Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
How I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl, year after year
Running over the same old ground
What have you found?
The same old fears
Pink Floyd
--
Ok, here's how it goes:
It starts, really starts not with knee socks and soccer balls but kisses on the balcony of a seedy motel.
And that's as far as Logan Echolls can get, because he can't imagine it ever really ending.
--
There's a girl.
There's a girl who isn't Veronica Mars, who isn't even blonde, who's dark hair tumbles down around her face and grazes her dimples when she smiles big.
There's a girl, and her name is Brooke Davis.
--
His mom used to tell him this story.
"Once upon a time-," Lynn takes a deep breath as if the fairytale hurts, "there's a princess."
Trina's eyes go wide and light up, thoughts of crowns and adoration and importance floating through her head like sugar plums on Christmas Eve, even if she says she's too old for baby stories anymore.
But Logan stops listening and focuses on the way his mom rubs his back to help him fall asleep faster.
Maybe that's why he can never manage to get the happily ever after right.
--
He leaves Hearst, and Neptune, and California, and the West Coast, and settles (quite comfortably) at Duke in North Carolina, of all places.
It's not because of Stosh Piznarski.
(Lilly still lounges on a plastic pool chair and still laughs at him and still sets his heart on fire.
"Of course it is, Logan. Don't be stupid."
"Go haunt someone else, Kane."
Lilly laughs like she's alive.
"Please, you love me.")
--
He meets her at a (wait for it,) frat party.
He's always been more of a penthouse party guy, but it turns out that there aren't that many high-rise penthouses on campus, so he mingles with the common people and goes to a frat party.
Of course she's the one with a red cup in her hand, of course she's the one surrounded by guys, of course she's the one in a short skirt. And of course, while he sips from his flask she makes her way over to him.
"Didn't see anything you liked over in the man candy aisle?"
There's no irony or sarcasm in her voice when she answers, "Not as much as what I see over here."
"Well unbutton my shirt and call me Fabio, because I'm here to assist you with all of your man candy needs."
--
It isn't until he takes off her shirt in a bedroom (leopard-print bra, thank you very much) that it happens.
Ohmygod, I have, like the exact same bra! It's totally my favorite. I can't believe that bitch dared to wear it tonight.
He's used to seeing ghosts, not hearing real people who exist, but he breathes a sigh of relief into Brooke's mouth which she takes as encouragement. She bites down on his lip, and digs her nails into his back until it leaves a mark.
"Feeling mean, are we?
He's not sure if he's talking to the voice in his head or the girl in his arms.
--
Brooke, because that's leopard bra's name, is more like Lilly than Veronica and he's pretty sure that's part of the reason he's still around.
For example, she's petite like Veronica but curvy and isn't afraid to show it like Lilly.
She has a blonde best friend (apparently her name is Peyton)
She wears designer clothes and has rich parents who fight. She drives a car that Lilly would've loved, blasting music that he knows she liked, smiling at boys like he knows Lilly did.
Maybe that's why he doesn't tell her about his dad when she asks about family.
No need to scare away whatever he has left.
--
He looks up the definition of the word epic in the dictionary.
Brooke sees him and scrunches her nose in a way that has seriously grown him.
"What are you doing with the dictionary?"
He slams it shut, and shrugs his shoulders.
"What? No clever quip today? Are you feeling alright?"
"Must be something in you're North Carolinian water. It's like you guys never heard of overpriced, overrated, bottled Voss."
Not your finest witty remark, Echolls. I'm disappointed.
He ignores the voice in his head willing him to be better.
She (Brooke) punches him in the gut, but kisses him later.
--
He never calls her pretty.
She only feels relieved.
--
They curl up on the couch, albeit naked, and watch Titanic.
Neither of them knows why, because they aren't this couple. If you could even call them a couple.
Brooke watches as Rose runs away with Jack and leaves Cal distraught on the stairs.
"I feel bad for him. I mean, he loves Rose."
Logan nods in agreement, even if everyone knows that Cal is just the one keeping two star-crossed lovers apart, and tries not to flinch when people jump off the doomed ship.
He closes his eyes at first, but all he sees are hotels and Beaver and exploding planes.
They don't watch Titanic anymore after that.
--
The best part about Brooke is (besides being Brooke) is that she can drink him under the table.
He takes her to a bar because they don't have room service when you don't live in a hotel, and whatever he orders, she makes it a double and drinks it twice as fast.
"Well, well aren't you just Courtney Love in waiting?"
She laughs, from somewhere deep in her throat, and it's sexual beyond any low-cut champagne dress of Lilly's. The red fingernails against the porcelain skin of her neck makes him shudder and he doesn't know when he became so observant.
(That's a lie. It was around the time when his girlfriend was watching people to make money and owned a camera with a lens as tall as she is.)
He gets distracted by the laugh and doesn't hear her when she says, "That's Peyton," with a look that's not quite right in her eyes.
She flicks her wrist and finishes another drink while he stares.
--
"Would you ever dye your hair blonde?"
"Um, no! Definitely not."
He hesitates, tries to decide if that's a good or bad answer. He doesn't say anything, just traces circles on her bare skin that look like eyes.
It's not like that means anything, though.
--
Brooke is, if it's possible, even sexier than Lilly.
He thinks it's her voice.
She whispers in his ear, voice husky and smelling of sex, and he tunes out the voice in his head.
Rise and shine, Annie. It's tomorrow, and look at that! The sun has come out!
Well, at least until the morning.
--
She has her own demons. Ghosts of a blonde girl and a blonde boy who break her heart and stab her in the back and make out in hallways after the fact.
He doesn't know that.
He never will.
--
This is the exact moment when things get complicated.
Brooke has a drawer now, because he hasn't stopped sleeping with her since he heard Veronica's voice in his head. In fact, he's putting away black lace bras and sheer teddies when it happens.
(By putting away, he means leaving to pick out what she should wear tonight.)
The door opens, and he says, "Oh sugarpie, while you were out I took the liberty of laying out your various delicates. I hope you're ready to be ravished."
"What? You didn't wait for a 'honey, I'm home'? I'm insulted, really."
He's been hearing her voice for months now, so it doesn't surprise him until a hand lands on his shoulder and lips that taste like Veronica press against his.
(this is what could happen: he recoils when she kisses him, angry and hurt and pissed off at this girl who controls his heart and all his emotions. Brooke walks in the door, Veronica sees her, and she leaves with tears down his face. Logan moves on as best he can from something epic, Brooke doesn't even find out Veronica's name, and the two live some kind of weird non-happily ever after.)
This is what actually happens:
He doesn't stop her.
--
Brooke comes home to find a girl on her couch.
Logan looks at her with puppy dog eyes and because he's never been too hard to read she knows that mystery girl means something.
He opens his mouth to say something except here's the catch; she's been here before.
The girl might be smaller but she's still blonde and the boy might be Californian but he still meant at this point she can read rejection like she reads Cosmopolitan.
She goes to her drawer, collects her things, and doesn't make a scene because this boy never promised her anything, never called her pretty, never said 'I love you', never chased her into the rain, and looking back she doesn't know why she ever thought they belonged.
--
Later, she'll wonder why she ever used the word 'home'. He only ever gave her a drawer, after all.
--
Goodbye consists of a kiss on his cheek and a hand caressing his face.
Veronica stirs, and his eyes automatically flit over towards her sleeping frame, and Brooke slips out his front door before he can even notice.
--
So, this is what happens next:
Veronica stays.
The voice in his head goes away and changes to the voice in his arms. And just because some mornings he wakes up surprised to see blonde hair instead of brown, that doesn't mean he's not happy.
And that is how it ends.
(for now)
AN: So there it is. My random coupling of Logan/Brooke, which is completely AU. I hope you enjoyed it, because I had a fantastic time writing it. The eyes that Logan traces on Brooke's skin are supposed to represent 'private eyes', just in case that was unclear. Anyways, please DROP ME A REVIEW. And thanks for reading!