VM Fic: Kendall Casablancas: She’s a Marshmallow (Kendall, Logan, Veronica) PG-13
Title: Kendall Casablancas: She’s a Marshmallow
Pairing/Character: Kendall, Logan, Veronica
Word Count: ~1,800
Rating: PG-13 (some cussing)
Summary: Kendall’s underbelly isn’t as rock hard as she thought.
Spoilers: Goes AU after the Alterna-Prom, but it’s better if you’ve seen up to the first few eps of season 3.
Disclaimer: If Rob Thomas lets me borrow them, they will be returned in their current pristine condition.
Notes: Thanks to my beta zaftig_darling for the suggestions!
When she awoke to the sound of Logan shuffling toward the door, Kendall realized right then that she’d gone soft. Years of running cons had sharpened her senses, and the faint click of a doorknob turning used to be enough to get her awake, on her feet, and ready to disappear if necessary. But after just a few months of living in the Casablancas mansion, she was already losing her edge. She hadn’t even heard the knock that apparently woke up the hungover teenage boy next to her.
With a sigh, she rolled out of bed and slipped into a plush Neptune Grand robe, then stopped to listen and find out who their early-morning visitor was.
“First let me say that I'm sorry for running out last night like I did.” Veronica Mars, she thought. What a disappointment. She’d been hoping it was room service-she hadn’t gotten enough sleep and really needed coffee if she was going to be awake at this hour. “I was a bit overwhelmed. I needed to collect my thoughts, think about what you said.” Kendall rolled her eyes.
“Veronica...” Logan croaked, his voice still hoarse.
“Look, let me just get this out,” Veronica continued. “I don't want to lose you from my life either. And I’m not saying I’m ready to dive back into anything, but after graduation, let’s make it a point to see each other. See where that takes us. I remember what you said about our relationship being epic.”
Kendall snorted softly in amusement, and Logan glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Seeing the alarm that flickered briefly across his face, she realized he hadn’t remembered she was there. She flashed him a big smile and waggled her fingers at him in greeting.
“Oh, God…” Veronica’s voice broke on the other side of the door.
“Last night was sort of a blur,” Logan muttered, with another fleeting look at Kendall. She scowled exaggeratedly. Idiot. “I-I-I mean, I just woke up about thirty seconds ago,” he added quickly. “I’m kinda out of it.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll just…”
Logan lunged out the door. “No! No, please don’t go. J-just let me take a shower first so I can wake up.”
“It’s OK, I don’t mind…” Veronica began.
“But I do-I feel disgusting. I need to brush my teeth, and my eyes are so dry I think I can hear my eyelids scraping against them when I blink.”
Veronica giggled, and Kendall smirked a little.
“It reeks of cigarettes and stale liquor in here,” he added. “Why don’t you go down to the restaurant and order us breakfast, and I’ll clean myself up and call housekeeping?” There was a long pause. “Please? I really do want to talk, but we’ll both be happier when I feel more alive. Give me fifteen minutes. Order me a triple espresso and that pancake thing I like, and I promise I’ll be down as fast as I can.”
Veronica let out a deep breath. “OK, but if your breakfast shows up before you do, I’m eating it too.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Veronica giggled again and apparently went on her way.
Logan closed the door and turned to Kendall, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?” he said in a loud whisper. “How…”
“You don’t remember, do you? Well, that makes a girl feel good.” She spun around and flounced back into his bedroom. He followed her as she took a cosmetics case out of her overnight bag and brought it into the bathroom.
Logan looked up at the ceiling as he tried to remember the previous night’s events. “She came to my party last night… and we talked… but I can’t… I don’t know…” He rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of his hands. “Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck…I can’t believe this is happening!”
Kendall twisted her hair into a loose ponytail. “The ex that got away shows up at your door and wants to talk, and you’re pissed about that?” She turned the water on and squeezed a tiny amount of her imported cleanser into her hand, knowing it could be the last bottle she’d be able to buy for a while. Hovering over the sink, she smoothed the costly soap over her skin.
“I can’t lie to her.” Logan started to pace. “But if I tell her I slept with you last night, we’re done.”
She splashed a few handfuls of water on her face and then grabbed a towel to pat it dry. “Excuse me?”
“Despite what apparently was a meaningful moment between Veronica and me last night, it seems that I still decided to make a booty call after she left.” He rested his elbow against the wall and ran his hand through his hair. “God, I’m so fucking-”
“Oh, you made the booty call, but we didn’t sleep together,” Kendall said as she dug into her bag for her mascara.
“What?”
“Believe me, if we did? You’d remember.” She leaned toward the mirror as she brushed the wand over her eyelashes. “Next time you just want a shoulder to cry on, call your guidance counselor.”
“So wait-we didn’t-” Logan sputtered.
“No, we didn’t,” Kendall replied tersely as she rubbed on some gloss and then smacked her lips together. “By the time I got here, you could barely stand, much less get it up. I had to spend half the night listening to you cry into your champagne bottle. ‘I spilled my heart out and she ran off, wah, wah, Veronica left me again.’ It was pathetic.”
Logan rubbed his face and sighed in relief.
Pulling out the ponytail holder, Kendall bent at the waist and combed her fingers through her thick, wavy hair. It cascaded perfectly over her shoulders when she stood up, and she spritzed it with hairspray. “But for the record, if she ditched you like you said she did, I think a booty call would be totally justified.”
“I told you what happened with Veronica?” Logan took an anxious step toward her. “What did I say?”
“All this lovesick puppy-dog bullshit. Really unattractive.” Slipping the Grand robe off, she tossed it on the bathroom floor. She walked into the bedroom, naked except for her panties. Logan looked away guiltily.
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“This is really all my fault.” The little red dress she wore the night before hung neatly on a hanger on the back of the bedroom door. Kendall took it down and stepped into it. “I should have known better than to get involved with someone in high school. I hated all this high-school crap when I was in high school.”
Logan sat on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. “Kendall-please. I know this was never about love, but we were… friends… sort of, weren’t we?”
She shrugged agreeably. “I guess you could call it that.”
“And I know you’re a lot smarter than anyone gives you credit for. I mean, you know how I feel about Veronica, right?”
“A person would have to be blind not to…”
“No, you’re good at reading people. You always know what’s really going on in someone’s head-so I hope you know that I’m being completely serious when I say that this is probably my last chance to get it right with Veronica. Whatever I said to her last night was good enough to get her to come back to me this morning, so I need to know what it was,” he pleaded. “You and I helped each other out when we both needed it, so I’m begging you to help me again. Please tell me what I told you last night.”
The desperation in his voice made her soften. She sighed and sat down next to him. “Fine. You said that you told her that you’re afraid that you’re not going to see her anymore after graduation, and you apologized for something you did last summer that better not have been about me. And you told her that you two were ‘epic,’ whatever that means.”
“Epic?” Logan looked up, remembering that Veronica had also used that word a few minutes earlier.
“Yeah, something about lives ruined, bloodshed…”
“Bloodshed? I said something about bloodshed to Veronica? What the hell is that?”
“I know-morbid much?” Kendall slipped her shoes on as she continued. “You tried to kiss her, and she almost went for it, but then she took off. That’s all I’ve got-the rest was drunken nonsense, and by the time you passed out I was too tired to drive home.” She stood and turned her back to him. “Zip me up.”
Logan stood and did as directed. She put on her sunglasses, picked up her bag, and started to leave.
“Wait!” Logan called after her. “Veronica’s in the restaurant waiting for me, so…”
Kendall sighed dramatically. “I’ll be careful-it’s not easy, but I can make myself unnoticeable when I want to.”
“Thank you, Kendall,” he said sincerely. Before she could get away, he spontaneously pulled her into a hug.
“Ugh,” she said, stiffening in his embrace. “You do need a shower before you meet up with her.” She pushed him away and fluffed her hair. “I don’t want to smell like last night’s beer.”
He laughed a little. “Sorry.”
“Just don’t drunk-dial me again,” she ordered. “I don’t tuck anyone into bed unless he's old enough to die and leave me everything.” Kendall whirled about and sashayed out the door. Just before she closed it, the sound of Logan scrambling to get ready made her smile.
As she rode down to the lobby, Kendall wondered how she had turned into such a sap. The old Kendall would have enjoyed greeting Veronica at the suite door and gloating, but this morning, she was detouring away from the hotel restaurant so the girl sitting near the entrance with an expectant look on her face didn’t see her.
She made it out to the parking lot unnoticed. Smiling to herself, Kendall realized that her good mood was probably because of Cormac’s call earlier in the week. He said he was definitely getting out at the end of the summer, and then they could be together again. After years of being apart, they had finally been able to talk about their future and make some real plans for how they wanted to spend the rest of their lives.
Kendall got into her car and looked in the rearview mirror to adjust her sunglasses. Finally, Priscilla Banks is going to get her happily ever after, she thought.
~ FIN ~