.
“Celeste will freak.” Lilly pointed out.
He shook his head. “No, Dad is the one I’d have to be worried about.” Duncan reached out and spun the bottle. It landed on Lilly. “So what was the most ridiculous stunt you’ve pulled off so far at college?”
Lilly thought for a moment. “That’s easy. Sneaking into the Dean’s office.”
“To... do what?” He continued.
She shrugged. “Use his computer? Check my email?”
She spun the bottle and it landed on Duncan again.
“Damn it!” He cried.
“So Donut,” she grinned. “What’s your deepest, darkest secret?”
He looked down at his shoes, and I wondered if I really wanted to hear what he was about to say.
“I almost disappeared once.”
“Disappeared?” Logan repeated. “Like, as in, Casper the Ghost kind of disappear or...?”
“Like, one way ticket to Cuba with a fake passport kind of disappear.”
Lilly blinked in slight disbelief. “When?”
He shrugged. “High school. I didn’t make it beyond LAX, though.”
“Well if that’s your deep dark secret, then you’re probably lucky.” Logan pointed out.
I had the feeling, though, the near-escape wasn’t the deepest, darkest secret, but in fact his reason for wanting to leave was. Maybe that was why he didn’t join in on the interrogation about my summer in France. He understood without having to ask.
Logan and I glanced at each other, then he held out the bottle of beer in his hand as if to offer me some so I grabbed it and took a huge gulp.
Duncan spun the bottle and it landed on Lilly. “Lilly... Are you bisexual?” He asked, as if he’d been waiting forever to ask. Logan laughed so hard beer came through his nose, and I just grinned.
Lilly fluttered her eyes, and despite the short dark hair and glasses, she became the girl she was in high school in an instant. “No, but I’m always open for experimentation.” She looked in my direction.
Logan raised his eyebrows. “Oh my god, she’s going to kiss Veronica again.”
Duncan rolled his eyes and I shook my head slowly.
“Yeah, what do you say, Veronica?” There was a devilish grin on her face. “After all, I’m the only one here you haven’t been with yet. I feel a little left out.” My eyes widened in horror. The guys looked at each other, then looked at me. Lilly just continued to grin at me. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, if she was trying to cause trouble or if she thought this was just a way to have a little fun.
I glared at her. “It’s your turn,” I said through my teeth.
She spun and I wished I hadn’t said anything cause it landed on me. I thought she was going to hurl something else equally provocative out there. “Did you think of Donut when you first fucked Troy?”
“Why has this suddenly become all about sex?” Logan blurted out.
“I think Lilly’s a bit sexually frustrated,” I noted.
She didn’t react. “Well? Did you?”
“No,” I said, trying to look equally devilish. “I thought of you.” Logan chuckled lightly. “I believe this makes it my turn.” I excitedly spun the bottle and hoped it landed on Lilly.
It landed on Logan. I turned to him. “So who’s better -- Lilly, or me?”
He looked at Lilly nervously, then me. “Like...?”
“Like, in bed.” Lilly answered before I got a chance to.
“Man, I am not drunk enough for this.” Duncan groaned.
“You.” Logan finally answered, still looking at me. Was he just saying that because he was hoping to get more that summer? Hadn’t he once loved Lilly more than anything?
The silence was finally broken by the sound of the bottle rattling on the floor again.
It stopped at Lilly, and Duncan sighed with relief that it wasn’t him.
Logan gulped down the rest of his beer and looked at Lilly as if preparing for battle. “So... Lilly. How long did your affair with my father last?”
“Yup, definitely not drunk enough for this.” Duncan declared loudly.
Love was still our favourite way to hurt each other.
---
“What was his name?” I had never taken Logan as the pillow talk type, but there he was, starting a conversation as I laid naked beside him.
“Hm?” I wasn’t really in the mood for talking, nor had I caught on to what he was talking about.
“The guy, the one who died. What was his name?”
I thought for a moment, as if I had to try to remember his name. Truth was, his name was always on the tip of my tongue. Even after more than a year. “Nicholas.”
Silence. Did Logan really care, or was he trying to appear sensitive?
“How did he die?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. “Liver failure. He had Cystic Fibrosis.” I pictured the way he looked the first time I met him, and shivered. “It was possible that he would have had several good years left. But it was also possible it could kill him before he got a chance to finish college. And I knew that, but I chose not to care.” I opened my eyes and turned to look at Logan.
He was looking at the ceiling, as if thinking. “It’s easier to not care, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes. Maybe. I guess...” In the end, it was easier not to love at all. But love was yet another addiction. Not caring only let me ignore reality, making the blow harder when I watched him be lowered six feet under the ground.
We got dressed and he walked me home silently.
---
I finally went to Texas to visit my mom for my birthday. Logan called me a couple days before I left to wish me an early happy birthday.
“You are, you know, coming back, right?”
“Don’t I always?”
“No, no actually, you don’t.”
“I’ll see you in a week, Logan.”
---
My mom looked skinnier than the last time I saw her, but she was also livelier. She practically tackled me to the ground when I arrived at the airport. She brought me to her new apartment, which was small, but cozy, and spotless, other than the piles of papers on her coffee table.
“I got a new job!” She explained excitedly.
“At... Kinkos?” I teased, putting my stuff down beside the couch.
She grinned. “No... I’m teaching Head Start. These are lesson plans.”
My mom had spent so much of my life being a homemaker that I often forgot she had a college degree in education.
We made meals together and I told her about college and she blathered on excitedly about her new job. She took me out for a swanky dinner on my birthday and gave me a pendant wrapped in a box.
I talked to my friends from college on the phone for the first time since finals, and it dawned on me just how close the end of summer was
“They cancelled my child development class, so I might have to take human physiology instead,” Kelly sighed, then proceeded to make a mock gagging sound.
I chuckled half-heartedly, flipping the channel. “I haven’t even looked at my schedule lately,” I finally said.
“Veronica...” Her voice became a little more serious. “How’s it going? You rarely answered my emails this summer.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was always busy with work and everything.” There was a woman selling neck-firming cream in an infomercial. “I’m great, I’m just tired. And this whole ‘going back to college’ thing is kind of a shock to me right now.”
She sighed, “It can’t come fast enough for me!”
Despite exhaustion, I was surfing infomercials and late, late night shows until early in the morning. The summer was about to end, and it was time to go back to real life.
--
I returned back to Neptune for a few more days to pack everything up and say goodbye to my dad. Logan called me the night I got back.
“Did you say goodbye to Lilly and Duncan?”
“Mm, no.” I closed up the trunk I’d just finished packing. “Why?”
“They didn’t know that you had gone to Texas. They left for British Columbia a few days ago, then they leave for school.”
“I leave for school soon too,” I noted, collapsing on my bed.
The line became awkwardly silent, so we exchanged goodbyes and quickly hung up.
---
I left a couple of days after that. My dad say goodbye to me teary-eyed at the airport, and I made my way onto the plane to Boston. When I got to school, a couple of my suitemates, whom I’d also lived with last year, were already there. They gawked at my tan and demanded to know about my summer.
I quickly got settled in, got ready, and started classes. I never did speak to Lilly or Duncan after that night we played that game of hers. I occasionally got email forwards from Logan with stupid jokes for a while but they eventually stopped. Later that year I heard through the grapevine that Lilly was accepted to Stanford medical school, and I assumed Duncan was still in a program he felt he didn't belong in.
We went on with our lives. My tan faded and my burns peeled away. I found pictures from the road trip I took with Logan left over on my camera, printed them, and promptly stashed them away. All the remnants from that summer have been stored away.
We fell apart as quickly as we had collided with each other.
Author: suivreletoile
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan, Lilly, Duncan
Word Count: 2,230
Rating: PG-13 for sex
Spoilers: Season 1
Warnings: Talk of sex.
Author's notes: I kind of can't believe it took me over two years to post this entire story. I hope you enjoy it.
Previous parts
“Truth or dare? This is way too 10th grade, Lilly,” Duncan moaned.
We sat in a circle, with Lilly and I across from each other, and the guys between us.
“Not truth or dare. It’s Spin the Bottle Truth.”
“Basically,” I countered, “this is Lilly’s ‘I’m bored and slightly drunk and this is the best, most random thing I can come up with’ game.”
“It sounds fantastic to me,” Logan’s speech was slightly slurred.
“Shouldn’t this be Spin the Bottle Truth or Dare?” I wondered.
“Yeah but some of us aren’t drunk enough to play anything involving dares with Lilly,” Duncan pointed out.
“So how does it work, anyway?” Logan asked.
Lilly cleared her throat. “Ok, so let’s say you start. You spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on, you get to ask them a question. They have to answer, then it’s their turn to spin. Get it?”
“You’re just making this up!” Duncan was unusually combative tonight.
Logan took a gulp of the beer in his hand. “Dude, it’s not like we have much else to do.”
“Since when did we become such boring twenty-year-olds?” I asked.
“Can we just play or all go home?” Lilly whined.
“This IS our home, Lilly.”
“I’m not getting any younger here, guys.”
I turned to Logan, “Or any more sober.”
The other two laughed and finally Lilly leaned over to reach for the empty tequila bottle in the centre. “Ok, I’m going first,” she flicked her wrist and the bottle started to spin on the hardwood floor. It finally slowed and landed on Logan.
“Hit me,” he demanded, and Lilly grinned.
“Ok, Logan. How often do you jerk off?”
“What is this, high school?” I asked, before Logan got a chance to answer.
“Wasn’t that made obvious by the game itself?” Duncan replied.
“Once a day,” Logan said plainly. Whether he was telling the truth or not, I had no idea.
“Your turn to spin, Logan.” Lilly instructed.
He spun it and it landed on him first. He spun again, and it landed on me. He rubbed his hands together as if about to do something evil, but his question wasn’t actually too scandalous. “So... What made you go to France last summer?”
We all gave him a confused look.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh come on, you can’t tell me you actually wanted to hang out with a bunch of beret-wearing--”
Lilly reached over and smacked him in the arm. “God, you’re such a jerk.” I never realised that Lilly had become so politically correct.
“I’m kidding!” He cried. “About the berets, I mean. I’m actually asking you.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to stay here.”
“Why?”
I turned to Duncan, “I don’t believe it’s your turn to ask questions!”
“Why?” Logan mimicked.
I sighed. “I guess.... I wanted to get away.”
Lilly joined in on the interrogation. “From what?”
My eyes did a half-roll. This game was already becoming the Spanish Inquisition. “Somebody I knew had died.”
“I’m sorry,” Lilly sad quietly.
“Who was he?” Logan asked.
“Who said it was a guy?”
“Well was it?” He pressed on.
Duncan remained quiet.
“Yes.”
“You loved him?” She wanted to know.
“I think I’ve answered enough questions for like, six turns. I’m spinning now.”
None of them protested, so I spun the bottle and it landed on Duncan. He shifted uneasily.
“Ok Duncan... I’ve been wondering. Do you actually want to become a politician?”
Pause. “Of course not.” He said directly, and Lilly, especially, wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
“What do you actually want to do?” Logan asked.
Duncan shrugged. “Teach, maybe.”
I’d never thought of it before, but I suddenly realised that that seemed like the perfect thing for Duncan. “I think you’d be really good at that.” I told him quietly.
“Celeste will freak.” Lilly pointed out.
He shook his head. “No, Dad is the one I’d have to be worried about.” Duncan reached out and spun the bottle. It landed on Lilly. “So what was the most ridiculous stunt you’ve pulled off so far at college?”
Lilly thought for a moment. “That’s easy. Sneaking into the Dean’s office.”
“To... do what?” He continued.
She shrugged. “Use his computer? Check my email?”
She spun the bottle and it landed on Duncan again.
“Damn it!” He cried.
“So Donut,” she grinned. “What’s your deepest, darkest secret?”
He looked down at his shoes, and I wondered if I really wanted to hear what he was about to say.
“I almost disappeared once.”
“Disappeared?” Logan repeated. “Like, as in, Casper the Ghost kind of disappear or...?”
“Like, one way ticket to Cuba with a fake passport kind of disappear.”
Lilly blinked in slight disbelief. “When?”
He shrugged. “High school. I didn’t make it beyond LAX, though.”
“Well if that’s your deep dark secret, then you’re probably lucky.” Logan pointed out.
I had the feeling, though, the near-escape wasn’t the deepest, darkest secret, but in fact his reason for wanting to leave was. Maybe that was why he didn’t join in on the interrogation about my summer in France. He understood without having to ask.
Logan and I glanced at each other, then he held out the bottle of beer in his hand as if to offer me some so I grabbed it and took a huge gulp.
Duncan spun the bottle and it landed on Lilly. “Lilly... Are you bisexual?” He asked, as if he’d been waiting forever to ask. Logan laughed so hard beer came through his nose, and I just grinned.
Lilly fluttered her eyes, and despite the short dark hair and glasses, she became the girl she was in high school in an instant. “No, but I’m always open for experimentation.” She looked in my direction.
Logan raised his eyebrows. “Oh my god, she’s going to kiss Veronica again.”
Duncan rolled his eyes and I shook my head slowly.
“Yeah, what do you say, Veronica?” There was a devilish grin on her face. “After all, I’m the only one here you haven’t been with yet. I feel a little left out.” My eyes widened in horror. The guys looked at each other, then looked at me. Lilly just continued to grin at me. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to do, if she was trying to cause trouble or if she thought this was just a way to have a little fun.
I glared at her. “It’s your turn,” I said through my teeth.
She spun and I wished I hadn’t said anything cause it landed on me. I thought she was going to hurl something else equally provocative out there. “Did you think of Donut when you first fucked Troy?”
“Why has this suddenly become all about sex?” Logan blurted out.
“I think Lilly’s a bit sexually frustrated,” I noted.
She didn’t react. “Well? Did you?”
“No,” I said, trying to look equally devilish. “I thought of you.” Logan chuckled lightly. “I believe this makes it my turn.” I excitedly spun the bottle and hoped it landed on Lilly.
It landed on Logan. I turned to him. “So who’s better -- Lilly, or me?”
He looked at Lilly nervously, then me. “Like...?”
“Like, in bed.” Lilly answered before I got a chance to.
“Man, I am not drunk enough for this.” Duncan groaned.
“You.” Logan finally answered, still looking at me. Was he just saying that because he was hoping to get more that summer? Hadn’t he once loved Lilly more than anything?
The silence was finally broken by the sound of the bottle rattling on the floor again.
It stopped at Lilly, and Duncan sighed with relief that it wasn’t him.
Logan gulped down the rest of his beer and looked at Lilly as if preparing for battle. “So... Lilly. How long did your affair with my father last?”
“Yup, definitely not drunk enough for this.” Duncan declared loudly.
Love was still our favourite way to hurt each other.
---
“What was his name?” I had never taken Logan as the pillow talk type, but there he was, starting a conversation as I laid naked beside him.
“Hm?” I wasn’t really in the mood for talking, nor had I caught on to what he was talking about.
“The guy, the one who died. What was his name?”
I thought for a moment, as if I had to try to remember his name. Truth was, his name was always on the tip of my tongue. Even after more than a year. “Nicholas.”
Silence. Did Logan really care, or was he trying to appear sensitive?
“How did he die?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. “Liver failure. He had Cystic Fibrosis.” I pictured the way he looked the first time I met him, and shivered. “It was possible that he would have had several good years left. But it was also possible it could kill him before he got a chance to finish college. And I knew that, but I chose not to care.” I opened my eyes and turned to look at Logan.
He was looking at the ceiling, as if thinking. “It’s easier to not care, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes. Maybe. I guess...” In the end, it was easier not to love at all. But love was yet another addiction. Not caring only let me ignore reality, making the blow harder when I watched him be lowered six feet under the ground.
We got dressed and he walked me home silently.
---
I finally went to Texas to visit my mom for my birthday. Logan called me a couple days before I left to wish me an early happy birthday.
“You are, you know, coming back, right?”
“Don’t I always?”
“No, no actually, you don’t.”
“I’ll see you in a week, Logan.”
---
My mom looked skinnier than the last time I saw her, but she was also livelier. She practically tackled me to the ground when I arrived at the airport. She brought me to her new apartment, which was small, but cozy, and spotless, other than the piles of papers on her coffee table.
“I got a new job!” She explained excitedly.
“At... Kinkos?” I teased, putting my stuff down beside the couch.
She grinned. “No... I’m teaching Head Start. These are lesson plans.”
My mom had spent so much of my life being a homemaker that I often forgot she had a college degree in education.
We made meals together and I told her about college and she blathered on excitedly about her new job. She took me out for a swanky dinner on my birthday and gave me a pendant wrapped in a box.
I talked to my friends from college on the phone for the first time since finals, and it dawned on me just how close the end of summer was
“They cancelled my child development class, so I might have to take human physiology instead,” Kelly sighed, then proceeded to make a mock gagging sound.
I chuckled half-heartedly, flipping the channel. “I haven’t even looked at my schedule lately,” I finally said.
“Veronica...” Her voice became a little more serious. “How’s it going? You rarely answered my emails this summer.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I was always busy with work and everything.” There was a woman selling neck-firming cream in an infomercial. “I’m great, I’m just tired. And this whole ‘going back to college’ thing is kind of a shock to me right now.”
She sighed, “It can’t come fast enough for me!”
Despite exhaustion, I was surfing infomercials and late, late night shows until early in the morning. The summer was about to end, and it was time to go back to real life.
--
I returned back to Neptune for a few more days to pack everything up and say goodbye to my dad. Logan called me the night I got back.
“Did you say goodbye to Lilly and Duncan?”
“Mm, no.” I closed up the trunk I’d just finished packing. “Why?”
“They didn’t know that you had gone to Texas. They left for British Columbia a few days ago, then they leave for school.”
“I leave for school soon too,” I noted, collapsing on my bed.
The line became awkwardly silent, so we exchanged goodbyes and quickly hung up.
---
I left a couple of days after that. My dad say goodbye to me teary-eyed at the airport, and I made my way onto the plane to Boston. When I got to school, a couple of my suitemates, whom I’d also lived with last year, were already there. They gawked at my tan and demanded to know about my summer.
I quickly got settled in, got ready, and started classes. I never did speak to Lilly or Duncan after that night we played that game of hers. I occasionally got email forwards from Logan with stupid jokes for a while but they eventually stopped. Later that year I heard through the grapevine that Lilly was accepted to Stanford medical school, and I assumed Duncan was still in a program he felt he didn't belong in.
We went on with our lives. My tan faded and my burns peeled away. I found pictures from the road trip I took with Logan left over on my camera, printed them, and promptly stashed them away. All the remnants from that summer have been stored away.
We fell apart as quickly as we had collided with each other.