Lowell Tracey is a Rock Star (brainjam) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-12-09 11:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, lowell tracey, olivia moore |
Who: Livwell
When: Liv's birthday, Nov 9
Where: A steakhouse
What: Lowell takes a delusional Liv out for her birthday
Rating/Warning: Low/none
Status: Complete
Lowell hadn’t been sure what to do for Liv’s birthday. She certainly deserved something after the way he’d acted over Halloween. His bandmates had all scolded him for how he’d conducted himself at the party, and their manager as well, but he hadn’t been able to think of any excuse that didn’t sound outright insane, and had finally just given up and let them believe that he’d taken far too many drugs that night. It wouldn’t have been the first time, though it had been a few years since the last time he’d acted even close to that, and even then he hadn’t been the kind of person to interrupt another band’s set.
Though with how Liv seemed to change personalities as often as she changed underwear, he supposed she didn’t have much reason to hold it against him. Even if she never did manage to act like such a self-serving scrub.
But try as he might, he couldn’t think of anything to get her. Which meant he’d just have to take her out on the town. Dinner first, followed by a concert from another band who had just recently signed on with Lowell’s record company. He’d considered picking her up in a limo, but after their last experience in a limo, he thought better of it and instead drove his flashy sports car, black and sleek, to come get her. He rang the bell of her apartment, and waited.
For the past week Liv had been seeing things she didn’t think could be there. Mostly people from her dreams. Ravi, Blaine, Clive. She wasn’t sure if they existed in this world or not. After all, Lowell did. So she kept up conversations with them when they appeared. Which was precisely what she was doing when the doorbell rang. She was in the middle of yelling at Blaine for barging into her apartment. The guy really needed to learn boundaries. At least in the dreams he only walked into the morgue, never her place.
“You need to go!” Liv said to him as she made her way over to the door. How the hell was she supposed to explain another pale, platinum blonde haired guy in her apartment? When she looked back he was gone. Weird. But whatever at least he listened. Now she could let Lowell in.
“Hey,” she greeted with a large smile opening up the door. She gave him a quick kiss before stepping back to let him inside.
Lowell could hear Liv yelling at someone through the door, but walking in, he didn’t spot anyone else. He frowned to himself a little. Was Liv keeping some other guy hidden away in the closet or something? He returned the kiss a little absently, and stepped inside while Liv collected her things.
“You have company?” he asked her while she gathered everything.
“What?” Liv asked clearly distracted as she grabbed her purse. “No, it was just the TV.” Which was clearly off but whatever. Hopefully Lowell wouldn’t question that. After all she could have turned it off before answering the door. “Let’s go,” she said grabbing her coat on the way out.
Lowell frowned to himself. He’d been sure that he’d heard Liv’s voice, and he couldn’t picture why she’d be talking to her television, though he supposed he’d yelled at his own often enough during football games.
He kissed her once on the cheek before leading her to his car. He was glad she’d dropped the whole vegetarian thing, since it meant that he could bring her to one of his favourite Steakhouses. He pulled into the parking lot after a relatively short drive. “I hope you like steak,” he said, realizing belatedly that he probably should have covered that before making the reservation.
Liv pushed thoughts of Blaine and every other dream!person she had seen out of her mind. She just wanted to enjoy her birthday with Lowell. Didn’t she deserve at least that?
“Did I forget to mention I’m a vegan again?” Liv joked a smile spread across her face. She could do this, act normal, enjoy her birthday. “Kidding,” she quickly added. No need for Lowell to think she was stranger than he probably already did. “Steak’s perfect.” And she had the bottle of hot sauce from Leon in her purse to put on it.
“Ha ha,” Lowell said dryly, though despite his sarcastic tone he had an amused look on his face. For a moment, she’d almost caught him with the vegan again, but he’d picked up that it was a joke soon enough. “Great,” he said. “Just wait right there,” he said, hopping out of his car. He jogged to the other side of the car, and then opened the door. “Milady,” he said, giving a bow but smirking at her as he did so.
Look at Lowell. Being quite the gentleman. It was a big difference from how he acted on Halloween. And Liv had to admit she much preferred this version. “Why thank you, kind sir,” she teased hopping out of the car herself. Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Major. If Liv could have paled she would have, but given her skin was already white she just had an uneasy look on her face. She shook her head trying to shake it off.
Lowell didn’t miss the look on her face, and he followed her gaze. Not that that did any good, given the fact that he was now looking at an empty parking lot. He turned back to Liv, puzzled. “Is everything okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Yeah, fine,” Liv replied doing her best to give him a reassuring smile. “Let’s go eat.” She linked her arm through Lowell’s walking into the restaurant with him. Things were going fine until she saw Major again. This time it wasn’t just out of the corner of her eye. He was right there in front of her. Talking.
“Happy Birthday Liv,” Major said. Liv just stared. Looking from him to Lowell. Lowell didn’t seem to react but Major looked so real. She did her best to ignore him. “What, no thank you?”
“What are you doing here?” Liv replied to Major not able to help herself.
Lowell had been studying the menu when Liv spoke next, and he glanced up, more than a little confused, especially once he noticed that no, some ex-boyfriend of hers hadn’t sidled up to the table. “Calisthenics,” he said, giving her a confused look which was accompanied by a teasing smile. “But after that, I was planning on getting you the best birthday dinner you’ve ever tasted.”
“Huh?” Liv asked completely missing the joke. She was too distracted by Major, who of course decided to speak again.
“This guy, really?” he asked Liv with a raised brow, standing right next to Lowell now. “Isn’t he a little… high maintenance for you?”
“Shut up,” Liv snapped back at her hallucination. “Just leave me alone. We broke up, I moved on, you should do the same.”
It was only a couple of moments later that Lowell realized his mouth had dropped open, trying to make sense of what Liv was saying to him, if it was, indeed, to him. He was sure that he hadn’t said anything to warrant a ‘shut up,’ but more than that he was certain that he and Liv hadn’t broken up.
“Liv, love,” Lowell said, reaching for one of her hands. “Who are you talking to?”
Lowell’s hand on hers brought her back to reality. Or back to the moment at least. Because Major was still standing right next to him. Watching the whole thing. “Major,” Liv finally said her eyes wide with both shock and embarrassment. “You don’t… you don’t see him?”
Major? There was a major hanging around? He didn’t even know that Liv knew military people. That aside, there was definitely no one around the table close enough for her to be talking to, but he took a quick glance around just in case. “No,” Lowell said, his eyebrows coming together in confusion. “Unless by major you mean fork, I don’t see anyone.”
“Come on, Liv. Let’s get out of here. What are you doing with this guy anyway?”
Liv squeezed her eyes shut trying to make Major disappear. Now that Lowell had stated he wasn’t there she knew she was hallucinating and she refused to talk back to him. No need to look crazier than Lowell probably thought she was already.
“Liv,” Major said again. She placed her hands over her ears drowning out whatever else he had to say.
When she finally opened her eyes again and removed her hands he was still there. Liv wanted to cry, or scream, or both. Instead she just took a deep breath. “I think you need to take me home.”
Lowell fidgeted, not entirely sure how to deal with this situation. It was becoming increasingly clear that Liv was hallucinating something, but he wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Before, he’d been sure that her strange personality quirks had been just that, quirks, but now he wasn’t so sure. She was obviously actually sick, and Lowell didn’t really what to do about that.
When Liv covered her ears, Lowell noticed one of the patrons of the restaurant snapping a photo with her phone, and he grimaced. There was no telling what the tabloid headlines were going to say about this tomorrow. “Yeah,” Lowell said, already standing up. “That sounds like a good idea.”