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Title: World Behind Windows
Rating: PG-13ish
Disclaimer: I can lay no claims on DA, SPN or Life on Mars
SPOILERS: DA pilot, SPN through season four, plot premise taken from Life on Mars (UK)
Summary: Logan gets shot. That’s when things get strange.
Notes:For those of you who know LoM, it might be of interest that Logan is Sam Tyler, Dean is Gene Hunt, Bobby is Hyde, Lillith is the Test Card Girl and Sam Winchester’s disappearance has something to do with this whole mess.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
World Behind Windows
Logan gets shot in 2019. He is sure of this much. He is transporting a witness for one of Eyes Only’s latest cases and he gets shot. In his head, he knows he’s bleeding out and he knows it’s 2019.
But he wakes up in 2009. He doesn’t know it’s 2009, not immediately. He just wakes up in a back alley realizing that it’s a lot cleaner then the normal back alley. His head hurts. From the street outside, someone shoots him a disapproving glare like it’s taboo to wake up outside in an alley in Post Pulse Seattle instead of the norm. Logan hauls himself to his feet and runs his hands down the back of his spine feeling for blood, feeling for the bullet hole, but there’s nothing there. There’s no injury save the growing lump on his forehead. He’s taken knocks before, but it’s been a while since one was so bad he didn’t know where he was.
A second later he remembers Lauren and Sophie and Edgar Sonreisa and the transfer. He pushes himself up to his feet and breaks into a run. He can’t be that far from the safe house and Lauren would be there ready to testify and things would be all right.
It takes him two blocks to know something’s wrong. Really, really wrong because the buildings, they’re in good repair. Hell, they’re outright gleaming when there should be grunge and dirt and homeless people all over the place. But there’s not. There are people in suits and expensive watches and on the street corner, that was a Starbucks. There hasn’t been Starbucks since before the Pulse.
He gets a look at the newspaper.
2009
It’s January 2nd 2009.
He starts running. He knows these streets after all. They’re cleaner then his streets, just how he remembers everything from before. The streets haven’t changed since 2009, haven’t changed since the Pulse put a halt on all expansion. This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
But he knows how to make it right. It’s going to be right when he gets to the safe house because it’s 2019 and Logan’s not crazy. No, Logan’s had an accident and his mind has snapped back to the last time he felt safe. Back before the Pulse and before Eyes Only and before he had a purpose. And everything’s going to be all right when he gets to the safe house because Lauren will be there and be ready to testify.
He is stopped just outside the house by the sight of a car, because this car, she’s magnificent. A relic sure, but magnificent. A sleek black Chevy Impala restored to near perfect condition. Logan hasn’t seen a car like this in almost ten years. Hasn’t seen it since the Pulse made the gas guzzling muscle cars a thing of the distant past. You’d run across them sometimes, rusted over and cannibalized for scrap muscle, but nothing like this.
He runs a hand, almost lovingly, across the hood. He can feel slight deformations, like the car’s been banged up recently but that doesn’t matter, that gives her character. Finally, he stops takes a deep breath and blunders into the safe house. “Lauren,” he calls. “Lauren! Sophie!”
Lauren and Sophie are not here. This is not the same place Logan had set up so carefully the night before. There are papers coating the wall, strange things about disappearances and deaths with the odd parts circled boldly in red. Logan presses his hands to his head. He can hear sirens now coming from the distance pulsing in his head. There are voices he can’t quite make out, saying things like, hold on, Mister we’re going to get you out of here and severe internal trauma.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice asks and the voice is so loud, it drowns out all the others.
The scene focuses abruptly and Logan’s left staring at a man. Late twenties if he has to guess with brown hair, striking features and an intimidating presence. “Who the hell am I?” Logan asks. “Who the hell am I? Who the hell are you? Where’s Sophie? Where’s Lauren?” He grabs the man by the shoulders and slams him into the wall. “What have you done with them?”
“You have got to be kidding me,” the man growls and there’s a short, violent burst of movement and then Logan’s the one pressed up against the wall. “I don’t know who the hell you are but you don’t get to do this. Now what’s your name?”
“This is ridiculous,” Logan says, trying to push past him. The man catches him and shoves him back and the whiplash nearly takes Logan out all on its lonesome. “You’re not real,” Logan hisses. “I don’t know what part of my subconscious you crawled out of, but you’re not real so get out of my way.”
Logan pushes past the man briskly, noting the solid thud of shoulder on shoulder. The contact makes him pause because if nothing else, that feels real.
“Not real,” the man grumbles and there’s a fist sailing towards Logan’s face with such velocity that it knocks his whole body off kilter. Indignant, he starts to protest that you shouldn’t hit a man with glasses and then he blinks blearily and realizes for the first time in quite some time that he is wearing contacts. He hasn’t been able to find contacts after the Pulse hit. “Did that feel real to you?” the man growls. “Now tell me your name or we’re up for round two.”
“Logan,” he says, rubbing at the small trail of blood leaking out one nostril. “Logan Cale.”
“Wait, wait, wait a second,” the man says, pressing both hands to his forehead. “Logan Cale? Did Bobby send you?”
Logan has no contacts named Bobby. He knows no one who could be connected to this loose cannon with a wall plastered in obituaries. He swallows, presses his eyes shut and wills himself to wake up. There’s no reason for him to be here. No reason for any of it. “Tell me something,” Logan says. “What year is it?”
The man laughs harshly. “Don’t worry about it. World’s not due for an apocalypse for another three years.” Off Logan’s blank look, he rolled his eyes. “2009, all right? January 2nd 2009. You must have had one hell of a new year.”
Logan stumbles over to the bed, collapsing on the edge and putting his face in his hands. “What’s your name?”
The man eyes him suspiciously. “I don’t know what sort of game your—“ He blinks, stops and shakes his head as if unwilling to put the effort into fighting. “I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”
Logan looks up. He’s heard of Dean Winchester. It’s a name from his past, from everyone’s past. In his day, Dean Winchester had been the most famous serial killer in the states. The Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean had crossed the country committing violent, bizarre murders like something out of the X-Files. But he’d died in early 2008. Died in a helicopter crash when the police had finally caught up with him. Justice served.
“Dean Winchester,” he repeats and lets out a strangled half laugh. “Of course you’re Dean Winchester. In 2009. Dean Winchester.” He stands up, shaking. “If you’re really Dean Winchester, where’s your brother, Sam?”
It’s the wrong thing to say and Logan knows it the instant the words are out of his mouth. Something slams shut on Winchester’s face and he’s speaking slowly when he says, “Look, I realize Bobby keeps sending you stooges to keep an eye on me, but I’m fine. I’m just peachy keen. I’m going to find my brother and I’m going to save him and none of you people are going to stop me. And you can just go get the hell out.”
“What?” Logan sputters.
“If you’re not going to help, you can just get the hell out. I don’t need your help. I just need my brother back.”
“Fine,” Logan says.
“Fine,” Dean echoes.
Logan leaves and Dean watches him go. Dean Winchester, confirmed killer of more then twenty people, suspected killer of dozens more, watches as Logan stumbles out of the safe house (his safe house) and into the too bright gleam of pre-Pulse Seattle. He finds himself retracing his steps, hands in his pockets, trying not to look at these people. They don’t know what they have. They are walking through life, skating through it, worried about their corner-office jobs and their stock and it’s all going to be gone in six months. The city is going to turn on him and ten years later Logan will still be trying to get it back.
He’s back in 2009, back in the alley where this all started. Logan takes a deep breath. He’s got to go through this methodically. He’s got to look at this like any other case. Got to forget that he’s probably insane and try to figure out the puzzle his brain set up with him.
There’s something behind the dumpster. A black duffle bag. Logan moves toward it, half expecting a bomb, but he forces himself to remember that this isn’t real, that this is a dream. He tugs the zipper open in one fell swoop and nothing explodes. In the bag there’s clothes. Jeans, shirts, over shirts, all in his size, all the sort of thing he might have worn when he was in his twenties.
And he is in his twenties. If this is really 2009, somewhere out there, Logan Cale is twenty years old, a sophomore at Yale, working on the school paper and chasing tail. He takes a deep breath and fumbles through the shirts until a sharp prick caused him to pull back. He blinks and went back to his search a little more carefully this time.
There’s a knife in the bag. A wickedly sharp blade that has slipped out of its sheath. Logan looks at it in confusion before setting it carefully aside and continuing his search with more caution. The next thing he finds is a gun. Fully loaded with bullets that aren’t lead but silver. His head is killing him. He can hear his heart beating in his throat. There’s a phantom pain in his spine. His hands latch onto a leather wallet and he flips it open without hesitation. It’s a driver’s license. The driver’s license of Logan Cale born in November 11th 1978. And that is him in that picture. It’s him--which means that in whatever twisted up world this is, this is his bag, this is him carrying a knife and a gun loaded with silver bullets. He feels dizzy, feels physically ill.
Somehow the dull Seattle light seems brighter then usually. Everything looks overexposed, like the blinding sterility of a hospital. His heart is beating a dull roar in his head and he can hear voices like there’s someone standing right next to him.
BP’s dropping! We’re going to need to prep him for a transfusion!
Patient is non-responsive. We’re losing him!
“Losing me?” Logan repeats. “You’re not losing me! I’m right here.”
Someone get me a crash cart!
There’s a staccato of heartbeat playing in Logan’s ears but the rhythm is all off. He clutches at his head. “I’m right here!”
Charging... Clear!
Logan drops to his knees, pressing both hands to his head. Someone is screaming. He thinks it might be him.
Nothing, doc. Up the voltage. Alright, let’s try this again. Clear!
The white light is fading and the sights and the sounds of pre-Pulse Seattle are starting to swim back into focus.
We’ve got a rhythm, the voice says. Guy’s a fighter.
“Damn right, I’m a fighter,” Logan mutters and he slowly wraps the gun and the knife back into his clothes and places it back in the duffle bag. He feels around in the pockets of his jacket for any other clues. There are a pair of sunglasses in one pocket and in the other, a small collect of fake IDs all bearing his picture and a different name. He takes a deep breath, takes this in stride. This isn’t real. This is part of his subconscious mind. Somewhere he’s got to have left himself some clue. Some way to get back home.
In the inner pocket of his coat, there’s a metal flask sloshing with some sort of liquid. Logan pulls it out and unscrews the top because if there were ever a time in his life when he needed drink it was right now.
But it’s not alcohol, it’s water. He frowns at the flask in confusion and puts it back in his pocket. Everything’s got to be here for a reason and he’s not going to disturb it until he’s figures everything out.
His hands snag on a piece of paper and he draws it out slowly. It’s barely more then a scrap pulled from motel stationary but he recognizes the handwriting on the letter as his own even if he doesn’t remember writing it.
Find Sam Winchester, it reads.
Logan looks at the sky and swallows hard. If that’s what it takes, he’ll do it.
He’ll find Sam Winchester and then maybe he’ll be able to go home.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
You can probably expect some more of this sometime Sunday.
And here it is | 2 |
Rating: PG-13ish
Disclaimer: I can lay no claims on DA, SPN or Life on Mars
SPOILERS: DA pilot, SPN through season four, plot premise taken from Life on Mars (UK)
Summary: Logan gets shot. That’s when things get strange.
Notes:For those of you who know LoM, it might be of interest that Logan is Sam Tyler, Dean is Gene Hunt, Bobby is Hyde, Lillith is the Test Card Girl and Sam Winchester’s disappearance has something to do with this whole mess.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Logan gets shot in 2019. He is sure of this much. He is transporting a witness for one of Eyes Only’s latest cases and he gets shot. In his head, he knows he’s bleeding out and he knows it’s 2019.
But he wakes up in 2009. He doesn’t know it’s 2009, not immediately. He just wakes up in a back alley realizing that it’s a lot cleaner then the normal back alley. His head hurts. From the street outside, someone shoots him a disapproving glare like it’s taboo to wake up outside in an alley in Post Pulse Seattle instead of the norm. Logan hauls himself to his feet and runs his hands down the back of his spine feeling for blood, feeling for the bullet hole, but there’s nothing there. There’s no injury save the growing lump on his forehead. He’s taken knocks before, but it’s been a while since one was so bad he didn’t know where he was.
A second later he remembers Lauren and Sophie and Edgar Sonreisa and the transfer. He pushes himself up to his feet and breaks into a run. He can’t be that far from the safe house and Lauren would be there ready to testify and things would be all right.
It takes him two blocks to know something’s wrong. Really, really wrong because the buildings, they’re in good repair. Hell, they’re outright gleaming when there should be grunge and dirt and homeless people all over the place. But there’s not. There are people in suits and expensive watches and on the street corner, that was a Starbucks. There hasn’t been Starbucks since before the Pulse.
He gets a look at the newspaper.
2009
It’s January 2nd 2009.
He starts running. He knows these streets after all. They’re cleaner then his streets, just how he remembers everything from before. The streets haven’t changed since 2009, haven’t changed since the Pulse put a halt on all expansion. This is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
But he knows how to make it right. It’s going to be right when he gets to the safe house because it’s 2019 and Logan’s not crazy. No, Logan’s had an accident and his mind has snapped back to the last time he felt safe. Back before the Pulse and before Eyes Only and before he had a purpose. And everything’s going to be all right when he gets to the safe house because Lauren will be there and be ready to testify.
He is stopped just outside the house by the sight of a car, because this car, she’s magnificent. A relic sure, but magnificent. A sleek black Chevy Impala restored to near perfect condition. Logan hasn’t seen a car like this in almost ten years. Hasn’t seen it since the Pulse made the gas guzzling muscle cars a thing of the distant past. You’d run across them sometimes, rusted over and cannibalized for scrap muscle, but nothing like this.
He runs a hand, almost lovingly, across the hood. He can feel slight deformations, like the car’s been banged up recently but that doesn’t matter, that gives her character. Finally, he stops takes a deep breath and blunders into the safe house. “Lauren,” he calls. “Lauren! Sophie!”
Lauren and Sophie are not here. This is not the same place Logan had set up so carefully the night before. There are papers coating the wall, strange things about disappearances and deaths with the odd parts circled boldly in red. Logan presses his hands to his head. He can hear sirens now coming from the distance pulsing in his head. There are voices he can’t quite make out, saying things like, hold on, Mister we’re going to get you out of here and severe internal trauma.
“Who the hell are you?” a voice asks and the voice is so loud, it drowns out all the others.
The scene focuses abruptly and Logan’s left staring at a man. Late twenties if he has to guess with brown hair, striking features and an intimidating presence. “Who the hell am I?” Logan asks. “Who the hell am I? Who the hell are you? Where’s Sophie? Where’s Lauren?” He grabs the man by the shoulders and slams him into the wall. “What have you done with them?”
“You have got to be kidding me,” the man growls and there’s a short, violent burst of movement and then Logan’s the one pressed up against the wall. “I don’t know who the hell you are but you don’t get to do this. Now what’s your name?”
“This is ridiculous,” Logan says, trying to push past him. The man catches him and shoves him back and the whiplash nearly takes Logan out all on its lonesome. “You’re not real,” Logan hisses. “I don’t know what part of my subconscious you crawled out of, but you’re not real so get out of my way.”
Logan pushes past the man briskly, noting the solid thud of shoulder on shoulder. The contact makes him pause because if nothing else, that feels real.
“Not real,” the man grumbles and there’s a fist sailing towards Logan’s face with such velocity that it knocks his whole body off kilter. Indignant, he starts to protest that you shouldn’t hit a man with glasses and then he blinks blearily and realizes for the first time in quite some time that he is wearing contacts. He hasn’t been able to find contacts after the Pulse hit. “Did that feel real to you?” the man growls. “Now tell me your name or we’re up for round two.”
“Logan,” he says, rubbing at the small trail of blood leaking out one nostril. “Logan Cale.”
“Wait, wait, wait a second,” the man says, pressing both hands to his forehead. “Logan Cale? Did Bobby send you?”
Logan has no contacts named Bobby. He knows no one who could be connected to this loose cannon with a wall plastered in obituaries. He swallows, presses his eyes shut and wills himself to wake up. There’s no reason for him to be here. No reason for any of it. “Tell me something,” Logan says. “What year is it?”
The man laughs harshly. “Don’t worry about it. World’s not due for an apocalypse for another three years.” Off Logan’s blank look, he rolled his eyes. “2009, all right? January 2nd 2009. You must have had one hell of a new year.”
Logan stumbles over to the bed, collapsing on the edge and putting his face in his hands. “What’s your name?”
The man eyes him suspiciously. “I don’t know what sort of game your—“ He blinks, stops and shakes his head as if unwilling to put the effort into fighting. “I’m Dean. Dean Winchester.”
Logan looks up. He’s heard of Dean Winchester. It’s a name from his past, from everyone’s past. In his day, Dean Winchester had been the most famous serial killer in the states. The Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean had crossed the country committing violent, bizarre murders like something out of the X-Files. But he’d died in early 2008. Died in a helicopter crash when the police had finally caught up with him. Justice served.
“Dean Winchester,” he repeats and lets out a strangled half laugh. “Of course you’re Dean Winchester. In 2009. Dean Winchester.” He stands up, shaking. “If you’re really Dean Winchester, where’s your brother, Sam?”
It’s the wrong thing to say and Logan knows it the instant the words are out of his mouth. Something slams shut on Winchester’s face and he’s speaking slowly when he says, “Look, I realize Bobby keeps sending you stooges to keep an eye on me, but I’m fine. I’m just peachy keen. I’m going to find my brother and I’m going to save him and none of you people are going to stop me. And you can just go get the hell out.”
“What?” Logan sputters.
“If you’re not going to help, you can just get the hell out. I don’t need your help. I just need my brother back.”
“Fine,” Logan says.
“Fine,” Dean echoes.
Logan leaves and Dean watches him go. Dean Winchester, confirmed killer of more then twenty people, suspected killer of dozens more, watches as Logan stumbles out of the safe house (his safe house) and into the too bright gleam of pre-Pulse Seattle. He finds himself retracing his steps, hands in his pockets, trying not to look at these people. They don’t know what they have. They are walking through life, skating through it, worried about their corner-office jobs and their stock and it’s all going to be gone in six months. The city is going to turn on him and ten years later Logan will still be trying to get it back.
He’s back in 2009, back in the alley where this all started. Logan takes a deep breath. He’s got to go through this methodically. He’s got to look at this like any other case. Got to forget that he’s probably insane and try to figure out the puzzle his brain set up with him.
There’s something behind the dumpster. A black duffle bag. Logan moves toward it, half expecting a bomb, but he forces himself to remember that this isn’t real, that this is a dream. He tugs the zipper open in one fell swoop and nothing explodes. In the bag there’s clothes. Jeans, shirts, over shirts, all in his size, all the sort of thing he might have worn when he was in his twenties.
And he is in his twenties. If this is really 2009, somewhere out there, Logan Cale is twenty years old, a sophomore at Yale, working on the school paper and chasing tail. He takes a deep breath and fumbles through the shirts until a sharp prick caused him to pull back. He blinks and went back to his search a little more carefully this time.
There’s a knife in the bag. A wickedly sharp blade that has slipped out of its sheath. Logan looks at it in confusion before setting it carefully aside and continuing his search with more caution. The next thing he finds is a gun. Fully loaded with bullets that aren’t lead but silver. His head is killing him. He can hear his heart beating in his throat. There’s a phantom pain in his spine. His hands latch onto a leather wallet and he flips it open without hesitation. It’s a driver’s license. The driver’s license of Logan Cale born in November 11th 1978. And that is him in that picture. It’s him--which means that in whatever twisted up world this is, this is his bag, this is him carrying a knife and a gun loaded with silver bullets. He feels dizzy, feels physically ill.
Somehow the dull Seattle light seems brighter then usually. Everything looks overexposed, like the blinding sterility of a hospital. His heart is beating a dull roar in his head and he can hear voices like there’s someone standing right next to him.
BP’s dropping! We’re going to need to prep him for a transfusion!
Patient is non-responsive. We’re losing him!
“Losing me?” Logan repeats. “You’re not losing me! I’m right here.”
Someone get me a crash cart!
There’s a staccato of heartbeat playing in Logan’s ears but the rhythm is all off. He clutches at his head. “I’m right here!”
Charging... Clear!
Logan drops to his knees, pressing both hands to his head. Someone is screaming. He thinks it might be him.
Nothing, doc. Up the voltage. Alright, let’s try this again. Clear!
The white light is fading and the sights and the sounds of pre-Pulse Seattle are starting to swim back into focus.
We’ve got a rhythm, the voice says. Guy’s a fighter.
“Damn right, I’m a fighter,” Logan mutters and he slowly wraps the gun and the knife back into his clothes and places it back in the duffle bag. He feels around in the pockets of his jacket for any other clues. There are a pair of sunglasses in one pocket and in the other, a small collect of fake IDs all bearing his picture and a different name. He takes a deep breath, takes this in stride. This isn’t real. This is part of his subconscious mind. Somewhere he’s got to have left himself some clue. Some way to get back home.
In the inner pocket of his coat, there’s a metal flask sloshing with some sort of liquid. Logan pulls it out and unscrews the top because if there were ever a time in his life when he needed drink it was right now.
But it’s not alcohol, it’s water. He frowns at the flask in confusion and puts it back in his pocket. Everything’s got to be here for a reason and he’s not going to disturb it until he’s figures everything out.
His hands snag on a piece of paper and he draws it out slowly. It’s barely more then a scrap pulled from motel stationary but he recognizes the handwriting on the letter as his own even if he doesn’t remember writing it.
Find Sam Winchester, it reads.
Logan looks at the sky and swallows hard. If that’s what it takes, he’ll do it.
He’ll find Sam Winchester and then maybe he’ll be able to go home.
You can probably expect some more of this sometime Sunday.
And here it is | 2 |
(no subject)
15/11/08 08:11 (UTC)(no subject)
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15/11/08 17:24 (UTC)(no subject)
15/11/08 20:47 (UTC)*bounce*
I like.
:)
(no subject)
15/11/08 21:42 (UTC)(no subject)
15/11/08 23:51 (UTC)(no subject)
16/11/08 21:56 (UTC)Oh, Lillith is the least of their worries which just goes to show you how bad things are going to get here. I'm excited.
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