FIC: Leave the Light On For Me
Title: Leave the Light On For Me
Characters: Veronica/Logan, Wallace, Duncan, the Casablancas brothers
Rating: Hard R for sex and partial nudity, mentions of rape and murder
Word Count: ~10k
Disclaimer: I don't own any aspect of Veronica Mars or its characters
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers only for first season and preseason. Contains sex and mentions of rape and murder.
Summary: This AU addresses how Veronica and Logan might have stuck together and supported one another after Lilly's death.
A/N: I'm going to attempt a sequel to this, so any feedback that anyone has is greatly appreciated. Beta beta beta beta rockin' everywhere is dragynflies, so send mad props in her direction.
*****
It was another beautiful morning in southern California - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the cool breeze carPCHried with it the stimulating scent of saltwater.
A perfect day to be duct-taped to the flagpole, thought Wallace Fennel - who was currently duct-taped to the flagpole.
It wasn't so bad. The cold metal of the pole had gradually warmed with the heat of his body, and though the adhesive was irritating every hair on his body that it came into contact with, he was grateful for the small mercies the PCH gang had shown him. He was still wearing his underwear, after all. Besides that, when the gray light of morning made the writing on his chest more readable, Wallace grinned when he realized that they had spelled "snitch" without the "t."
But not long after the sun rose, cars began pulling into the parking lot. The first few belonged to faculty members and maintenance staff. Wallace noted with dismay that they parked closer to the teachers' lounge instead of the school's main entrance, and while he could have sworn that one or two noticed him, they all disappeared inside, not to be seen again.
The embarrassment really started when other students arrived. Never had Wallace regretted the advancement of technology so vehemently as when the few that had gathered around took pictures from their cell phones to send to their friends. Within minutes, Wallace figured, the entire school probably had set his half-naked image as their phone wallpaper. Stoically he bit his tongue and stared into the distance, trying not to let their comments and remarks rankle him.
"Who put him there?" members of the growing crowd asked one another. Apparently no one even thought to address the question to him, the object of their ridicule.
"Bikers did it," someone else concluded, and the word spread like wildfire among them. Still, Wallace made no effort to confirm or deny it; he was pissed that no one cared to help him out, much less ask what happened.
As though able to read his mind, another voice came over the crowd. "Why doesn't somebody cut him down?" it asked.
"Yeah, I'll do it," someone else replied, with false enthusiasm. "I wanna be the guy up there tomorrow!"
One guy jumped right onto the raised flower bed that surrounded the flagpole, getting his camera right in Wallace's face. "All right, say cheese! Smile!"
"Move," someone commanded. Wallace looked down to see a short blonde chick weave her way through the crowd. A path seemed to open up for her, even where the throngs were thickest; some stepped aside as though she smelled bad, with their noses turned up, while others moved away more timidly, like they were scared of her or something.
When she stepped onto the raised flower bed, the asshole with the camera turned around and snarled at her. "Who died and made you the queen?"
She ignored the remark and pulled a switchblade from her pocket, its edge glinting in the dull morning light.
"You are a freak," the moron conceded, stepping out of the way with an exaggerated look of fear on his face.
Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she turned her attention to Wallace. "You're new here, huh?" the she asked him, pinching the tape between the fingers of her left hand and pulling it away from his skin, sawing at it with the knife in her other hand. "Welcome to Neptune High." With a sarcastic smile she turned to her schoolmates and added "Go Pirates!"
The first bell rang, and with nothing left to hold their interest, students started filtering into the school, dragging their feet and muttering to one another in disappointment. "Bitch always ruins the fun," someone hissed nearby.
"Would have liked to see the bikers show up again," another person grumbled.
While the girl continued cutting into Wallace's sticky holds, another student lingered nearby, awkwardly holding onto two book-bags. "Come on, Veronica, we're going to be late."
"If I hurry, then somebody's gonna get a hurt," she said as she peeled away more duct tape, trying to saw through it carefully enough so as not to pierce Wallace's underwear.
"Glad to see you're a boxer man, at least," the lat man standing said to Wallace.
Veronica deftly sliced through the last bit of tape, and with a flourish she returned the knife to her pocket. "Later, gator," she said over her shoulder as she leapt off the flagpole stand and snatched her book-bag from the other guy. As Wallace peeled away the remaining remnants of tape, he watched the two of them disappear into the school's main entrance, too late to make the second bell but too cool to even care.
*****
The two of them, Veronica and whoever the guy was, sat sullenly next to each other at lunch. She had a cafeteria tray in front of her, and she absently stabbed a slab of mystery meat again and again as gravy seeped into its wounds, while he sat facing the other way, reclining with his elbows against the table, scanning the courtyard as though suspicious of everyone.
Wallace had found his clothes rummaging through the lost-and-found bin in the office; their cleanliness at this point was questionable, but he was relieved to have something to wear at all considering the way his day had started. When he spotted the only two kids in the whole school to have helped him out that morning, he dropped his brown bag onto their table and sat down.
"You okay?" he asked Veronica.
Her reverie suddenly interrupted, she snapped her head upwards from her lunch tray and stared at Wallace with a fierceness that affirmed the eponym freak. "What?" she asked sharply.
Wallace wasn't scared; this girl seemed tough on the outside, but inside he could see her for the marshmallow that she was. "You look... I don't know, hypnotized."
"Did I say you could sit here?" the guy asked, swiveling around to face Wallace and folding his hands in front of him like some kind of mafioso.
The last thing Wallace needed was more trouble. Too bad - he was this close to possibly having a friend at this godforsaken school. Disheartened, he grabbed his lunch and threw one leg over the bench to leave.
"Wait a minute," Veronica said, putting her palm gently over the guy's folded hands. He looked up at her for a moment, and she rolled his eyes at him and turned back towards Wallace. "Of course you can sit here. Sit wherever you want."
Wallace cracked the smallest of smiles as he once again made himself comfortable at the table. "That - that was cool," he said to her. "What you did. Cutting me off of that poll."
"Well..." she began, reluctantly blushing a little and looking down towards her food.
"I'm Wallace, by the way. Wallace Fennel."
"Veronica Mars," she said. She flipped her hand over and gestured to the strong, silent type sitting beside her. "And this here is Logan Echolls, Neptune High's obligatory psychotic jackass."
"Retired," Logan objected. "Mostly."
Just then the bright California sunshine was blocked by an approaching group of leather-clad thugs. Their leader stepped onto the bench and leaned right into Wallace's face, almost close for Wallace to actually feel the bristles of his goatee scratching against his chin.
"My bitch! Weren't you supposed to wait for me at that flagpole? Not sure I could have made that any clearer."
Wallace took a deep breath as he considered how to respond. Play it cool, he told himself - play it cool. "Okay, I get it. Very funny. I guess we're even now, right?"
"You get what, boy? That you're a dead man walking, is that what you get?"
"Leave him alone, Weevil," Veronica interjected. Logan's eyebrows jumped in surprise, but he kept his mouth shut as he leaned back with interest to watch the scene develop.
Weevil turned on his heel to face Veronica, wearing a crooked smile. "Sister, the only time I care what a woman has to say is when she's riding my big old hog. Even then it's not so much words - it's just a bunch of ooohs and aaahs, you know?"
"So it's big, huh?" Veronica asked, goading.
"Legendary," Weevil replied, grinning like an ape.
"Well, let's see it," Veronica suggested. "I mean, if it's as big as you say, I'll be your girlfriend. We could go to the prom together!"
As Weevil and his cohorts mumbled among themselves in response, Logan finally decided to cut in. "Veronica," Logan said, a tone of warning in his voice. But it was too late; she was already on a roll.
"What?" Veronica asked, badgering Weevil even more. "What seems to be the problem? I'm on a schedule here, vato."
"Hey, Weevil, don't let blondie here talk to you like that," one of the bikers told him.
"Sounds like your buddy here wants to see it, too," Veronica shot back, unable to hide her amusement with herself.
"Aw, hell, I'll show you mine!" As he started to undo the front of his pants, a suited man came up behind him, gently putting a hand on the young man's shoulder. It was Principal Clemmons, just in time to prevent a schoolyard flashing.
"Toombs!" he exclaimed, startling the bikers into silence. "Felix Toombs, what on God's green earth seems to be going on here?" As Felix hurriedly fastened his pants again, Clemmons ushered them away; as they dispersed, he looked at two of the table's occupants and shook his head and sighed. "Veronica, Logan - why does trouble just seem to follow you two around?"
Both smiled back at him, batting their lashes and shrugging innocently, and Clemmons decided it was in his better interest to keep the bikers out of trouble until classes resumed again. As soon as he was out of earshot, Veronica turned her attention back to Wallace.
"So what did you do?" she asked.
"What?" Wallace said, still trying to recover from the intimidating incident that had just unfolded.
"Why are you a dead man walking?" Logan clarified.
"Oh, yeah, I work at the Sac-N-Pac..." Wallace began. While Logan appeared to be distracted, looking over towards the table of 09'ers, Veronica listened intently as he related what had happened to him at work the previous night.
"Congratulations, Sport," she said to Wallace. "In your short time here, you've managed to piss off the motorcycle gang and the local sheriff." She didn't say it to pass judgement; it came across more as a gentle admonishment.
"Now can I ask you a question?" Wallace said to her. "Why does trouble just seem to follow you two around?"
"Excuse me?" Veronica asked, but her question was cut off by the sound of the bell, signaling the end of the lunch period.
*****
The trouble had, in fact, started following the two of them around because of Duncan Kane. A long time ago he'd been Veronica's boyfriend. But one day, with no warning, he ended things between him and her, and Veronica felt adrift in an ocean of teenage emotion. Hurt and confused, she wrote bad poetry in flourescent notebooks and complained constantly to Lilly Kane, who then passed along the complaints both to her boyfriend and her brother.
As his best friend, Logan could feel the chill coming off Duncan's cold shoulder. When they passed by Veronica's locker in between classes, Logan looked back at her dejected face, and it tugged his heartstrings a little. In the span of a few short days, Logan had realized he missed having Veronica around as a friend, and Duncan had turned into a sullen, silent asshole in the meantime. And the only way Logan knew to counter a cold shoulder was to turn the heat up.
"Dude, what happened between you two?" he asked Duncan once they rounded the corner. Duncan scowled and stared at his feet as he walked, so Logan tried to turn the question into a joke at Duncan's expense. "Did she finally try to ravage you, and it offended your puritanical sensibilities? "
"God, Logan, seriously," Duncan said lamely.
"Seriously what, Duncan?" Logan persisted. "You just dropped her like a sack of shit when you know she's better than that, man."
"I already have Lilly on my case, Logan, no need to dogpile." They lingered outside the doorway to their next class; Duncan parked himself against the threshold, leaning his head back, exasperated.
"Your mom finally got to you, huh?" Logan asked. "Made you break up with her?"
"So what if she did? She had a convincing argument."
Logan rolled his eyes. He nothing but disdain for figures of authority, especially parental figures, and despite her kindness and generosity towards him, Mrs. Kane was no exception to the rule. "Like what? Veronica's so smart and funny and pretty that it makes you look bad?"
"If she's so smart and funny and pretty, why don't you date her and leave me the fuck alone?"
"Jesus Christ," Logan muttered. "Touchy, touchy." He blushed a little and turned away. It wasn't something he hadn't considered before; he'd had an immature crush on Veronica since they were twelve. He could remember the first time he'd met her; she'd been totally working those knee socks and that soccer uniform. But he was with Lilly, and even though she didn't regard their relationship as all that monogamous, he wouldn't ever dream of cheating on her, especially not with her best friend. It was a moot point, anyway; he knew he didn't fit the "good guy" type that Duncan embodied and that Veronica seemed to go for. Perhaps it was true, what they'd learned in psychology earlier that day - girls always go for guys like their fathers.
Think of the devil and she will come; as they loitered outside of their classroom, Lilly came up to rib her two favorite guys. "What's the matter, boys? Did your Spanish teacher finally get that breast reduction? You look like you just lost your two best friends."
Duncan groaned and turned away, stalking to his seat and doing his best to ignore his friend and his sister kissing just outside.
After their gratuitous lip-lock, Lilly's smile faded away as she looked in on her grouch of a brother. "Seriously, what's the matter with him?" she asked, running her hand along the back of Logan's neck in a gesture of affection and ownership.
"I was giving him a hard time about dumping Veronica," Logan replied, not trying to hide the fact that his eyes were focused on what lay underneath Lilly's sweater.
"You don't have to do that."
Logan snapped into attention. "Sorry, then, I won't look at your boobs anymore. I promise to regard you as a human being based on your winning personality and not your physical attributes."
"Aw, you think I have a personality," Lilly laughed, but she quickly turned serious again. "I mean ragging on Duncan for this whole Veronica thing."
"She's my friend, too, you know." Logan said, gazing at his girlfriend with a pair of glistening puppy-dog eyes. "What did your mom say to him?"
In one of her brief moments of sincerity, Lilly brought her hand to Logan's face, cupping his jaw in the cool curve of her palm. "Just face it, Logan. It's... it's not going to work out between them." The corner of her lip came up ever-so-slighly in a sad sort of smirk. "Our little foursome's down to three."
Logan sighed and kissed the inside of Lilly's hand as the bell began to ring. He held her by her wrist and locked eyes with her once more as she started to back away. "Just a personal preference," he added, "if we're going to be a threesome, I'd rather it be with Veronica than with your brother."
"That's my boy," Lilly grinned, pinching Logan's cheek in an exaggerated gesture of affection. "
His cheek smarted all through fourth period, but Logan didn't mind; it was the small kind of pain that reminded him that someone somehow cared about him.
And he knew it was nothing compared to the pain that Veronica was feeling right then.
*****
But squabbles between ex-lovers and friends mean nothing when someone turns up dead. Duncan Kane had merely gotten the ball rolling; it was his sister's glamorous murder that had set trouble fast on Veronica's trail.
And things only got worse when Sheriff Mars turned the heat on the Kane family, trying desperately to make sense out of something so tragic and so close-to-home. Even when popular opinion swayed against him, Mars remained dogged and resourceful as he ran himself into the ground. One could even say he was taking his daughter down with him, but that wasn't really the case. She was going down willingly, taking his side and defending him against snide remarks and harsh criticism - whether at school from disappointed classmates and teachers, or at home from her own mother. She couldn't even get upset when her father anticipated losing his elected seat, when they downsized from a comfortable house to a cramped apartment where the water didn't always run warm. She couldn't even muster any sadness (only anger) at her mother's departure, because in a lot of ways, it made her life easier.
At the library, Veronica was trying to use the online card catalogue to find a book while a few freshmen huddled over a computer screen to her left, muttering and whispering to another. Distracted, Veronica turned to them and asked "What, you guys finally found a way to unlock the porn?"
One looked up at her, eyes wide with horror and disgust "It's the Lilly Kane video."
Veronica immediately set down what she was doing and rushed to the screen. Her own eyes widened; she was appalled that someone in the sheriff's office had leaked the crime scene video. It felt like her heart stopped beating all over again, seeing her best friend lying motionless on the cold concrete poolside, the blood dark and glinting in the bright police lights where it had gushed from the crack in her skull. It was an image that Veronica would never be able to erase from her mind, and she could imagine nothing worse than having seen it in person already; but seeing it again on the screen brought back all those horrible feelings - the despair, the fear, that mind-numbing sense of hopelessness and the inability to understand. She drew in a ragged breath before she snatched up the things she left near the other computer and hastened away, still shuddering as she nearly ran headlong into Logan Echolls.
They hadn't spoken directly to one another in practically weeks, but now he blocked her path out of the library. He folded his arms in front of him and looked down at her, his brown eyes glistening with tears. "How do you think the family feels?" he asked, his words coming out stilted, choked back with emotion. She couldn't respond; her own throat throbbed as she tried to keep herself from crying.
"So does your, uh -" Logan continued, stumbling for the right terminology. What was the word he needed? Not sheriff - the title probably didn't apply to someone who was about to be voted out of office in a special election. "Does your dad still think that Lilly's father did this?"
She couldn't think of anything to say. She wasn't sure what her father thought anymore - after her mom left, it seemed to her that he'd put all of this behind him, focusing instead on building up a private-eye business for when the inevitable axe came down on him at work, and making sure his daughter was okay. Veronica opened her mouth dumbly, trying to force something out, anything, but her lips merely fluttered ineffectively as her voice remained obstinately lodged in her throat.
"That's my girlfriend. Your friend. Duncan's sister." Logan's voice cracked. "Your dad is destroying the Kane family."
Veronica bit her lip. Her father hadn't done anything but his job, and thoroughly. The Kane family was already destroyed.
"What's the matter with you people, huh? What's the matter with you?"
Her jaw fell slack as she struggled with the way her heart was trembling. On the one hand, her father was just doing the best he could to make things right again in Neptune. On the other, here was Logan Echolls, Neptune High's resident psychopath - his big brown eyes glistening with tears, his bottom lip quivering. Never had Veronica seen him so vulnerable before.
She was the only person he'd ever let see him with his guard down like that.
*****
Trouble followed Veronica all through the school year. It followed her through the hallways, where she could hear the half-muttered insults and rumors being whispered behind her back. It followed her from class to class, where spitballs would fly when the teacher was turned to face the chalkboard. It followed her into detention, where she ended up after school with increasing frequency. After all, she couldn't help being late once in a while; too bad oversleeping because she'd been out past curfew photographing cheaters and tracking lowlifes just wasn't an acceptable excuse.
But even though she practically dared it to, she hadn't really expected trouble to follow her to Shelly Pomroy's party that summer.
She just wanted to see and be seen. She wanted to prove to them all that their opinions didn't matter to her. She wanted to show them that she was invincible, that she couldn't be hurt by what they said and did.
But she was more vulnerable than she thought; there was a hitch in her armor she hadn't anticipated.
That hitch was Logan Echolls.
They hadn't spoken directly to one another since that time at the library, but Veronica had kept a close eye on him throughout the rest of the school year. She wanted to think it was out of concern for an old friend, but there had always been something more between the two of them - something a little different than friendship, something that had been stifled because she was with Duncan and he was with Lilly. And now, having lost Lilly so dramatically and losing Duncan more and more each day, Veronica felt that she and Logan had somehow more in common than they'd ever had before. If they'd have found a way to stay close, perhaps, something would have come of it, but as it was they were perennially watching each other from the corners of their eyes, as though constant surveillance would be enough to protect them both from whatever else the vicissitudes of the universe felt compelled to throw at them.
He'd remained firmly unattached since Lilly's death. It was an understandable circumstance, especially considering how ass-over-elbows he'd been about Lilly, in spite of her many monogamous shortcomings, but that didn't stop many eligible and ineligible 09er debutantes and aspiring starlets from trying to gain his attentions. When Veronica arrived at the party, she quickly realized what a mistake she'd made, and in the course of throwing hateful glances at all the other attendees, she caught a glimpse of Logan surrounded by ladies fawning over him.
The sight made Veronica's stomach flip over with a feeling eerily similar to jealousy.
Logan, however, didn't want or need to be hounded by girl trouble, and had Veronica kept watching, she would have seen him kindly excuse himself from the gaggle of girls that had gathered around him in order to find Duncan. Logan was trying his damnedest to preserve Lilly's memory by remaining close to the Kane family, but with Duncan's attitude, Logan had found this to be an increasingly difficult task throughout the school year. Still, it was a party, and one of the activities undertaken at parties was celebrating, and Logan would be damned if he couldn't get Duncan to participate somehow.
Fortunately he'd just come back from a trip to Tijuana where he'd scored a recreational drug that would dissolve whatever stick it was that Duncan had up his ass, guaranteed.
"What's this?" Duncan asked suspiciously as Logan came up to him, offering a plastic cup.
"Just a soda," Logan said nonchalantly, glancing into the cup. "Coke, or root beer, or 7-Up with an identity crisis."
Duncan raised one wary eyebrow. "No booze?"
Logan handed the beverage to Duncan, still making with his devil-may-care approach. "Booze can be arranged, if you want. But there's something a little better in there."
"For Christ's sake, Logan," Duncan muttered, putting the cup down on a nearby table and crossing his arms impatiently.
"Oh, come on, Duncan, it's nothing that serious," Logan replied. "It's just a little GHB. It'll help you unwind a little."
"I don't need to unwind."
"You're wound as tight as a slinky, only you're not half as fun."
Dick Casablancas' face twisted in thoughtfulness. It looked like a particularly painful expression for him; perhaps he was out of practice. "I think the only way we could tell for sure," he remarked, "would be to push him down the stairs." He chortled at his own joke while Duncan rolled his eyes and looked back at Logan.
"My apologies. Didn't know I was bringing you down."
"My apologies?" Logan repeated. "God, Duncan, when did you turn into your mom? No, you aren't even your mom, because at least your mom has a sense of humor. Or at least that's what she said to me last night."
"Just fuck off, Logan. You're being a dick."
Logan picked the drink back up and pushed it into Duncan's hand, insistent. "And you're being a pussy."
"Better than both of you being dicks," the elder Casablancas chimed in, grinning like the idiot he was. "Or one of you being a dick and the other one being an asshole.That'd be, like, totally gay."
"Yeah, and you would know," his brother added.
"So are you going to man up or not?" Logan asked Duncan one more time. Duncan glared back, but took the cup and slugged it all at once. "Atta boy!" Logan declared, letting himself grin.
As the Logan continued to rag on Duncan, and Dick Casablancas attempted to pass along a roofied beverage to his girlfriend, a dismayed Veronica pushed her way through the crowd. Her heart was aching and she didn't know why. Her mouth had gone dry, and when someone pressed a plastic cup into her hand she didn't think twice, bringing it to her lips and gulping heartily. It was just a little Coke, she thought, fortified with a healthy portion of Captain Morgan.
But as she wandered through the Pomroy home, she began to feel sick, uneasy. It was too warm, too humid, too crowded, too much. She meandered back to the outside patio and lay down on a chaise lounge by the pool, closing her eyes and wanting nothing more than to drift off to sleep. The last thing she'd remember in the morning would be the sounds of raucous laughter, growing more and more distant, overcome by the cool relief of a summer breeze.
She was a sitting duck.
It was cruel, they way they treated her. Guys teased her and touched her and she could barely lift her hand to try to push them away, while girls made snide remarks and called her "slut" and "bitch" and "whore." They brought cup after cup up to her lips, and tilted drinks into her mouth until she was forced to swallow.
It was Logan who finally stepped in. He couldn't name what it was that compelled him to shove everyone aside, bending over and lifting her effortlessly. He cradled her as gently as possible as he tried to weave his way back through the gathered crowd, pushing his way into an unoccupied corridor.
He could feel their incredulous stares burning into him, their nasty insults half-whispered among themselves, and he couldn't help flushing a little with anger. But he bit his lip to keep from exploding at them in a fit of rage; there were more important things to worry about.
He kicked a door open in the back and was relieved to find it opened to an unoccupied bedroom. With a sigh he lowered Veronica onto the plush comforter, and she looked up at him vacantly and smiled. "Duncan," she whispered gratefully.
"No, not Duncan," Logan mumbled back. "It's Logan. I'm Logan."
"Logan," Veronica repeated. "Thank you."
Logan sat down on the edge of the bed, blushing fiercely with... what, embarrassment? Shame? Awkwardness? "I'm worried about you, kid," he told her, his sudden honesty startling him. He brushed a wisp of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear in a gesture of intimacy that he hadn't practiced in a long, long time.
"Logan," Veronica said, her voice girlish and sleepy. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure thing. Shoot."
"You miss Lilly, right?"
"Me too." Veronica breathed deeply and yawned, stretching like a cat and rolling onto her side to face him. "I miss you too, Logan," she said, closing her eyes and drifting back into a deep sleep.
His heart nearly stopped at this confession. She was drunk, she was wasted, he said to himself - there's no way tough-as-nails Veronica could feel that way about him.
Shouting and the crash of glass in another room snapped Logan out of his reverie. Cassidy Casablancas showed up at the doorway, leaning in with a wide-eyed expression. "Duncan's causing some trouble. Everyone's trying to corral him to take him home. Shelley says she's going to call the sheriff if he breaks one more thing."
Logan inwardly cursed himself for making Duncan take the GHB. He had just wanted his friend to have a good time - not to serve time. "All right, I'll take him home. Keep an eye on her, will you, Beaver?" he asked the younger Casablancas brother, gesturing to Veronica sleeping peacefully on the bed. "Don't let anyone in, okay?"
"Yeah, no problem," Cassidy replied, putting his hands in his pockets and slumping up against the doorway.
"That means your brother, too - I don't care what he tells you, he's up to no good."
"Right."
"You have my cell number if you need to get a hold of me."
"All right, already," Cassidy huffed, rolling his eyes. "God, I'm not a child."
Logan half-smiled in chastened chagrin. "Sorry, Beav, I keep forgetting," he said, reaching out and fraternally mussing up Cassidy's hair, turning around and walking away too quickly to hear the "fuck you" mumbled in his direction.
He thought he'd left her somewhere she'd be safe.
He had been horribly wrong.
*****
She didn't want to wake up that morning. She was clinging to a wonderful dream she'd been having. She'd seen in her sleep a white knight coming to her rescue, lifting her effortlessly and carrying her away from her hellish nightmares, laying her down in a downy bed and staying by her side all night long. But the sun was already streaming in slanted through the half-closed windows, and there was a sour taste in her mouth that made her smack her lips until her eyelids fluttered open.
Well, the bed part had been right.
She shifted onto her back and lifted herself onto her elbows, struggling to recognize her surroundings and piece together how she'd gotten there. She realized she was in one of the guest rooms in Shelly Pomroy's house, having spent the night there a few times freshmen and sophomore year, back when she was considered one of the golden ones.
Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw her panties bunched up on the floor. A lump caught in her throat, and her vision clouded with tears that stung her eyes. She wasn't that stupid. She could figure out what had happened.
Numbly she climbed out of bed and gathered what belongings she could find - her underwear, her bag, her shoes, one broken. Carefully she picked her way through the empty cups, bottles, and cigarette butts that had accumulated in the halls and the foyer. She considered how lucky she was to escape the house without having to face someone else. She felt as though her violation was burned into her face.
She walked to her car, but it had been vandalized. She would have to come back for it later, armed with wipes to clean it with; she couldn't drive it around with the word "slut" written broadly across the windshield.
She couldn't go to the hospital. She barely even considered it an option. For one thing, she was a minor, and she was pretty certain her father would be called to come and get her, and he'd know. He'd know. The last thing she wanted was for her father, already disgraced, to be further put to shame. Especially since she knew he'd take it upon himself to murder everyone else at the party.
She couldn't go home. She'd lied and told him that Shelly invited her to stay over, so she would have been scot-free coming home at any hour. "I couldn't sleep," she would have told him, and he'd have given her a little grief about being out past curfew and that would have been the end of it. But she'd been gone all night, and the first thing her father would ask upon her return would be "Did you have a good time last night?" The better option would be to wait until her father departed for whatever work he had that day, be it in the office or on the road, and she could take a scalding hot shower to kill whatever residue remained from the evening.
Without a second thought, then, she headed towards the one place that felt like a second home to her. Sure enough, the crestfallen look on the receptionist's face when she recognized a pitiable-looking Veronica was one of sympathy.
"Veronica, what happened?" Inga had asked, aghast and concerned.
Even then, feeling as weak as she ever had, Veronica answered with courage. "I need to report a crime," she'd said, and she was ushered into Sheriff Lamb's office. While he only further degraded her, somehow she'd been galvanized, and she left the building with her lip still quivering but her head held high.
She walked all the way home, not noticing the yellow Xterra that was following her discreetly.
*****
After bringing Duncan home that night, the Kanes insisted he stay over just to get some sleep. They were grateful to him for bringing Duncan home, as agitated as he was, and they reminded Logan that it was past curfew. Even in their plush guest room bed, however, Logan found that sleep eluded him - whenever he closed his eyes, he saw an image of her, vulnerable and in danger, and here he was, unable to save her.
No, it wasn't Lilly - if only it had been Lilly, invading his dreams like that. He could only wish that it had been Lilly's face he saw etched in his mind, because at least that would make sense. He'd been playing the part of grieving boyfriend for so long that this twinge of interest in someone else didn't sit right with him, especially considering that this someone else was Veronica Mars.
He couldn't justify it to himself. Sure, he'd been attracted to Veronica; she was pretty hot, and he was a teenage boy. He felt that even Lilly would approve of it, after all her teasing about the possibility of the three of them together. But even though Lilly was gone, it still felt like cheating.
But after a night of tossing and turning in the Kane house, Logan decided that feeling like a cheater probably didn't feel as bad as it felt to do nothing, and so with the first light of day he padded softly downstairs, left a note of thanks in the kitchen, and sped back to the Pomroy house as quickly as possible.
"I just want to make sure she's safe, and that's it," he said aloud to himself as he took all the corners too fast, tires squealing against the pavement. "I owe it to Lilly as her friend. I owe it to her as her friend..."
Her car was still parked nearby, the word "slut" scrawled across the windshield in broad letters. But when he went inside the house, she was gone, and he cursed himself for leaving her alone.
He got back into his car, ready to report a missing person to the sheriff if he had to. After all, he was the son of Aaron Echolls, and he'd be damned if he couldn't use that to his advantage if he needed to. But when he got to the sheriff's office, Veronica was already staggering back outside, disheveled but otherwise fine, it seemed.
Still, Logan knew the knots in his stomach wouldn't go away until he saw her safely home.
*****
Later that night she'd been standing in the bathroom in her pajamas, scissors in hand, tugging the length of her hair in front of her shoulders and trying to determine just how short she wanted it to be, when she was interrupted by knocking at the door and Backup's requisite barking. She set the scissors on the edge of the sink and chided the dog softly. "Aw, calm down, can't you see we have company?" she said to him, pushing him away from the door with her leg as she pulled it open.
It was Logan Echolls. To say she was surprised would be an understatement; to say she was suspicious would be completely accurate. "What do you want?" she asked.
His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he could barely bring his eyes up long enough to meet hers as he rocked nervously back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Is your dad home?" he asked, almost shyly. "I mean, I just wanted to see you for a second."
"He's not, actually," she hesitated. "But you can come in."
"Thanks," he said, and as she opened the door for him, he stepped in and patted Backup a few times. The dog sniffed his hand for a moment and then lost interest entirely, wagging his tail and returning to his food bowl. "I just wanted to check up on you," Logan tried to explain. "The party last night got out of hand, and I wanted to make sure you were all right."
Veronica tilted her head a little, unsure of what to make of Logan at this moment. She hadn't seen him this raw and vulnerable since Lilly's crime scene video was leaked. But she was unable to take him at face value; she was too well trained to find ulterior motives, and Logan reeked of something guilty. She could have said "thanks for stopping by, I'm fine" but instead she folded her arms and asked "What do you know?"
"Is your dad going to be back tonight?" Logan asked back, leaning against the kitchen island, struggling not to be completely awkward. "It's a hell of a story, Mars."
"He's trying to catch a bail-jumper," she told him, eyes narrowed. If he was dangerous, she'd have Backup rip his throat out. For now, she felt like she could trust him. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"As long as it's alcohol-free," Logan sighed, rubbing his temple.
She turned and grabbed two cold cans of soda from the fridge, tossing one to him. "Happy to oblige," Veronica smiled at him. She leaned against the kitchen island, smirking lopsidedly at him like she used to when they were friends.
There was something about her looking at him that way; he wanted to hold onto her like that forever, the way things used to be between them - friendly and comfortable and free from rancor. He didn't want to damage her, he didn't want her to lose that cheeky smile. "You don't really want to know what happened last night, do you?" Logan asked, and he cracked open his soda to cover the wavering in his voice.
The smirk vanished from her face. "I need to know," she replied, almost whispering.
"Do you need to know right now?" he asked, closing his eyes. "They say ignorance is bliss, you know." He set his soda on the countertop and put his hand on hers. She looked up and met his glistening eyes, and suddenly her steely shell was shattered.
"I don't... Logan..." she whispered, her voice trembling with hesitation and uncertainty.
"You probably don't remember," he said, feeling the flush rise in his cheeks, "but you said that you missed me. And, as much as I try to deny it sometimes, I miss you too. I'm afraid that if... if I tell you what happened last night, then we'll never have a chance again. I just want the chance, Veronica. Just to be your friend again, that's all."
Veronica sighed deeply and turned away.
"Please, Veronica, please!" Logan pleaded with her. "I promise I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything I know, just... just let's be friends again first, okay?"
She swallowed hard. She swallowed back the lump in her throat, she swallowed her tears, she swallowed her pride. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Logan, let's be friends." She cocked her head to the side and forced a smile to her face once again. "So, what exactly do we need to do before we're friends again?"
"Well," Logan asked, "what were you doing just now before I showed up? Getting ready for bed, Mars? It's not even ten."
"Actually," she said, "I was about to cut my hair when you knocked."
"Oh really?" Logan's lips turned in an expression of exaggerated interest. "And just what are we going for? Just a trim, or something more drastic?"
"Something drastic," she said, setting her soda down and heading to the bathroom.
"You know, I've been getting my hair cut for years now, so that makes me a veritable expert on haircutting. You ought to let me help."
"Are you kidding me? Lilly said you failed cutting in kindergarten. I'm not letting you anywhere near my head with something sharp."
He followed her into the bathroom, making himself comfortable sitting on the edge of the tub as Veronica resumed her position in front of the mirror, flipping her hair back and forth and still trying to decide on the length. "Less looking, more cutting," Logan insisted. "What are you waiting for?"
"I don't know how short I want to go."
"Fine," Logan said, and before Veronica could protest he'd taken the scissors from her hand. His left hand ran across her scalp, taking a few wisps at a time to be cut. He worked quickly but painlessly; Veronica thought there was something oddly comforting in his gentle touch.
"Where did you learn to cut hair like this?" she asked, watching him carefully in the mirror and surprised by his skill.
"My parents are movie stars," he told her. "I spent half of my childhood in hair and makeup trailers."
"You're going to do my makeup too? Are we going for a total makeover?"
Logan smiled sweetly at the mirror, their gazes meeting in the reflection. "You don't need a makeover, Mars," he told her. He set the scissors down on the sink and ran both his hands through her hair, anything cut loose falling to the floor. "So what do you think? It's a lot shorter than before."
"But it's cute," Veronica said. "And it doesn't smell so much like cigarette smoke and vomit anymore."
Logan was confused. "Your hair didn't smell," he said. He took a step back and Veronica went past him, walking into her room, suddenly solemn again.
"Yeah, well..." Veronica sighed, "it did in my imagination, anyway." She let her head hang down, her new bangs falling in front of her face and hiding the sadness in her eyes. "You can go now," she told him.
Logan was hesitant. "I don't want to leave you like this," he said.
"You don't have to stay."
"But I want to," Logan told her, and he followed her to her room and wrapped his arms around her. "I want to make sure you're all right, always." He squeezed her gently when she set her head on his shoulder, trying to stifle her tears once again. He walked her over to her bed, and they both sank into the mattress still embracing.
"Logan, if you think..."
"We don't have to do anything, Veronica," he told her, soothing and low. He kicked the shoes from his feet, and when she lifted her head he swept the bangs away from her face. "We'll just go to sleep," he told her, and he stood and hurried out of his jeans before bolting under the covers.
"What, are you afraid I might make fun of your Scooby-Doo boxers?" she teased him, a smile slowly returning.
"Don't knock Scooby, Mars," Logan warned. "You should know that I normally sleep in the nude, so Scooby's going to make sure no shenanigans go on."
"Ruh roh," Veronica said. "So he's your cockblock, then?"
"Unless cartoon characters are a specific turn-on for you..."
She punched him gently in the arm. He responded by reaching up and grabbing her, pulling her down with him into bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her as her breathing found a steady rhythm. Slowly he lifted his arm to reach the switch of the lamp on the nearby nightstand.
"Leave the light on for me," Veronica mumbled sleepily, turning over so that her face was pressed into Logan's bare chest. He let his arm drape across her, squeezing her tightly and then releasing her with a sigh.
They drifted off to sleep together, lying just like that. Logan's hand rested across her waist, and as he dreamed his fingertips ran softly against the surface of her stomach.
*****
It was only a dream, he'd tell himself later, but he'd be lying if he didn't hope it was prophetic.
She'd been a major player in many of his nighttime fantasies before, but those were merely of the visual variety. Now, sleeping beside her, with his fingertips creating memories of the softness of her skin, the lightness of her hair, he saw her again in his sleep, and this time far more viscerally than before.
He dreamt of her naked, smiling at him, beckoning. He dreamt of pressing his lips against hers so hard that they bruise a little; he dreamt of their breaths mingling as he pulled back and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. He dreamt of caressing her cheek, cupping her face in his palm, gazing into her icy blue eyes and watching the harshness in them melt away with desire. He dreamt of running his hand through her hair - not long like it used to be, but short just as he cut it, feeling it fall away from in between his fingers.
He dreamt of tracing her jawline with kisses until taking her earlobe between his teeth, nibbling gently. He flicked his tongue against the flesh, a promise of what was to come. He let his kisses trail down her neck and against her clavicle, and she let her hands linger on the back of his neck, their warmth strangely soothing to him. He reached for her nipples and pinched them each between his thumb and his forefinger as he continued to work his way between her breasts, going past her navel, and hovering at the cleft of her lower lips. Looking back over her torso, his eyes met hers for a moment, and he let his tongue slide gently between her flesh; she threw her head back and sighed with pleasure. Encouraged, he continued - licking, sucking, lapping and twirling the gradually swelling flesh with his tongue. She moaned and bucked and grabbed his hair in her hands, yanking his head away as though she couldn't take it anymore, but he pressed on anyway, reveling in the way she twisted and turned with pleasure. He liked making her feel good. He liked make her feel wanted, desired, loved.
With her he was gentle, with her he was considerate and sweet. After she'd thrust her head back and shouted his name, he took her by the backs of her thighs and propped himself up on his knees. She hooked her feet over his shoulders, and he eased into her slowly, carefully, as though she could be broken if he took it too fast. Eyes hazy with satisfaction, she gazed back up at him, practically purring. He could feel his cheeks glow red with sudden embarrassment, as though he'd been caught by her in the act. Dreams were funny that way.
Dreams, though, could be better than real life in some ways. In his dream, for example, Logan lasted forever. He wanted to do everything to and with Veronica that he possibly could, finding out which positions would work best, which felt best, and which she enjoyed most. Legs pressed against his chest was a good way to start, because he could go deeply into her and they both knew it, but she grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him down, shifting to take her place on top of him and managing to hold him inside while she did so. He wasn't surprised that Veronica, even in his dreams, was a little bit of a control freak.
*****
"Logan! Logan, you have to get out of here!"
And just like that, Logan was woken out of his dream by a voice that was sharp and severe, even if the volume was low. He turned his head instinctively into the pillow, pressing his eyelids shut. "Five more minutes," he muttered, his words muffled.
"You don't have five minutes, my father's already here!"
And just like that, Logan shot to attention. Unfortunately, his mind wasn't the only thing suddenly turned on. He had just been enjoying some racy REM, after all. As he sat up in bed, Veronica's comforter fell away from him, and he sat, unthinking, with his legs spread apart. His penis stood at attention through the fly of his boxers, the tip lit up pink like a torch. Logan was too groggy and used to morning wood to even register it until he saw Veronica's jaw drop, her eyes widening as a pink flush filled her cheeks. Quickly he jumped up and grabbed his jeans off the floor, turning to face the wall in embarrassment as he redressed himself. But Veronica stood so silently for so long that Logan half-thought that she must have swallowed her tongue in surprise.
"Holy shit," he muttered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking!"
When he turned around, Veronica's eyes fluttered and she said with astonishment, "Lilly really wasn't lying when she told me it was that big," adding the requisite hand gesture.
"Jesus Christ, Veronica!" Logan hissed quietly. "Your dad is here! How am I supposed to get out without him noticing? He would have opened fire on Duncan fuckin' Kane for holding your hand, and I just spent the night here!"
"Oh," Veronica mumbled, a little guilty. "Actually he called earlier and said he was going straight to the office. I'm surprised you didn't wake up when the phone rang."
"I'm a heavy sleeper, okay?"
"You might be, but Little Logan certainly isn't."
"Oh my God, Veronica, stop saying things like that!"
"My dad's not home, Logan, so calm down!" Veronica snapped back. "But it's nearly noon and I wanted to know if maybe you wanted to grab lunch somewhere."
Logan bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her. This was the sort of thing Lilly would have done, getting him all riled up like this, and he smiled at the realization. Veronica wasn't Lilly, but she sure reminded him of her sometimes. "Yeah, lunch," he said absently. "Lunch sounds good."
They went to the nearest diner to grab some grub, but even in that greasy spoon on the wrong side of Neptune, someone was bound to recognize Aaron Echoll's son out to eat with the sacked sheriff's daughter. Neither of them cared as other diners whispered to one another, speculating on their relationship. It was well-known that, a long time ago, they used to be friends. Maybe they weren't friends anymore, but they were building something better instead.
*****
One lunch turned into another; two lunches turned into a movie. Two lunches and a movie then led to a trip to the dog beach together, followed by a weekend on his couch watching a film noir movie marathon. In the middle of Out of the Past, Logan finally found the courage to lean over and kiss her gently. When she didn't turn away or freak out, he slid his hand down her shoulder and squeezed her more closely too them.
She looked up at him and smiled flirtatiously.
Neither of them watched the rest of the movie.
He held her hand in public, and when Duncan sneered at them from across Java the Hut, Logan made it known that anyone who had a problem with him seeing Veronica was welcome to a free helping of knuckle sandwich. He may have become persona non gratis there, but it kept the nasty rumors about the two of them to a slow simmer rather than a rolling boil.
By the time the school year started, people knew to look the other way when Logan and Veronica came into the hallway hand in hand, greeting one another with kisses when one would wait for the other outside a classroom.
Logan was no longer welcome at the 09er lunch tables, much less their parties, but he couldn't care any less. He spent much of his lunch period staring in their direction wondering why he ever hung out with them in the first place. Veronica didn't mind his silence so much; they weren't a couple built up on conversation anyway. She knew that after the last bell rang and school was dismissed for the day, she'd be the center of attention in the back of Logan's Xterra - at least until she needed to get to her dad's office for the day.
*****
It was another beautiful day in southern California - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the cool breeze carried with it the stimulating scent of saltwater. Students buzzed through the Neptune High courtyard at lunchtime, and Wallace Fennel weaved through them to find the table where Veronica and Logan had staked their claim. Once again he tossed his brown-bagged lunch to the tabletop and sat down, much more at ease than he'd been yesterday. As he rummaged for his sandwich and soda, Veronica and Logan approached warily, like two territorial tigers surprised to find some new animal in their enclosure. Veronica, bearing another mystery-meat-meal, sat across from Wallace, wearing that familiar scowl on her face. Logan sank into the bench while only barely registering Wallace's existence; his attention wandered across the courtyard, alert and protective.
Seeing he wouldn't have much luck engaging Logan in conversation, Wallace smiled at Veronica, his almost-friend. "Girl, you should hear what people are saying about the two of you."
"Then what are you doing sitting here?" she replied, somehow making it seem more like an accusation than a question.
"You sat next to me!" Wallace shot back, unable to hide a wide smile on his face. In fact, the more he'd heard about these two from his gossipy classmates, the more he knew where he'd fit in at this school.
"This is our table." Logan turned to Wallace and possessively spread his palms across the table's scratched fiberglass surface.
"And what a fine table it is. What do you suppose this is made of?" He tapped the gleaming red top emphatically with his knuckles. "Oak?"
Veronica cut in, her voice softening with her expression. "Look, if people are saying such awful things..."
"I figure I've got a choice," Wallace interrupted. "I can either go hang with the punks that laughed at me, took pictures of me while I was taped to that flagpole - or I can hang out with the ones who cut me down."
The corner of her mouth turned upwards in a sly smirk, and she sent a shifty glance from Logan to Wallace. Logan stared at Wallace, completely stonefaced for a moment, before nodding back at Veronica. It was as though the two of them shared a secret body language, but one that Wallace was privileged enough to understand.
Veronica crossed her arms and leaned forward intently. "So you want to get the PCH bike club off your ass?"
Characters: Veronica/Logan, Wallace, Duncan, the Casablancas brothers
Rating: Hard R for sex and partial nudity, mentions of rape and murder
Word Count: ~10k
Disclaimer: I don't own any aspect of Veronica Mars or its characters
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers only for first season and preseason. Contains sex and mentions of rape and murder.
Summary: This AU addresses how Veronica and Logan might have stuck together and supported one another after Lilly's death.
A/N: I'm going to attempt a sequel to this, so any feedback that anyone has is greatly appreciated. Beta beta beta beta rockin' everywhere is dragynflies, so send mad props in her direction.
*****
It was another beautiful morning in southern California - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the cool breeze carPCHried with it the stimulating scent of saltwater.
A perfect day to be duct-taped to the flagpole, thought Wallace Fennel - who was currently duct-taped to the flagpole.
It wasn't so bad. The cold metal of the pole had gradually warmed with the heat of his body, and though the adhesive was irritating every hair on his body that it came into contact with, he was grateful for the small mercies the PCH gang had shown him. He was still wearing his underwear, after all. Besides that, when the gray light of morning made the writing on his chest more readable, Wallace grinned when he realized that they had spelled "snitch" without the "t."
But not long after the sun rose, cars began pulling into the parking lot. The first few belonged to faculty members and maintenance staff. Wallace noted with dismay that they parked closer to the teachers' lounge instead of the school's main entrance, and while he could have sworn that one or two noticed him, they all disappeared inside, not to be seen again.
The embarrassment really started when other students arrived. Never had Wallace regretted the advancement of technology so vehemently as when the few that had gathered around took pictures from their cell phones to send to their friends. Within minutes, Wallace figured, the entire school probably had set his half-naked image as their phone wallpaper. Stoically he bit his tongue and stared into the distance, trying not to let their comments and remarks rankle him.
"Who put him there?" members of the growing crowd asked one another. Apparently no one even thought to address the question to him, the object of their ridicule.
"Bikers did it," someone else concluded, and the word spread like wildfire among them. Still, Wallace made no effort to confirm or deny it; he was pissed that no one cared to help him out, much less ask what happened.
As though able to read his mind, another voice came over the crowd. "Why doesn't somebody cut him down?" it asked.
"Yeah, I'll do it," someone else replied, with false enthusiasm. "I wanna be the guy up there tomorrow!"
One guy jumped right onto the raised flower bed that surrounded the flagpole, getting his camera right in Wallace's face. "All right, say cheese! Smile!"
"Move," someone commanded. Wallace looked down to see a short blonde chick weave her way through the crowd. A path seemed to open up for her, even where the throngs were thickest; some stepped aside as though she smelled bad, with their noses turned up, while others moved away more timidly, like they were scared of her or something.
When she stepped onto the raised flower bed, the asshole with the camera turned around and snarled at her. "Who died and made you the queen?"
She ignored the remark and pulled a switchblade from her pocket, its edge glinting in the dull morning light.
"You are a freak," the moron conceded, stepping out of the way with an exaggerated look of fear on his face.
Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she turned her attention to Wallace. "You're new here, huh?" the she asked him, pinching the tape between the fingers of her left hand and pulling it away from his skin, sawing at it with the knife in her other hand. "Welcome to Neptune High." With a sarcastic smile she turned to her schoolmates and added "Go Pirates!"
The first bell rang, and with nothing left to hold their interest, students started filtering into the school, dragging their feet and muttering to one another in disappointment. "Bitch always ruins the fun," someone hissed nearby.
"Would have liked to see the bikers show up again," another person grumbled.
While the girl continued cutting into Wallace's sticky holds, another student lingered nearby, awkwardly holding onto two book-bags. "Come on, Veronica, we're going to be late."
"If I hurry, then somebody's gonna get a hurt," she said as she peeled away more duct tape, trying to saw through it carefully enough so as not to pierce Wallace's underwear.
"Glad to see you're a boxer man, at least," the lat man standing said to Wallace.
Veronica deftly sliced through the last bit of tape, and with a flourish she returned the knife to her pocket. "Later, gator," she said over her shoulder as she leapt off the flagpole stand and snatched her book-bag from the other guy. As Wallace peeled away the remaining remnants of tape, he watched the two of them disappear into the school's main entrance, too late to make the second bell but too cool to even care.
*****
The two of them, Veronica and whoever the guy was, sat sullenly next to each other at lunch. She had a cafeteria tray in front of her, and she absently stabbed a slab of mystery meat again and again as gravy seeped into its wounds, while he sat facing the other way, reclining with his elbows against the table, scanning the courtyard as though suspicious of everyone.
Wallace had found his clothes rummaging through the lost-and-found bin in the office; their cleanliness at this point was questionable, but he was relieved to have something to wear at all considering the way his day had started. When he spotted the only two kids in the whole school to have helped him out that morning, he dropped his brown bag onto their table and sat down.
"You okay?" he asked Veronica.
Her reverie suddenly interrupted, she snapped her head upwards from her lunch tray and stared at Wallace with a fierceness that affirmed the eponym freak. "What?" she asked sharply.
Wallace wasn't scared; this girl seemed tough on the outside, but inside he could see her for the marshmallow that she was. "You look... I don't know, hypnotized."
"Did I say you could sit here?" the guy asked, swiveling around to face Wallace and folding his hands in front of him like some kind of mafioso.
The last thing Wallace needed was more trouble. Too bad - he was this close to possibly having a friend at this godforsaken school. Disheartened, he grabbed his lunch and threw one leg over the bench to leave.
"Wait a minute," Veronica said, putting her palm gently over the guy's folded hands. He looked up at her for a moment, and she rolled his eyes at him and turned back towards Wallace. "Of course you can sit here. Sit wherever you want."
Wallace cracked the smallest of smiles as he once again made himself comfortable at the table. "That - that was cool," he said to her. "What you did. Cutting me off of that poll."
"Well..." she began, reluctantly blushing a little and looking down towards her food.
"I'm Wallace, by the way. Wallace Fennel."
"Veronica Mars," she said. She flipped her hand over and gestured to the strong, silent type sitting beside her. "And this here is Logan Echolls, Neptune High's obligatory psychotic jackass."
"Retired," Logan objected. "Mostly."
Just then the bright California sunshine was blocked by an approaching group of leather-clad thugs. Their leader stepped onto the bench and leaned right into Wallace's face, almost close for Wallace to actually feel the bristles of his goatee scratching against his chin.
"My bitch! Weren't you supposed to wait for me at that flagpole? Not sure I could have made that any clearer."
Wallace took a deep breath as he considered how to respond. Play it cool, he told himself - play it cool. "Okay, I get it. Very funny. I guess we're even now, right?"
"You get what, boy? That you're a dead man walking, is that what you get?"
"Leave him alone, Weevil," Veronica interjected. Logan's eyebrows jumped in surprise, but he kept his mouth shut as he leaned back with interest to watch the scene develop.
Weevil turned on his heel to face Veronica, wearing a crooked smile. "Sister, the only time I care what a woman has to say is when she's riding my big old hog. Even then it's not so much words - it's just a bunch of ooohs and aaahs, you know?"
"So it's big, huh?" Veronica asked, goading.
"Legendary," Weevil replied, grinning like an ape.
"Well, let's see it," Veronica suggested. "I mean, if it's as big as you say, I'll be your girlfriend. We could go to the prom together!"
As Weevil and his cohorts mumbled among themselves in response, Logan finally decided to cut in. "Veronica," Logan said, a tone of warning in his voice. But it was too late; she was already on a roll.
"What?" Veronica asked, badgering Weevil even more. "What seems to be the problem? I'm on a schedule here, vato."
"Hey, Weevil, don't let blondie here talk to you like that," one of the bikers told him.
"Sounds like your buddy here wants to see it, too," Veronica shot back, unable to hide her amusement with herself.
"Aw, hell, I'll show you mine!" As he started to undo the front of his pants, a suited man came up behind him, gently putting a hand on the young man's shoulder. It was Principal Clemmons, just in time to prevent a schoolyard flashing.
"Toombs!" he exclaimed, startling the bikers into silence. "Felix Toombs, what on God's green earth seems to be going on here?" As Felix hurriedly fastened his pants again, Clemmons ushered them away; as they dispersed, he looked at two of the table's occupants and shook his head and sighed. "Veronica, Logan - why does trouble just seem to follow you two around?"
Both smiled back at him, batting their lashes and shrugging innocently, and Clemmons decided it was in his better interest to keep the bikers out of trouble until classes resumed again. As soon as he was out of earshot, Veronica turned her attention back to Wallace.
"So what did you do?" she asked.
"What?" Wallace said, still trying to recover from the intimidating incident that had just unfolded.
"Why are you a dead man walking?" Logan clarified.
"Oh, yeah, I work at the Sac-N-Pac..." Wallace began. While Logan appeared to be distracted, looking over towards the table of 09'ers, Veronica listened intently as he related what had happened to him at work the previous night.
"Congratulations, Sport," she said to Wallace. "In your short time here, you've managed to piss off the motorcycle gang and the local sheriff." She didn't say it to pass judgement; it came across more as a gentle admonishment.
"Now can I ask you a question?" Wallace said to her. "Why does trouble just seem to follow you two around?"
"Excuse me?" Veronica asked, but her question was cut off by the sound of the bell, signaling the end of the lunch period.
*****
The trouble had, in fact, started following the two of them around because of Duncan Kane. A long time ago he'd been Veronica's boyfriend. But one day, with no warning, he ended things between him and her, and Veronica felt adrift in an ocean of teenage emotion. Hurt and confused, she wrote bad poetry in flourescent notebooks and complained constantly to Lilly Kane, who then passed along the complaints both to her boyfriend and her brother.
As his best friend, Logan could feel the chill coming off Duncan's cold shoulder. When they passed by Veronica's locker in between classes, Logan looked back at her dejected face, and it tugged his heartstrings a little. In the span of a few short days, Logan had realized he missed having Veronica around as a friend, and Duncan had turned into a sullen, silent asshole in the meantime. And the only way Logan knew to counter a cold shoulder was to turn the heat up.
"Dude, what happened between you two?" he asked Duncan once they rounded the corner. Duncan scowled and stared at his feet as he walked, so Logan tried to turn the question into a joke at Duncan's expense. "Did she finally try to ravage you, and it offended your puritanical sensibilities? "
"God, Logan, seriously," Duncan said lamely.
"Seriously what, Duncan?" Logan persisted. "You just dropped her like a sack of shit when you know she's better than that, man."
"I already have Lilly on my case, Logan, no need to dogpile." They lingered outside the doorway to their next class; Duncan parked himself against the threshold, leaning his head back, exasperated.
"Your mom finally got to you, huh?" Logan asked. "Made you break up with her?"
"So what if she did? She had a convincing argument."
Logan rolled his eyes. He nothing but disdain for figures of authority, especially parental figures, and despite her kindness and generosity towards him, Mrs. Kane was no exception to the rule. "Like what? Veronica's so smart and funny and pretty that it makes you look bad?"
"If she's so smart and funny and pretty, why don't you date her and leave me the fuck alone?"
"Jesus Christ," Logan muttered. "Touchy, touchy." He blushed a little and turned away. It wasn't something he hadn't considered before; he'd had an immature crush on Veronica since they were twelve. He could remember the first time he'd met her; she'd been totally working those knee socks and that soccer uniform. But he was with Lilly, and even though she didn't regard their relationship as all that monogamous, he wouldn't ever dream of cheating on her, especially not with her best friend. It was a moot point, anyway; he knew he didn't fit the "good guy" type that Duncan embodied and that Veronica seemed to go for. Perhaps it was true, what they'd learned in psychology earlier that day - girls always go for guys like their fathers.
Think of the devil and she will come; as they loitered outside of their classroom, Lilly came up to rib her two favorite guys. "What's the matter, boys? Did your Spanish teacher finally get that breast reduction? You look like you just lost your two best friends."
Duncan groaned and turned away, stalking to his seat and doing his best to ignore his friend and his sister kissing just outside.
After their gratuitous lip-lock, Lilly's smile faded away as she looked in on her grouch of a brother. "Seriously, what's the matter with him?" she asked, running her hand along the back of Logan's neck in a gesture of affection and ownership.
"I was giving him a hard time about dumping Veronica," Logan replied, not trying to hide the fact that his eyes were focused on what lay underneath Lilly's sweater.
"You don't have to do that."
Logan snapped into attention. "Sorry, then, I won't look at your boobs anymore. I promise to regard you as a human being based on your winning personality and not your physical attributes."
"Aw, you think I have a personality," Lilly laughed, but she quickly turned serious again. "I mean ragging on Duncan for this whole Veronica thing."
"She's my friend, too, you know." Logan said, gazing at his girlfriend with a pair of glistening puppy-dog eyes. "What did your mom say to him?"
In one of her brief moments of sincerity, Lilly brought her hand to Logan's face, cupping his jaw in the cool curve of her palm. "Just face it, Logan. It's... it's not going to work out between them." The corner of her lip came up ever-so-slighly in a sad sort of smirk. "Our little foursome's down to three."
Logan sighed and kissed the inside of Lilly's hand as the bell began to ring. He held her by her wrist and locked eyes with her once more as she started to back away. "Just a personal preference," he added, "if we're going to be a threesome, I'd rather it be with Veronica than with your brother."
"That's my boy," Lilly grinned, pinching Logan's cheek in an exaggerated gesture of affection. "
His cheek smarted all through fourth period, but Logan didn't mind; it was the small kind of pain that reminded him that someone somehow cared about him.
And he knew it was nothing compared to the pain that Veronica was feeling right then.
*****
But squabbles between ex-lovers and friends mean nothing when someone turns up dead. Duncan Kane had merely gotten the ball rolling; it was his sister's glamorous murder that had set trouble fast on Veronica's trail.
And things only got worse when Sheriff Mars turned the heat on the Kane family, trying desperately to make sense out of something so tragic and so close-to-home. Even when popular opinion swayed against him, Mars remained dogged and resourceful as he ran himself into the ground. One could even say he was taking his daughter down with him, but that wasn't really the case. She was going down willingly, taking his side and defending him against snide remarks and harsh criticism - whether at school from disappointed classmates and teachers, or at home from her own mother. She couldn't even get upset when her father anticipated losing his elected seat, when they downsized from a comfortable house to a cramped apartment where the water didn't always run warm. She couldn't even muster any sadness (only anger) at her mother's departure, because in a lot of ways, it made her life easier.
At the library, Veronica was trying to use the online card catalogue to find a book while a few freshmen huddled over a computer screen to her left, muttering and whispering to another. Distracted, Veronica turned to them and asked "What, you guys finally found a way to unlock the porn?"
One looked up at her, eyes wide with horror and disgust "It's the Lilly Kane video."
Veronica immediately set down what she was doing and rushed to the screen. Her own eyes widened; she was appalled that someone in the sheriff's office had leaked the crime scene video. It felt like her heart stopped beating all over again, seeing her best friend lying motionless on the cold concrete poolside, the blood dark and glinting in the bright police lights where it had gushed from the crack in her skull. It was an image that Veronica would never be able to erase from her mind, and she could imagine nothing worse than having seen it in person already; but seeing it again on the screen brought back all those horrible feelings - the despair, the fear, that mind-numbing sense of hopelessness and the inability to understand. She drew in a ragged breath before she snatched up the things she left near the other computer and hastened away, still shuddering as she nearly ran headlong into Logan Echolls.
They hadn't spoken directly to one another in practically weeks, but now he blocked her path out of the library. He folded his arms in front of him and looked down at her, his brown eyes glistening with tears. "How do you think the family feels?" he asked, his words coming out stilted, choked back with emotion. She couldn't respond; her own throat throbbed as she tried to keep herself from crying.
"So does your, uh -" Logan continued, stumbling for the right terminology. What was the word he needed? Not sheriff - the title probably didn't apply to someone who was about to be voted out of office in a special election. "Does your dad still think that Lilly's father did this?"
She couldn't think of anything to say. She wasn't sure what her father thought anymore - after her mom left, it seemed to her that he'd put all of this behind him, focusing instead on building up a private-eye business for when the inevitable axe came down on him at work, and making sure his daughter was okay. Veronica opened her mouth dumbly, trying to force something out, anything, but her lips merely fluttered ineffectively as her voice remained obstinately lodged in her throat.
"That's my girlfriend. Your friend. Duncan's sister." Logan's voice cracked. "Your dad is destroying the Kane family."
Veronica bit her lip. Her father hadn't done anything but his job, and thoroughly. The Kane family was already destroyed.
"What's the matter with you people, huh? What's the matter with you?"
Her jaw fell slack as she struggled with the way her heart was trembling. On the one hand, her father was just doing the best he could to make things right again in Neptune. On the other, here was Logan Echolls, Neptune High's resident psychopath - his big brown eyes glistening with tears, his bottom lip quivering. Never had Veronica seen him so vulnerable before.
She was the only person he'd ever let see him with his guard down like that.
*****
Trouble followed Veronica all through the school year. It followed her through the hallways, where she could hear the half-muttered insults and rumors being whispered behind her back. It followed her from class to class, where spitballs would fly when the teacher was turned to face the chalkboard. It followed her into detention, where she ended up after school with increasing frequency. After all, she couldn't help being late once in a while; too bad oversleeping because she'd been out past curfew photographing cheaters and tracking lowlifes just wasn't an acceptable excuse.
But even though she practically dared it to, she hadn't really expected trouble to follow her to Shelly Pomroy's party that summer.
She just wanted to see and be seen. She wanted to prove to them all that their opinions didn't matter to her. She wanted to show them that she was invincible, that she couldn't be hurt by what they said and did.
But she was more vulnerable than she thought; there was a hitch in her armor she hadn't anticipated.
That hitch was Logan Echolls.
They hadn't spoken directly to one another since that time at the library, but Veronica had kept a close eye on him throughout the rest of the school year. She wanted to think it was out of concern for an old friend, but there had always been something more between the two of them - something a little different than friendship, something that had been stifled because she was with Duncan and he was with Lilly. And now, having lost Lilly so dramatically and losing Duncan more and more each day, Veronica felt that she and Logan had somehow more in common than they'd ever had before. If they'd have found a way to stay close, perhaps, something would have come of it, but as it was they were perennially watching each other from the corners of their eyes, as though constant surveillance would be enough to protect them both from whatever else the vicissitudes of the universe felt compelled to throw at them.
He'd remained firmly unattached since Lilly's death. It was an understandable circumstance, especially considering how ass-over-elbows he'd been about Lilly, in spite of her many monogamous shortcomings, but that didn't stop many eligible and ineligible 09er debutantes and aspiring starlets from trying to gain his attentions. When Veronica arrived at the party, she quickly realized what a mistake she'd made, and in the course of throwing hateful glances at all the other attendees, she caught a glimpse of Logan surrounded by ladies fawning over him.
The sight made Veronica's stomach flip over with a feeling eerily similar to jealousy.
Logan, however, didn't want or need to be hounded by girl trouble, and had Veronica kept watching, she would have seen him kindly excuse himself from the gaggle of girls that had gathered around him in order to find Duncan. Logan was trying his damnedest to preserve Lilly's memory by remaining close to the Kane family, but with Duncan's attitude, Logan had found this to be an increasingly difficult task throughout the school year. Still, it was a party, and one of the activities undertaken at parties was celebrating, and Logan would be damned if he couldn't get Duncan to participate somehow.
Fortunately he'd just come back from a trip to Tijuana where he'd scored a recreational drug that would dissolve whatever stick it was that Duncan had up his ass, guaranteed.
"What's this?" Duncan asked suspiciously as Logan came up to him, offering a plastic cup.
"Just a soda," Logan said nonchalantly, glancing into the cup. "Coke, or root beer, or 7-Up with an identity crisis."
Duncan raised one wary eyebrow. "No booze?"
Logan handed the beverage to Duncan, still making with his devil-may-care approach. "Booze can be arranged, if you want. But there's something a little better in there."
"For Christ's sake, Logan," Duncan muttered, putting the cup down on a nearby table and crossing his arms impatiently.
"Oh, come on, Duncan, it's nothing that serious," Logan replied. "It's just a little GHB. It'll help you unwind a little."
"I don't need to unwind."
"You're wound as tight as a slinky, only you're not half as fun."
Dick Casablancas' face twisted in thoughtfulness. It looked like a particularly painful expression for him; perhaps he was out of practice. "I think the only way we could tell for sure," he remarked, "would be to push him down the stairs." He chortled at his own joke while Duncan rolled his eyes and looked back at Logan.
"My apologies. Didn't know I was bringing you down."
"My apologies?" Logan repeated. "God, Duncan, when did you turn into your mom? No, you aren't even your mom, because at least your mom has a sense of humor. Or at least that's what she said to me last night."
"Just fuck off, Logan. You're being a dick."
Logan picked the drink back up and pushed it into Duncan's hand, insistent. "And you're being a pussy."
"Better than both of you being dicks," the elder Casablancas chimed in, grinning like the idiot he was. "Or one of you being a dick and the other one being an asshole.That'd be, like, totally gay."
"Yeah, and you would know," his brother added.
"So are you going to man up or not?" Logan asked Duncan one more time. Duncan glared back, but took the cup and slugged it all at once. "Atta boy!" Logan declared, letting himself grin.
As the Logan continued to rag on Duncan, and Dick Casablancas attempted to pass along a roofied beverage to his girlfriend, a dismayed Veronica pushed her way through the crowd. Her heart was aching and she didn't know why. Her mouth had gone dry, and when someone pressed a plastic cup into her hand she didn't think twice, bringing it to her lips and gulping heartily. It was just a little Coke, she thought, fortified with a healthy portion of Captain Morgan.
But as she wandered through the Pomroy home, she began to feel sick, uneasy. It was too warm, too humid, too crowded, too much. She meandered back to the outside patio and lay down on a chaise lounge by the pool, closing her eyes and wanting nothing more than to drift off to sleep. The last thing she'd remember in the morning would be the sounds of raucous laughter, growing more and more distant, overcome by the cool relief of a summer breeze.
She was a sitting duck.
It was cruel, they way they treated her. Guys teased her and touched her and she could barely lift her hand to try to push them away, while girls made snide remarks and called her "slut" and "bitch" and "whore." They brought cup after cup up to her lips, and tilted drinks into her mouth until she was forced to swallow.
It was Logan who finally stepped in. He couldn't name what it was that compelled him to shove everyone aside, bending over and lifting her effortlessly. He cradled her as gently as possible as he tried to weave his way back through the gathered crowd, pushing his way into an unoccupied corridor.
He could feel their incredulous stares burning into him, their nasty insults half-whispered among themselves, and he couldn't help flushing a little with anger. But he bit his lip to keep from exploding at them in a fit of rage; there were more important things to worry about.
He kicked a door open in the back and was relieved to find it opened to an unoccupied bedroom. With a sigh he lowered Veronica onto the plush comforter, and she looked up at him vacantly and smiled. "Duncan," she whispered gratefully.
"No, not Duncan," Logan mumbled back. "It's Logan. I'm Logan."
"Logan," Veronica repeated. "Thank you."
Logan sat down on the edge of the bed, blushing fiercely with... what, embarrassment? Shame? Awkwardness? "I'm worried about you, kid," he told her, his sudden honesty startling him. He brushed a wisp of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear in a gesture of intimacy that he hadn't practiced in a long, long time.
"Logan," Veronica said, her voice girlish and sleepy. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure thing. Shoot."
"You miss Lilly, right?"
"Me too." Veronica breathed deeply and yawned, stretching like a cat and rolling onto her side to face him. "I miss you too, Logan," she said, closing her eyes and drifting back into a deep sleep.
His heart nearly stopped at this confession. She was drunk, she was wasted, he said to himself - there's no way tough-as-nails Veronica could feel that way about him.
Shouting and the crash of glass in another room snapped Logan out of his reverie. Cassidy Casablancas showed up at the doorway, leaning in with a wide-eyed expression. "Duncan's causing some trouble. Everyone's trying to corral him to take him home. Shelley says she's going to call the sheriff if he breaks one more thing."
Logan inwardly cursed himself for making Duncan take the GHB. He had just wanted his friend to have a good time - not to serve time. "All right, I'll take him home. Keep an eye on her, will you, Beaver?" he asked the younger Casablancas brother, gesturing to Veronica sleeping peacefully on the bed. "Don't let anyone in, okay?"
"Yeah, no problem," Cassidy replied, putting his hands in his pockets and slumping up against the doorway.
"That means your brother, too - I don't care what he tells you, he's up to no good."
"Right."
"You have my cell number if you need to get a hold of me."
"All right, already," Cassidy huffed, rolling his eyes. "God, I'm not a child."
Logan half-smiled in chastened chagrin. "Sorry, Beav, I keep forgetting," he said, reaching out and fraternally mussing up Cassidy's hair, turning around and walking away too quickly to hear the "fuck you" mumbled in his direction.
He thought he'd left her somewhere she'd be safe.
He had been horribly wrong.
*****
She didn't want to wake up that morning. She was clinging to a wonderful dream she'd been having. She'd seen in her sleep a white knight coming to her rescue, lifting her effortlessly and carrying her away from her hellish nightmares, laying her down in a downy bed and staying by her side all night long. But the sun was already streaming in slanted through the half-closed windows, and there was a sour taste in her mouth that made her smack her lips until her eyelids fluttered open.
Well, the bed part had been right.
She shifted onto her back and lifted herself onto her elbows, struggling to recognize her surroundings and piece together how she'd gotten there. She realized she was in one of the guest rooms in Shelly Pomroy's house, having spent the night there a few times freshmen and sophomore year, back when she was considered one of the golden ones.
Her heart dropped into her stomach when she saw her panties bunched up on the floor. A lump caught in her throat, and her vision clouded with tears that stung her eyes. She wasn't that stupid. She could figure out what had happened.
Numbly she climbed out of bed and gathered what belongings she could find - her underwear, her bag, her shoes, one broken. Carefully she picked her way through the empty cups, bottles, and cigarette butts that had accumulated in the halls and the foyer. She considered how lucky she was to escape the house without having to face someone else. She felt as though her violation was burned into her face.
She walked to her car, but it had been vandalized. She would have to come back for it later, armed with wipes to clean it with; she couldn't drive it around with the word "slut" written broadly across the windshield.
She couldn't go to the hospital. She barely even considered it an option. For one thing, she was a minor, and she was pretty certain her father would be called to come and get her, and he'd know. He'd know. The last thing she wanted was for her father, already disgraced, to be further put to shame. Especially since she knew he'd take it upon himself to murder everyone else at the party.
She couldn't go home. She'd lied and told him that Shelly invited her to stay over, so she would have been scot-free coming home at any hour. "I couldn't sleep," she would have told him, and he'd have given her a little grief about being out past curfew and that would have been the end of it. But she'd been gone all night, and the first thing her father would ask upon her return would be "Did you have a good time last night?" The better option would be to wait until her father departed for whatever work he had that day, be it in the office or on the road, and she could take a scalding hot shower to kill whatever residue remained from the evening.
Without a second thought, then, she headed towards the one place that felt like a second home to her. Sure enough, the crestfallen look on the receptionist's face when she recognized a pitiable-looking Veronica was one of sympathy.
"Veronica, what happened?" Inga had asked, aghast and concerned.
Even then, feeling as weak as she ever had, Veronica answered with courage. "I need to report a crime," she'd said, and she was ushered into Sheriff Lamb's office. While he only further degraded her, somehow she'd been galvanized, and she left the building with her lip still quivering but her head held high.
She walked all the way home, not noticing the yellow Xterra that was following her discreetly.
*****
After bringing Duncan home that night, the Kanes insisted he stay over just to get some sleep. They were grateful to him for bringing Duncan home, as agitated as he was, and they reminded Logan that it was past curfew. Even in their plush guest room bed, however, Logan found that sleep eluded him - whenever he closed his eyes, he saw an image of her, vulnerable and in danger, and here he was, unable to save her.
No, it wasn't Lilly - if only it had been Lilly, invading his dreams like that. He could only wish that it had been Lilly's face he saw etched in his mind, because at least that would make sense. He'd been playing the part of grieving boyfriend for so long that this twinge of interest in someone else didn't sit right with him, especially considering that this someone else was Veronica Mars.
He couldn't justify it to himself. Sure, he'd been attracted to Veronica; she was pretty hot, and he was a teenage boy. He felt that even Lilly would approve of it, after all her teasing about the possibility of the three of them together. But even though Lilly was gone, it still felt like cheating.
But after a night of tossing and turning in the Kane house, Logan decided that feeling like a cheater probably didn't feel as bad as it felt to do nothing, and so with the first light of day he padded softly downstairs, left a note of thanks in the kitchen, and sped back to the Pomroy house as quickly as possible.
"I just want to make sure she's safe, and that's it," he said aloud to himself as he took all the corners too fast, tires squealing against the pavement. "I owe it to Lilly as her friend. I owe it to her as her friend..."
Her car was still parked nearby, the word "slut" scrawled across the windshield in broad letters. But when he went inside the house, she was gone, and he cursed himself for leaving her alone.
He got back into his car, ready to report a missing person to the sheriff if he had to. After all, he was the son of Aaron Echolls, and he'd be damned if he couldn't use that to his advantage if he needed to. But when he got to the sheriff's office, Veronica was already staggering back outside, disheveled but otherwise fine, it seemed.
Still, Logan knew the knots in his stomach wouldn't go away until he saw her safely home.
*****
Later that night she'd been standing in the bathroom in her pajamas, scissors in hand, tugging the length of her hair in front of her shoulders and trying to determine just how short she wanted it to be, when she was interrupted by knocking at the door and Backup's requisite barking. She set the scissors on the edge of the sink and chided the dog softly. "Aw, calm down, can't you see we have company?" she said to him, pushing him away from the door with her leg as she pulled it open.
It was Logan Echolls. To say she was surprised would be an understatement; to say she was suspicious would be completely accurate. "What do you want?" she asked.
His hands were shoved into his pockets, and he could barely bring his eyes up long enough to meet hers as he rocked nervously back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Is your dad home?" he asked, almost shyly. "I mean, I just wanted to see you for a second."
"He's not, actually," she hesitated. "But you can come in."
"Thanks," he said, and as she opened the door for him, he stepped in and patted Backup a few times. The dog sniffed his hand for a moment and then lost interest entirely, wagging his tail and returning to his food bowl. "I just wanted to check up on you," Logan tried to explain. "The party last night got out of hand, and I wanted to make sure you were all right."
Veronica tilted her head a little, unsure of what to make of Logan at this moment. She hadn't seen him this raw and vulnerable since Lilly's crime scene video was leaked. But she was unable to take him at face value; she was too well trained to find ulterior motives, and Logan reeked of something guilty. She could have said "thanks for stopping by, I'm fine" but instead she folded her arms and asked "What do you know?"
"Is your dad going to be back tonight?" Logan asked back, leaning against the kitchen island, struggling not to be completely awkward. "It's a hell of a story, Mars."
"He's trying to catch a bail-jumper," she told him, eyes narrowed. If he was dangerous, she'd have Backup rip his throat out. For now, she felt like she could trust him. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"As long as it's alcohol-free," Logan sighed, rubbing his temple.
She turned and grabbed two cold cans of soda from the fridge, tossing one to him. "Happy to oblige," Veronica smiled at him. She leaned against the kitchen island, smirking lopsidedly at him like she used to when they were friends.
There was something about her looking at him that way; he wanted to hold onto her like that forever, the way things used to be between them - friendly and comfortable and free from rancor. He didn't want to damage her, he didn't want her to lose that cheeky smile. "You don't really want to know what happened last night, do you?" Logan asked, and he cracked open his soda to cover the wavering in his voice.
The smirk vanished from her face. "I need to know," she replied, almost whispering.
"Do you need to know right now?" he asked, closing his eyes. "They say ignorance is bliss, you know." He set his soda on the countertop and put his hand on hers. She looked up and met his glistening eyes, and suddenly her steely shell was shattered.
"I don't... Logan..." she whispered, her voice trembling with hesitation and uncertainty.
"You probably don't remember," he said, feeling the flush rise in his cheeks, "but you said that you missed me. And, as much as I try to deny it sometimes, I miss you too. I'm afraid that if... if I tell you what happened last night, then we'll never have a chance again. I just want the chance, Veronica. Just to be your friend again, that's all."
Veronica sighed deeply and turned away.
"Please, Veronica, please!" Logan pleaded with her. "I promise I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything I know, just... just let's be friends again first, okay?"
She swallowed hard. She swallowed back the lump in her throat, she swallowed her tears, she swallowed her pride. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Logan, let's be friends." She cocked her head to the side and forced a smile to her face once again. "So, what exactly do we need to do before we're friends again?"
"Well," Logan asked, "what were you doing just now before I showed up? Getting ready for bed, Mars? It's not even ten."
"Actually," she said, "I was about to cut my hair when you knocked."
"Oh really?" Logan's lips turned in an expression of exaggerated interest. "And just what are we going for? Just a trim, or something more drastic?"
"Something drastic," she said, setting her soda down and heading to the bathroom.
"You know, I've been getting my hair cut for years now, so that makes me a veritable expert on haircutting. You ought to let me help."
"Are you kidding me? Lilly said you failed cutting in kindergarten. I'm not letting you anywhere near my head with something sharp."
He followed her into the bathroom, making himself comfortable sitting on the edge of the tub as Veronica resumed her position in front of the mirror, flipping her hair back and forth and still trying to decide on the length. "Less looking, more cutting," Logan insisted. "What are you waiting for?"
"I don't know how short I want to go."
"Fine," Logan said, and before Veronica could protest he'd taken the scissors from her hand. His left hand ran across her scalp, taking a few wisps at a time to be cut. He worked quickly but painlessly; Veronica thought there was something oddly comforting in his gentle touch.
"Where did you learn to cut hair like this?" she asked, watching him carefully in the mirror and surprised by his skill.
"My parents are movie stars," he told her. "I spent half of my childhood in hair and makeup trailers."
"You're going to do my makeup too? Are we going for a total makeover?"
Logan smiled sweetly at the mirror, their gazes meeting in the reflection. "You don't need a makeover, Mars," he told her. He set the scissors down on the sink and ran both his hands through her hair, anything cut loose falling to the floor. "So what do you think? It's a lot shorter than before."
"But it's cute," Veronica said. "And it doesn't smell so much like cigarette smoke and vomit anymore."
Logan was confused. "Your hair didn't smell," he said. He took a step back and Veronica went past him, walking into her room, suddenly solemn again.
"Yeah, well..." Veronica sighed, "it did in my imagination, anyway." She let her head hang down, her new bangs falling in front of her face and hiding the sadness in her eyes. "You can go now," she told him.
Logan was hesitant. "I don't want to leave you like this," he said.
"You don't have to stay."
"But I want to," Logan told her, and he followed her to her room and wrapped his arms around her. "I want to make sure you're all right, always." He squeezed her gently when she set her head on his shoulder, trying to stifle her tears once again. He walked her over to her bed, and they both sank into the mattress still embracing.
"Logan, if you think..."
"We don't have to do anything, Veronica," he told her, soothing and low. He kicked the shoes from his feet, and when she lifted her head he swept the bangs away from her face. "We'll just go to sleep," he told her, and he stood and hurried out of his jeans before bolting under the covers.
"What, are you afraid I might make fun of your Scooby-Doo boxers?" she teased him, a smile slowly returning.
"Don't knock Scooby, Mars," Logan warned. "You should know that I normally sleep in the nude, so Scooby's going to make sure no shenanigans go on."
"Ruh roh," Veronica said. "So he's your cockblock, then?"
"Unless cartoon characters are a specific turn-on for you..."
She punched him gently in the arm. He responded by reaching up and grabbing her, pulling her down with him into bed. His arms wrapped tightly around her as her breathing found a steady rhythm. Slowly he lifted his arm to reach the switch of the lamp on the nearby nightstand.
"Leave the light on for me," Veronica mumbled sleepily, turning over so that her face was pressed into Logan's bare chest. He let his arm drape across her, squeezing her tightly and then releasing her with a sigh.
They drifted off to sleep together, lying just like that. Logan's hand rested across her waist, and as he dreamed his fingertips ran softly against the surface of her stomach.
*****
It was only a dream, he'd tell himself later, but he'd be lying if he didn't hope it was prophetic.
She'd been a major player in many of his nighttime fantasies before, but those were merely of the visual variety. Now, sleeping beside her, with his fingertips creating memories of the softness of her skin, the lightness of her hair, he saw her again in his sleep, and this time far more viscerally than before.
He dreamt of her naked, smiling at him, beckoning. He dreamt of pressing his lips against hers so hard that they bruise a little; he dreamt of their breaths mingling as he pulled back and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. He dreamt of caressing her cheek, cupping her face in his palm, gazing into her icy blue eyes and watching the harshness in them melt away with desire. He dreamt of running his hand through her hair - not long like it used to be, but short just as he cut it, feeling it fall away from in between his fingers.
He dreamt of tracing her jawline with kisses until taking her earlobe between his teeth, nibbling gently. He flicked his tongue against the flesh, a promise of what was to come. He let his kisses trail down her neck and against her clavicle, and she let her hands linger on the back of his neck, their warmth strangely soothing to him. He reached for her nipples and pinched them each between his thumb and his forefinger as he continued to work his way between her breasts, going past her navel, and hovering at the cleft of her lower lips. Looking back over her torso, his eyes met hers for a moment, and he let his tongue slide gently between her flesh; she threw her head back and sighed with pleasure. Encouraged, he continued - licking, sucking, lapping and twirling the gradually swelling flesh with his tongue. She moaned and bucked and grabbed his hair in her hands, yanking his head away as though she couldn't take it anymore, but he pressed on anyway, reveling in the way she twisted and turned with pleasure. He liked making her feel good. He liked make her feel wanted, desired, loved.
With her he was gentle, with her he was considerate and sweet. After she'd thrust her head back and shouted his name, he took her by the backs of her thighs and propped himself up on his knees. She hooked her feet over his shoulders, and he eased into her slowly, carefully, as though she could be broken if he took it too fast. Eyes hazy with satisfaction, she gazed back up at him, practically purring. He could feel his cheeks glow red with sudden embarrassment, as though he'd been caught by her in the act. Dreams were funny that way.
Dreams, though, could be better than real life in some ways. In his dream, for example, Logan lasted forever. He wanted to do everything to and with Veronica that he possibly could, finding out which positions would work best, which felt best, and which she enjoyed most. Legs pressed against his chest was a good way to start, because he could go deeply into her and they both knew it, but she grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him down, shifting to take her place on top of him and managing to hold him inside while she did so. He wasn't surprised that Veronica, even in his dreams, was a little bit of a control freak.
*****
"Logan! Logan, you have to get out of here!"
And just like that, Logan was woken out of his dream by a voice that was sharp and severe, even if the volume was low. He turned his head instinctively into the pillow, pressing his eyelids shut. "Five more minutes," he muttered, his words muffled.
"You don't have five minutes, my father's already here!"
And just like that, Logan shot to attention. Unfortunately, his mind wasn't the only thing suddenly turned on. He had just been enjoying some racy REM, after all. As he sat up in bed, Veronica's comforter fell away from him, and he sat, unthinking, with his legs spread apart. His penis stood at attention through the fly of his boxers, the tip lit up pink like a torch. Logan was too groggy and used to morning wood to even register it until he saw Veronica's jaw drop, her eyes widening as a pink flush filled her cheeks. Quickly he jumped up and grabbed his jeans off the floor, turning to face the wall in embarrassment as he redressed himself. But Veronica stood so silently for so long that Logan half-thought that she must have swallowed her tongue in surprise.
"Holy shit," he muttered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking!"
When he turned around, Veronica's eyes fluttered and she said with astonishment, "Lilly really wasn't lying when she told me it was that big," adding the requisite hand gesture.
"Jesus Christ, Veronica!" Logan hissed quietly. "Your dad is here! How am I supposed to get out without him noticing? He would have opened fire on Duncan fuckin' Kane for holding your hand, and I just spent the night here!"
"Oh," Veronica mumbled, a little guilty. "Actually he called earlier and said he was going straight to the office. I'm surprised you didn't wake up when the phone rang."
"I'm a heavy sleeper, okay?"
"You might be, but Little Logan certainly isn't."
"Oh my God, Veronica, stop saying things like that!"
"My dad's not home, Logan, so calm down!" Veronica snapped back. "But it's nearly noon and I wanted to know if maybe you wanted to grab lunch somewhere."
Logan bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her. This was the sort of thing Lilly would have done, getting him all riled up like this, and he smiled at the realization. Veronica wasn't Lilly, but she sure reminded him of her sometimes. "Yeah, lunch," he said absently. "Lunch sounds good."
They went to the nearest diner to grab some grub, but even in that greasy spoon on the wrong side of Neptune, someone was bound to recognize Aaron Echoll's son out to eat with the sacked sheriff's daughter. Neither of them cared as other diners whispered to one another, speculating on their relationship. It was well-known that, a long time ago, they used to be friends. Maybe they weren't friends anymore, but they were building something better instead.
*****
One lunch turned into another; two lunches turned into a movie. Two lunches and a movie then led to a trip to the dog beach together, followed by a weekend on his couch watching a film noir movie marathon. In the middle of Out of the Past, Logan finally found the courage to lean over and kiss her gently. When she didn't turn away or freak out, he slid his hand down her shoulder and squeezed her more closely too them.
She looked up at him and smiled flirtatiously.
Neither of them watched the rest of the movie.
He held her hand in public, and when Duncan sneered at them from across Java the Hut, Logan made it known that anyone who had a problem with him seeing Veronica was welcome to a free helping of knuckle sandwich. He may have become persona non gratis there, but it kept the nasty rumors about the two of them to a slow simmer rather than a rolling boil.
By the time the school year started, people knew to look the other way when Logan and Veronica came into the hallway hand in hand, greeting one another with kisses when one would wait for the other outside a classroom.
Logan was no longer welcome at the 09er lunch tables, much less their parties, but he couldn't care any less. He spent much of his lunch period staring in their direction wondering why he ever hung out with them in the first place. Veronica didn't mind his silence so much; they weren't a couple built up on conversation anyway. She knew that after the last bell rang and school was dismissed for the day, she'd be the center of attention in the back of Logan's Xterra - at least until she needed to get to her dad's office for the day.
*****
It was another beautiful day in southern California - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the cool breeze carried with it the stimulating scent of saltwater. Students buzzed through the Neptune High courtyard at lunchtime, and Wallace Fennel weaved through them to find the table where Veronica and Logan had staked their claim. Once again he tossed his brown-bagged lunch to the tabletop and sat down, much more at ease than he'd been yesterday. As he rummaged for his sandwich and soda, Veronica and Logan approached warily, like two territorial tigers surprised to find some new animal in their enclosure. Veronica, bearing another mystery-meat-meal, sat across from Wallace, wearing that familiar scowl on her face. Logan sank into the bench while only barely registering Wallace's existence; his attention wandered across the courtyard, alert and protective.
Seeing he wouldn't have much luck engaging Logan in conversation, Wallace smiled at Veronica, his almost-friend. "Girl, you should hear what people are saying about the two of you."
"Then what are you doing sitting here?" she replied, somehow making it seem more like an accusation than a question.
"You sat next to me!" Wallace shot back, unable to hide a wide smile on his face. In fact, the more he'd heard about these two from his gossipy classmates, the more he knew where he'd fit in at this school.
"This is our table." Logan turned to Wallace and possessively spread his palms across the table's scratched fiberglass surface.
"And what a fine table it is. What do you suppose this is made of?" He tapped the gleaming red top emphatically with his knuckles. "Oak?"
Veronica cut in, her voice softening with her expression. "Look, if people are saying such awful things..."
"I figure I've got a choice," Wallace interrupted. "I can either go hang with the punks that laughed at me, took pictures of me while I was taped to that flagpole - or I can hang out with the ones who cut me down."
The corner of her mouth turned upwards in a sly smirk, and she sent a shifty glance from Logan to Wallace. Logan stared at Wallace, completely stonefaced for a moment, before nodding back at Veronica. It was as though the two of them shared a secret body language, but one that Wallace was privileged enough to understand.
Veronica crossed her arms and leaned forward intently. "So you want to get the PCH bike club off your ass?"