Title: High-day, freedom!
Author: alliterator
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Rob Thomas and UPN. I own nothing.
Notes: Title comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest – Caliban said it.
The wind whips across his exposed legs and he wishes that once again that Trina had not rented a convertible. And that he had worn pants. The cold air sobers him up a bit. Why had he done this again?
Oh, yeah. Mom. The dull, aching feeling in his gut that wouldn't go away. Those spiders that were twisting in the pit of his stomach, making it feel like he was going to vomit at any second. The fact that his mother was now dead and he knew it and he had seen it, seen her on tape, that stupid tape was real, godammit.
And so he drinks. It doesn't matter what, it just matters that it's alcohol that it takes his mind off of what he knows. Turn that vomit feeling into real vomit. Maybe that'll make it better. Maybe vomiting into Trina's handbag will do it.
He wishes he brought a bottle with him (but, of course, Trina would have taken it away, she took everything away from him, everything except his mother, she couldn't take that). He puts his head between his legs as she drives up to their house.
As she gets out of the car to enter the code for the gate to open, Logan sees his chance. He stumbles a bit as he opens the car door, but manages to successfully step onto the rough driveway.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice dripping with condensation.
"What does it look like," he says. "I'm leaving this joint." He starts to walk off, his feet touching grass and making his socks wet and he wishes he wore shoes, too.
"Logan, come back here," she says. "Listen to me, Dad's going to pissed with your little Jack Daniels temper tantrum. I wouldn't be surprised if he cuts off you platinum card."
"No, you listen," he says, turning around and almost tripping. "Sometimes, sometimes you just gotta say 'What the fuck,' okay? What. The. Fuck."
She looks at him with daggers for eyes and her mouth drawn tight. "What about all those stories you told me about him?" she asks as she comes nearer. "What all the times he 'hit' you? Huh? Aren't you afraid of him? Aren't you afraid to run away?"
His fingers curl into balls and he remembers. Cigarette burns on his knuckles. Blood running down his nose and mouth and dripping onto the floor, creating a dark red stain. His mother mending the burns, the cuts, the wounds. Her face fills his mind and now she's gone and his memories are like shattered glass.
His fingernails have now drawn blood and he opens his fists, but the pain is still there. It's no longer in his gut, but in his head, his arms, his legs, his whole body is wracked with it. And suddenly he can't stand up and he hits the cold, wet grass.
The blurry form of Trina looms over him. "You're pathetic," she says.
He closes his eyes and lets the pain wash over him, lets everything wash over him. Lying in the grass now, nothing can touch him, nothing. And he wants to lay there forever and not face his father with the belts or his half-sister with her cutting remarks and snide smiles, not without her, without her nothing is worth it anymore.
He can see her face again now, with his eyes closed. She's smiling and saying something and he can't make it out, but he knows what it is. Free at last, she mouths. Free at last.
As Logan lies in the grass and drifts off to sleep, he thinks, Free at last.