Title: Stove Top
Author:
em2mbPairing/Character: Logan/Veronica.
Word Count: 1,000: five snippets, 200 words each.
Rating: PG
Summary: “Southern California is just more… tofurkey, you know?” Five Thanksgivings.
Spoilers: Generally through 3x20, “The Bitch is Back”
Warnings: If you make like Chandler on Turkey Day, avoid the warm fuzzies.
Author's Notes: A day late and a dollar short, that’s me. But I started this one after Grey’s last night, wouldn’t let myself go over 200 words for each Thanksgiving, and still pulled off the bulk of it in three hours. I just didn’t get around to posting. I’m not dead. I’m just in my reporting semester at MU for another three weeks. I don’t own them. Written in part for
100_situations. Prompt #96: Writer’s Choice - Thanksgiving.
Fresh or Frozen?
Four days before Thanksgiving, 2001
“And just what am I supposed to serve?” Celeste demanded, busying her hands with a towel.
Lilly snorted. “Please, Celeste. It’s not like you’re fixing the meal.”
Celeste slapped the towel against the counter for effect. “I coordinated the menu weeks ago, Lilly!”
“One word, Celeste.” Lilly’s lips pouted. “Tofurkey.”
“Not at my Thanksgiving.”
“Then I won’t be at your Thanksgiving, either,” Lilly said threateningly, pushing away from her seat at the breakfast counter.
Lilly flounced back to the Kane’s rec room and plopped down on the sofa between Logan, Duncan and the Xbox. Veronica glanced up from her homework.
“How’d it go, sweetums?” Logan asked, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend, chuckling as Duncan squirmed away. He kissed Lilly with an exaggerated smack.
“I told her I’m never eating meat again.”
“Yeah?” Logan arched an eyebrow suggestively. “Never again?”
Duncan made a gagging noise as he sprang from the sofa, knocking Veronica’s algebra book off the coffee table. She blushed.
“Ugh, please Logan.” Lilly pushed him away. “Just for that, I’m inviting someone more mature to dinner. Veronica?”
Veronica squeaked uncomfortably. “Me? But I thought you-”
“No buts.” Lilly waved a hand in the air. “You are so coming.”
Preheat Oven to 350º
Thanksgiving 2002
“What are you doing here?” Veronica hissed, barely cracking the door. “What do-”
Logan rustled the plastic sack in his hand. “I brought Thai.”
“At eleven thirty on Thanksgiving night?”
“Can I come in?”
“I guess.” Veronica held the door.
“How do you think the Kanes are faring without us?” Logan pushed his way into the kitchen and was already unloading takeaway on the counter. “I got Panic Room and-”
“I know you and Lilly broke up,” Veronica blurted. She nervously tried to shove her hands in her back pockets but found her pajamas had none.
“Yeah, for some French guy named Jean-Pierre,” Logan spat bitterly.
“She’ll take you back.”
“I know she will. She just didn’t have to do it today, that’s all.”
“No-”
“Especially when she knows what-” He broke off. “Never mind.”
Veronica hit the kitchen lights. “Did you say something about-Logan, what happened to your eye?” Before, in the dark, she hadn’t noticed the bruise.
“Nothing,” Logan said quickly. “Trina, wishbone, long story.”
“I thought your family wasn’t doing the traditional meal.”
“Like I said, long story.”
Veronica hesitated, then nodded. “Do-do you want leftovers instead?”
Logan dropped his chopsticks. “What do you have?”
Never Fry a Turkey Indoors
Two days before Thanksgiving, 2007
Piz tucked his hands defensively under his arms. “I didn’t tell you?”
Veronica’s gaze shifted between her boyfriend and the industrial-size jug of peanut oil, which was on sale. “No.”
“Uh, well, yeah.” Piz shuffled uncomfortably. “We deep fry the turkey.”
“In peanut oil?”
Piz avoided her gaze as he hoisted the container into the cart. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” Veronica said, wrinkling her nose. “So people actually do that?”
“Yes,” Piz said, hovering too close to a Doritos display for Veronica’s comfort. He started towards a bag of nacho cheese flavored chips but faltered under her disapproving gaze. “Did you think it was just a YouTube phenomenon?”
“No, I just didn’t realize you did it,” Veronica said quickly, matching his earlier stance. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Southern California is just more… tofurkey, you know?”
“Yeah, well, we fry the turkey in Beaverton.” Piz paused. “Wait, have you actually had tofurkey?”
“Once.”
Piz returned her disapproving gaze and grabbed the Doritos. “Yeah, Veronica, now that’s not Thanksgiving.”
He flashed her doe eyes to show he was just kidding, but she still found herself trudging several paces behind him throughout the rest of the shopping spree.
No, this isn’t.
Follow the Libby’s Label
One week before Thanksgiving, 2010
“Come on,” she begged, “it’s a two hour drive, and I know you’d rather come here than fly back for Trina’s feast.”
“And miss the debacle?” Logan’s voice crackled with amusement. “I don’t know, Veronica. You’re cooking the whole meal in that shit hole apartment?”
“Down to the last sweet potato. Come on, my dad’s flying in with his new girlfriend-”
“You know, she stops being the new girlfriend when she’s been around for three years.”
“-the new girlfriend, who always asks if I’m seeing anyone, and I just-”
“Because your dad would be thrilled if we were dating again.”
“My dad likes you!”
Logan snorted. “Because I’m not sleeping with you anymore!”
Veronica almost dropped the phone. “As far as my dad’s concerned, you’ve never slept with me.”
“See, I seem to remember this one time, and I was there, and oh wait-you were there, too, and-”
“Please come, Logan.” Veronica waited several seconds. “I mean, if you already-”
“No, you were right,” he admitted finally. “I don’t have plans.”
“So you’ll come?”
“I’ll come.” Veronica could practically hear the corners of his mouth turn upwards in a smirk. “Do you even know how to cook a turkey, Mars?”
Just Dressing
Thanksgiving 2012
“Not now!” Veronica whirled around, waving a spatula. “I need to baste!”
Logan couldn’t help but laugh as he brushed flour from her cheek with his thumb. “I’ll stop. Need help?”
Veronica hesitated. “Check the stuffing? I need to-”
“Baste, right.” He opened the oven. “What am I checking for?”
“Moist? Browned?” Veronica paused. “I don’t-I just don’t know, Logan!”
“Are you speaking metaphorically?”
Veronica sank tearfully into a chair. “It’s a big step!”
“Definitely metaphorically.”
Veronica hiccoughed. “You aren’t taking it seriously!”
Logan whistled lowly. “Believe me, I am.”
“Prove it.”
He did. “Hey, Keith, Harmony, everyone!”
Veronica’s eyes widened. “No!”
“Yes.” He dragged her up as their guests filed in. “We have an announcement.”
Wallace waved away smoke. “You burnt-”
“Veronica and I are engaged,” he blurted. Next to him, Veronica held her breath.
But Keith just shook his head. “Seriously? I got up from the game for this?”
Harmony leaned in. “He means, ‘Finally.’”
“Because we all noticed the ring, like, last week,” Wallace added.
“And he means, ‘Congratulations.’ Seriously, though? Even I know that’s burning,” said Mac. She herded everyone out.
Veronica sniffled. “It was supposed to be perfect.”
Logan kissed her nose. “It was.”