fic: Assassins. FINALLY.
Title: Assassins
Pairing: Veronica/Logan
Words: ~5,500
Rating: TV-14
Spoilers: Pre season 1. Spoilers to certain flashback events depicted during season 1.
Synopsis: Lilly Kane’s murder hasn’t stopped the 09ers from holding their exclusive annual Assassins game. When Veronica finds herself in the game, she’s determined to discover who wants her dead - even if this time, the murder is only metaphorical.
The bulk of this was written/outlined in August 2005, right after I had watched the first season of Veronica Mars and fallen in love.
The rest was written in stops and starts on two or three other occasions.
It had almost taken on the whiff of an abandoned story, but I loved the premise, and I couldn't let it fall apart. So today, I decided to flesh out the rest of the outline and call it done.
This is not as good or complete as I once hoped it would be. Yet at the same time, I'm letting it quietly exist here, in this form, because I no longer want it hanging over my head. Hopefully the 2,000 words I wrote today, when I am no longer in love with the show or Veronica, do not detract too much from the words that I wrote a year ago, back when I was.
All mistakes mine. Much thanks to the girls who gave me feedback at various points during this story's existence, but especially to torchthisnow, mandilyn, buffyx, jascott, and helpwess.
Premises belong to Rob Thomas and Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep, a chapter of which was the first inspiration behind the Assassins concept.
All shapes and colors of feedback = adored.
And now, with extended author's note behind me and without further ado: Assassins.
Assassins
by missdeviant
The first rule of surviving high school - never let them see you flinch. Lilly Kane taught me that.
The spring “breeze” whips harshly across the Neptune high parking lot. Girls hurrying to the building from their luxury vehicles hunch their shoulders against the gusts. Sometimes they pause to pull strands of hair from their faces, where it is stuck in their lip gloss.
She also taught me rules two through seventy three of high school, gems including “never wear the same outfit twice in one month,” and “when the free lunch kids won’t even eat what the cafeteria dishes out, it’s time to call Cho’s Pizza.”
Bits of paper blow wildly across the asphalt surface. Spent issues of the Navigator, rumpled and used as coasters for four dollar cups of specialty coffee. Fliers advertising next week’s meeting of the Citizens for an Unpolluted Neptune Township - ha ha, very funny - that had dislodged from the bulletin boards scattered across campus. Somebody’s Geometry test - a 64, with “See Me!” scrawled across the top in angry red letters.
A hot pink flier carried by the swirling wind hits Veronica Mars squarely in the chest. A few of the students scampering across the parking lot turn and titter. Yes, how appropriate. Trash for the trash. Isn’t the world *poetic* like that?
Veronica smiles wryly and gives a sarcastic wave as she peels the offending sheet from where the wind had pinned it and gives it a quick glance.
Then - she flinches.
The front of the flier bears the image of a death’s head smiling, all empty eyes and gaping mouth. A date, at the bottom - four days from today. And in bold font, “The hunt begins.”
Veronica clenches the fist holding the flier, crumpling the paper in one quick squeeze as her narrowed eyes dart around the parking lot.
Neptune High -always a game of kill or be killed. Lilly was right. But knowing all the rules doesn’t keep you safe in this world.
If it did, she’d still be here.
*
It was supposed to be a game.
Between Prom preparation and SAT cramming sessions, the junior class elite managed to find time to organize another, off the books spring event: the Assassins hunt. Of course, unlike the prom and the SATs, this Neptune tradition’s roots were strictly upper class. You didn’t know someone, you couldn’t play. The way the 09ers explained it, it was like the hoods had more time worried about actual drive-bys than pretend ones. When the week after spring break - traditional Assassins season - had passed without so much as a muffled gunshot, Veronica had assumed that it wasn’t going to happen this year.
Obviously? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
*
Flier in hand, Veronica storms into the school where students are scattered in groups, enjoying the lazy calm before the warning bell rings.
"Somebody's putting the combat into boots," she hears as she storms towards one of the clumps of students, leans up to get in their collective smirking face.
"Who’s doing this?" she demands. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Logan Echolls, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth.
"You think this is funny?" she asks, whirling around pressing towards him, even as he's surrounded by his own bunch of stupid cronies. "Are you forgetting your classmate? Your friend? Lilly Kane, who’s out there in her GRAVE while you people treat murder like it’s a round of Frisbee golf?"
A murmur from somewhere behind her catches her off guard. "Dude, someone hasn’t gotten laid recently."
"Or someone’s getting laid too MUCH."
Laughter. The warning bell is all that saves a random in a letterman's jacket from getting kneed in the balls.
Veronica wishes that instead of turning and running, she would have barfed on someone's shoes. Right now, she feels like she could.
*
The school quiets down for a few days, which means no one eggs her car or scratches classy terms into the paint of her locker, which says something about the collective attention spans of Neptune teens. Of course, it's too good to last and sooner or later, it happens. People, at lockers, peeking into the tiny envelopes they find there. Smiling.
The game’s afoot.
Assassins. A game with roots going back to Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth, now popular among the 09-er set. The way it worked was simple: on the chosen day, those selected for the game received a set of instructions in their locker. A name, of an equally socially acceptable target. A sheet of round neon stickers had replaced the more traditional Nerf guns after everyone went wacky post-Columbine. Somehow, the ever-vigilant Neptune High administration that could overlook binge drinking on the bleachers had developed a zero-tolerance policy on cheap plastic weaponry. It was nice to know they were cracking down on the REAL problems.
Of course, the object of the game hadn’t changed throughout the years. Kill or be killed. Killed? Pass off the name of your target to your killer. A simple process of elimination, gangland style.
Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. No one was allowed to witness you placing the mark of death on your target - if you were caught, not only could you not attempt an attack for the rest of the day, your cover was totally blown for the next time you tried to hunt down your prey. During Assassins, people took (even more than usual) to huddling in little packs around campus, looking suspiciously over their shoulders.
The unpredictable aspect of Assassins was the best part - no place was off limits, in school or out. This lead to at least a half-dozen Assassins parties the first week of the hunt, where you hoped your target would get so wasted that they wouldn’t notice when you stuck a big neon orange dot in the middle of their forehead.
That was the other thing. No one knew how long Assassins would last. Rumor had it that back in the seventies, it had taken three and a half long months for the winner to emerge. On the day of graduation, as one student shook the hand of another in congratulation, he palmed the death note (the mode of killing in the early years) into his opponent’s hand.
These days, things went usually went a little faster. Last year, after a week and a half of grueling stickering, the honors went to Rodney Miller, a basketball playing senior more known for his forehead can-crushing prowess and triple-digit SAT scores than his stealth capabilities.
Veronica sighs as she twirls her combination lock. Breathe, Veronica, she tells herself as the dial clicks into place. Worst case scenario, they'll all be too hung over from Assassins festivities to remember her one-woman crusade from last week, much less pay her much mind. Best case -
But she doesn't get that far in her train of thought - oh god.
Because in the middle of her locker, on top of her books? A small envelope. The kind that come attached to floral bouquets. On the front: her name. Bright red target drawn on in the corner. The same as everyone else’s.
Shit. She’s in.
Adrenaline ricochets to her fingertips and makes them twitch. She turns her head sharply, her eyes darting from person to person, hoping to spy the one with their eyes on her, waiting for her to explode. But they're wrapped up in their own envelopes, own targets. If it's a joke, no one's laughing, or they're hiding it well.
But she should have known it wouldn't be as easy as that. When it comes to the person or conglomerate who decides which lucky Neptuners get to be in the game, and more importantly, who assigns targets, well - that secret's more well guarded than the virginity of Edith Mitchell, also known as Neptune High's token fundamentalist Christian.
Envelope carefully concealed in her palm, she closes her locker with a slam before resting her forehead briefly on the cool metal door, trying to hone in on an incriminating voice in the cacaphonous hallyway chatter. Something tells her that this isn't going to be as easy as catching a money shot at a seedy motel. Of course not. Because this is personal.
She pushes herself upright and scans the hallway once more.
The real question isn't why the mystery Assassins team invited me into their sordid underworld. It's about who has a vested interest in my metaphorical death? Duncan Kane, whose family’s mortar had been chipped away by my father’s investigation?
Duncan, wearing a blue checked shirt, meticulously stacking books in his locker as Veronica watches, lips pursed.
Logan Echolls, who seems to place the misery of others at the top of his to do list?
Logan, slouching lazily against a row of yellow lockers in the middle of a crowd of J.Crew and Pac Sun clad guys, laughing as rubber bands whizzed from his outstretched finger into the middle of the crowded hall. A tall girl with a patterned scrunchie on her frizzy ponytail cringes as the projectile makes contact with the back of her neck.
Or is it the unidentified amateur vandal who had shoe-polished the words “Abel, it should’ve been her” on the back of my car at Shelley Pomroy's party?
A gaggle of girls in the green and gold cheerleading uniforms of Neptune sweep by, turning away from Veronica in what is obviously a deliberate snub.
I trust I don’t have to explain that there’s no love lost between me and the 09ers.
Veronica eyes the nondescript white envelope in her hand, with her name in clear black printing, then shoves it hastily into her bag as the bell reverberates through the hallway, dispersing the groups of students into the waiting classrooms.
Even though last year, I was just as much of a killer as the rest of them…
*
"God, I hate this," Lilly moaned, her face pressed into her crossed arms which rested on the picnic table. "Can't it just end already?"
Veronica laid a hand on Lilly's shoulder. "Lilly, don't feel dejected. I mean, nobody except the seniors ever win."
She knew this from experience. Veronica herself had been taken out the day before by Ivan Stokes, who had stopped to help her pick up a notebook she had dropped as she hustled down an empty hallway to a class she was already late for and almost apologetically laid his hand on her hip.
"No!" Lilly's voice was muffled. "I don't care about winning, duh. It's just that the sticker totally ruined my pink mohair sweater!" She flipped her head up and her hair fanned out behind her. "See?" she said, twisting her body and pointing at a barely visible bit of pilling on her left shoulder.
"Oh." Veronica watched as three senior girls across the lawn pressed their heads together to look at a small piece of paper that had been removed from an envelope. Two high fived as one of the girls, a short brunette, blushed. "I mean, yeah, whatever, I totally don't care either."
"Yeah?" Lilly's eyes narrowed as she followed Veronica's gaze. "Then what are you looking at?"
"Wuh?" Veronica blinked. "Oh, I think Leigh got Mike Holt as her next target," she whispered conspiratorially. "Did you see how she freaked out when she showed her friends the envelope? Everyone knows she totally has a crush on him." The brunette was hastily tucking the envelope back into her Louis Vuitton purse, as one of her friends grabbed her arm.
"How totally wise of you! But now, junior detective, it is time to put away the decoder ring and let's talk about something that really matters," Lilly's eyes flashed and she pulled a Cosmo from her bag. "How to make your man moan in five easy steps! Step one…"
"Lilly!" Veronica squealed, but her eyes followed the three girls until they were out of sight.
The next day, the rumor mill reported Mike Holt out of the game, and Veronica felt a warm rush when she discovered she had been right about his killer.
*
"Hey honey, how was school today?" Her dad kisses the side of her head as she adds salt to the boiling pot on the stove.
"You know. The usual. Mass murder, schoolwide conspiracy, soggy tater tots."
"Owch. I'll call in my favor from Oliver Stone, put him on Ore-Ida detail."
She smiles and tilts her head. So maybe making the drama into a joke isn't the best way of highlighting her growing concerns. It's not like she's intentionally keeping secrets. But he's got enough to worry about without causing him stress in the form of neon stickers, and the last thing she needs is for him to make a trip down to Office Depot and buy out all their brightly colored labels.
It's not until Veronica is safely in the confines of her bedroom, digging for her yellowing copy of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities that the envelope falls out of her bag. Flinging it into the garbage along with a half eaten apple seems like an excellent choice at first. But, dammit, curiosity gets the best of her. Her fingers fumble as she tears at the flap.
She has to blink three times to make sure she's reading the words right.
Well, Veronica, no one ever said fate didn’t have a sense of humor.
In clear block lettering, the sheet of paper reads Logan Echolls.
*
It's a tense few days at Neptune High, and Veronica keeps looking over her shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Strangely, it never does.
Whoever did it put her in the game for a reason, she has no doubt. She goes back and forth on the why. If they did it to make her paranoid - well, they've succeeded.
Every afternoon she checks her backseat before climbing into her car. Twice, she whirls around in an empty hallway to find that no one is there. During study hall, she taps her fingernails on the side of the desk for so long that the monitor approaches her, asks her if she's considering trying out for the percussion section of the high school band.
She keeps the envelope with Logan's name in her bag. More than once she has been tempted to throw it away, but she hasn't.
Her eyes have been trained on her given 'target' for three straight days. Not because she's out to kill him, but because - well, he's Logan. Strangely, if anything, he's even less abrasive than usual. Once, he catches her looking in his direction and he doesn't even leer or throw anything sharp or sticky.
In her book, his good behavior alone is enough to make him a suspect.
The problem is, all she's had to run on is conjecture, and the truth of the matter is that by Thursday afternoon, she's no closer to figuring out the who or the why.
*
The final bell hasn't rung yet in her eighth period Thursday class, so there’s plenty of chatter as the students open textbooks and three ring binders, preparing for another one of Zimmerman's soporific lectures on Abraham Lincoln's accomplishments. Just as it has gone for the past three days, Assassins rumors and facts, are of course, the gossip du jour.
"He's been looking for an excuse to break up with her for weeks, and so the sticker did double duty..."
"First, she distracted him with a blow job, then, before the sheets had time to dry…"
Gross.
Mercifully, the bell rings before Veronica has to hear a single 'little death' metaphor and Mr. Zimmerman calls the class to order.
“I trust everyone remembers that your projects on major battles of the Civil War are due tomorrow. They’re worth ten percent of your final grade,” he scrawled a “10” on the board. Why did teachers always feel the need to reiterate the obvious? Veronica glanced at Dick, who was gazing up at a pencil that had he had lodged in the ceiling tiles moments before.
Then again…
“Be ready to present with or without your partner, people. Their emergency appendectomy is not your excuse.”
Self-selecting group projects. Nature’s way of justifying cheating, with the super extra bonus of creating social awkwardness. Fortunately, the year’s requisite Vietnamese exchange student seemed to have no issue with working with Veronica. Most likely, her limited knowledge of the English language hadn’t extended to the phrase “social pariah.” And once she had been brought up to speed on General Lee’s biography and why people in Texas still liked to drive with Confederate flags plastered to the bumpers of their pick up trucks, Than-ho had proven to be a remarkably competent partner.
Unlike some people’s choices.
"Um, Mr. Zimmerman?" A blonde girl raises her hand.
That would be Madison Sinclair. Now there's a girl who is physically incapable of speaking without a corresponding hair-flip. She's been used to getting her way since first grade, when our teacher let her do a diorama composed entirely of My Little Ponies.
"Can Dick and I have an extension on the project - after all, I’m totally busy with my myriad school duties." She smiles smugly.
“Miss Sinclair, Mr. Casablancas," Mr Zimmerman castigates, "I’m afraid that covering people’s backpacks with post-it notes isn’t covered under the umbrella of ‘extracurriculars’”
Madison glares at Dick, getting in a good thwack of his shoulder with her spiral bound notebook. He shrugs.
Poor Madison. That’s what you get for overestimating the work ethic of a man-boy who owns a “My Mexican works for less than your Mexican” t-shirt.
As Zimmerman drones on, Veronica picks up disjointed whispers from the back of the class.
"This is your fault entirely, Dick - I’m out of the game! Winning the game matters more to you than your grades."
"If I had gotten you, you know I’d have taken you to the end, baby," Dick smarms. As if on cue, the pencil in the ceiling wiggles, begins to fall.
Wait a second - here we have DICK, he who is surprised when the pencil *he* threw dislodges from the ceiling and falls on his head - still in the game? How is that even possible?
That's when it hits home. My god. She’s been so hung up on the fact that people want to kill her that she’d almost forgotten…
*
"So, it appears the misery is over," Duncan observed blandly, poking a spork into a limp tater tot.
"Ohmigod Veronica!" Lilly waved her hands. Little droplets of oil and vinegar flew from her plastic cutlery and sprayed in Duncan's direction, but he seemed unfazed. "Wouldn’t it be great if next year, I had you and you had me? Then while everyone else went around knocking each other off, we’d totally be safe. Plus, it would cut back on my dry-cleaning bills.”
"Um, wouldn’t that be, like, cheating? Could you even DO that?"
Lilly leaned in, eyes twinkling. "I’ve got friends in high places." She paused and pressed her lips together. "Besides, how do you think Rod Miller won this year?" She gestured across the patio as Rod and his friends stood on a table, cheering and pumping their fists. "He and his friends “miraculously” wound up with each other as targets, and called a cease-fire until they were the only ones left.” Lilly waved her hand in jaded dismissal. “Victory.”
"So then how did they pick the winner?" Veronica asked.
“Dick measuring contest,” Lilly said offhandedly, taking a sip of her Dr. Pepper. “God, where were you, I’m absolutely famished,” she said into the air behind Veronica.
But Veronica’s eyes were wide. “So you mean the guy with the biggest…” she began.
Logan cut her off by swooping past Veronica. He plopped down at the table between Lilly and Veronica, steaming pizza box in one hand, other arm falling easily around Lilly’s shoulders. “Smallest,” he said matter-of-factly. “I mean, guy’s got to have something to feel good about, right?”
“Someone’s been peeking around in the locker room again,” Lilly yawned. She rolled her eyes in Veronica’s direction, and Veronica giggled behind her hand.
“So I guess that means you’re going to win next year?” Duncan’s eyes were innocent for a moment. Then he smirked, and the table dissolved into a round of giggles and false punches. A happy family, bathed in the odd bluish light cast on the table by a large patio umbrella.
Logan pulled Lilly closer until she was almost on his lap and smiled. “With you guys protecting me, I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
*
How could she have been so blind? That was it. This year’s juniors were just beyond marginally pathetic. Or maybe they were just tasteful. The torch was passed on early, and the sophomore guys headed Assassins this year. The old boys club was behind it. They were the ones who picked the targets, assigned names.
And, sure enough, a little research via eavesdropping proves it. They're all still in. Duncan, Logan, Dick, Sean - it’s the ultimate partner project.
Sure, maybe they've left her alone for the past three days, but they're not the type to let this slide. No. And Logan's uncharacteristic lack of assholery this week makes sense, in a calm before the storm way. She knows their M.O. They’ve set her up for some big fall, a giant dramatic overstaged death. Dodgeball style, stickers all over her body, no one willing to stand up for her and witness. Hallway humiliation. They had the power and the motive to set her up.
Now, to find out what they’re planning, and when it’s going to happen.
It's time for some surveillance.
*
She knows just where to find them, that crowd of usual suspects: Dick, Duncan, Beaver, Logan, Sean. One of the many safe havens of the 09er - the public beach.
When Veronica arrives, headlights off and coasting in neutral, the sky is just turning to dusk and it's still light enough to find the small crowd that has gathered, although even if it were dark, following their voices wouldn't have been difficult. When she gets close enough to see the group, she can tell that although they’ve broken out the flasks, no one’s plastered enough to be incoherent - yet - but the guyspeak is flying. Veronica yawns and positions herself and her camera behind a large garbage can. Welcome to the Neptune Thursday night equivalent of Must See TV.
Fortunately, she doesn't have long to wait before the conversation heads into incriminating territory.
"Dude, you still haven’t told us who you have now. You’re not going to try to pop a cap in one of us after we pass out, right?" Dick is using a surfboard for a pillow. Veronica would say that’s gotta be uncomfortable, but with Dick's thick skull and the assistance of 80 proof fiberfill, she highly doubts it.
"Easy, Snoop," Logan rolls a bottlecap over the tops of his knuckles with the same ease as he would a quarter. "You’d have better luck getting Johnny Foreplay here to give up the reason why he never did the deed with Veronica."
Veronica, from her safe position, is still embarrassed to have heard, but the fact that Duncan's eyes don't raise to meet the group catches her off guard.
"Way to go with the vague answers, Logan. I think that why you’re so good at this game. You’re a Master of Avoidance! I mean, you’ve already figured out who has you, right? ‘Cause I still haven’t seen anyone after you and it’s been like, a week," Sean butts in.
Logan, presses his fingertips together, impersonating an Indian Guru: "Ahh, the Master never reveals his secrets."
Oh my god. That's it? That's ALL? What a downer of a big reveal. Logan’s friends don’t know who has him, so he’s not using them to protect him. But Logan knows the strategy - and he’s always had friends in high places - he even managed to dupe the people who were supposed to be organizing the game. What better way to ensure his safety than to pick someone who had loudly proclaimed that she wasn't going to play?
She decides not to stick around much longer after they break out the fart jokes. After all, she's heard all she needs to hear. Her lips press into a straight line. Suddenly, she’s in the game.
Logan thinks he’s safe? He’s so dead.
*
Friday morning is bright and sunny. The perfect weather to interrupt your arch nemesis' inevitable hangover with a little old fashioned confrontation.
It's remarkably easy to corral Logan into the Janitor's closet before first period, and she seems to have been right about the hangover: he doesn't even make a crack until well after she's pushed his lanky frame through the narrow doorway.
"Hmm," he tents his fingers. "How those on a high moral pedestal have stumbled ever downwards. Although you're a tiny bit rusty on the rules. Given that you've already gotten my attention, it's going to be pretty difficult to exterminate me without my taking notice. On the upside, the sink will make for easy cleanup of any spilled blood..."
"So you knew," Veronica's eyes flash in triumph.
Logan bows his head. "Confession? Yes. I'm underwhelmed by your surprise. Next time work harder on your Macaulay Culkin impression."
Veronica smiles thinly. "Yeah," she draws out the word. "See, Logan, I'm on to your little plan. The one you'd made with your so-called friends, Dick, Duncan? But, you know, I don't think that your trust in their friendship was enough. You’ve got enemies everywhere, so why should you believe that they were going to hold up their end of the bargain? Here’s a bright idea: why not rig the game so that the one girl who made a very vocal public protest against the contest was your assassin so you'd be guaranteed safety? After all, my name was still on the lists from last year. A few words to convince the others - wouldn’t it be just dandy if we humiliated Veronica a little more? Hunted her down in various pants-wetting scenarios?" Veronica's voice was becoming a yell. " Didn’t let her forget, even just one tiny bit, that her best friend was dead, and that if they had it their way, she’d follow in those footsteps?"
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to award you an 'F' in perception. Perhaps you haven't had time to notice, but given the relative dryness of your pants, I'd hoped you'd already figured out it wasn’t like that," Logan's voice cracked on 'that," then hushed to a whisper. "I just did it to come out on top."
"Already figured that part out, exposition boy. And if I was killed? Did you think of what would happen to your plan if some Neptune random killed me, picked up YOUR name and hunted you down like the dog you are?"
Logan turns his back and rustles through his bag. Veronica's heart is racing. He pulls out the tiny wrinkled envelope and flourishes the paper and stickers inside, pushing his arm out so his body stays at a safe distance while she can still read the words. On the paper, in the same neat block lettering as the slip in her envelope - “Veronica Mars”
"Luck of the draw?" she asks bitterly.
Logan is quick to correct, even as he is shoving the paper with Veronica’s name and the stickers into the back pocket of his jeans.
"Hey, do you know how many people I had to kill to get to you?"
Veronica struggles to keep her voice firm, her eyes looking straight into Logan’s. "I don’t know, but I’m guessing one of them wasn’t Lilly Kane."
Logan is mollified.
"I can’t believe, you, of all people, would be the one to spearhead this. Death isn’t a game, Logan."
"You don’t think I know that?" His next words turn bitter, mocking Veronica's tone. "My girlfriend died, Veronica."
"And what a fitting tribute to her life. Wouldn’t a marble fountain have been more apropos?"
Her voice remains sharp and cutting, but her steel is bending, and Logan flickers in front of her. She wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been looking closely, but his shoulders fall. Veronica's spent time watching her dad work, learning to read body language, and if she's not mistaken, Logan’s ready to let go of a burden.
For that one brief moment she no longer views him as he is now, cold and rigid and hateful. He is the thirteen year old boy that she played party games with at Lilly's fourteenth birthday after all the other invited guests had gone home; infantile time wasters like "stiff as a feather, light as a board." When she had laid on the ground she had thought Duncan had been at her head. "Close your eyes," Lilly had said, but then, when she had opened them, she found that it was Logan's fingertips under her shoulders. She remembers that in that instant, she felt as though she really could float.
"I just thought - if I could win - if I could be the one to cheat death - well, maybe I’d make up for the fact that Lilly couldn’t. Didn’t."
Veronica catches her reflection in the dirty glass mirror that hangs above the utility sink and is surprised at what she sees. Hell, her face almost looks like she’s going to buy it, for a second. That must be what makes Logan's face soften; she sees that too, the lines on his forehead settling into relief, or sympathy, and she is surprised by him for the second time in less than a minute.
Then -
"That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard, Logan."
Then Logan is angry, she can also see that in his face - he gave something up to her, for a second, but it didn’t work. He throws his arms wide and his mouth twists into a grimace.
"So go ahead. Kill me. End it now."
He steps closer and closer, getting in her face like a dare. Her heart races, and she does not move.
"Thought so," he says. Then he is kissing her, harshly, his teeth clacking against hers. And she - she gives in.
The fact of the matter is, Lilly's death fucked them both up, in opposite directions, but she can see it now, for the first time, that they're kind of the same.
Her mouth opens against his and she feels the tip of his tongue, the press of his thighs as he steps her backwards until she is almost to the wall. A hanging broom tickles the back of her neck, and even as he pulls his head away for a moment, his breath is warm enough on her cheek and his eyes are open, watching.
His thumb traces her lower lip, pulls it down.
Veronica closes her eyes again, lets her mouth find his. She drops her bag and skates her right hand over his side, down to his ass, searching. Her fingers slip into his back pocket as they kiss, and he takes it as an invitation, dipping his knees and pressing his hips into hers. Slowly, deliberately, her hand comes up to his chest, settles there, though only for a moment.
Before she opens her eyes, she imagines what they must look like, standing there, bodies inches apart, her hand moving from chest to shoulder, his fingertips under her chin. Probably almost tender.
They break. Veronica takes one step back. Picks up her bag. Looks him straight in the eyes. Emotionless.
You see, Logan, here’s the deal: you might think you’re wise and mighty, but I know your secrets, because Lilly told them to me. Underneath the façade that adds the -moric to sophomore, you’re just as hurt as the rest of us. I see that now.
Logan slowly looks down. His face falls.
But that doesn't mean you get to be forgiven. Because winning your stupid game isn’t going to bring her back. And that kiss? Unlike the rest of the girls in the class who are dying to be Aaron Echolls’ daughter in law, I’m not going to fall at your feet and swoon.
Veronica bites her lower lip, just the edge. Shakes her head like she’s trying to brush something off. Fine. Maybe there was a little swooniness there - not that she would publicly admit it.
The point is, Logan, you’re going to have to drop the games and find a better method of coping. Because me? I follow Gloria Gaynor’s philosophy. And you? If you’d really wanted to win, you shouldn’t have put me in the game.
Logan steps back, almost a stumble. On his chest, where Veronica’s hand had been during their kiss, is a solitary red sticker.
Bang.
-end-
Pairing: Veronica/Logan
Words: ~5,500
Rating: TV-14
Spoilers: Pre season 1. Spoilers to certain flashback events depicted during season 1.
Synopsis: Lilly Kane’s murder hasn’t stopped the 09ers from holding their exclusive annual Assassins game. When Veronica finds herself in the game, she’s determined to discover who wants her dead - even if this time, the murder is only metaphorical.
The bulk of this was written/outlined in August 2005, right after I had watched the first season of Veronica Mars and fallen in love.
The rest was written in stops and starts on two or three other occasions.
It had almost taken on the whiff of an abandoned story, but I loved the premise, and I couldn't let it fall apart. So today, I decided to flesh out the rest of the outline and call it done.
This is not as good or complete as I once hoped it would be. Yet at the same time, I'm letting it quietly exist here, in this form, because I no longer want it hanging over my head. Hopefully the 2,000 words I wrote today, when I am no longer in love with the show or Veronica, do not detract too much from the words that I wrote a year ago, back when I was.
All mistakes mine. Much thanks to the girls who gave me feedback at various points during this story's existence, but especially to torchthisnow, mandilyn, buffyx, jascott, and helpwess.
Premises belong to Rob Thomas and Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Prep, a chapter of which was the first inspiration behind the Assassins concept.
All shapes and colors of feedback = adored.
And now, with extended author's note behind me and without further ado: Assassins.
Assassins
by missdeviant
The first rule of surviving high school - never let them see you flinch. Lilly Kane taught me that.
The spring “breeze” whips harshly across the Neptune high parking lot. Girls hurrying to the building from their luxury vehicles hunch their shoulders against the gusts. Sometimes they pause to pull strands of hair from their faces, where it is stuck in their lip gloss.
She also taught me rules two through seventy three of high school, gems including “never wear the same outfit twice in one month,” and “when the free lunch kids won’t even eat what the cafeteria dishes out, it’s time to call Cho’s Pizza.”
Bits of paper blow wildly across the asphalt surface. Spent issues of the Navigator, rumpled and used as coasters for four dollar cups of specialty coffee. Fliers advertising next week’s meeting of the Citizens for an Unpolluted Neptune Township - ha ha, very funny - that had dislodged from the bulletin boards scattered across campus. Somebody’s Geometry test - a 64, with “See Me!” scrawled across the top in angry red letters.
A hot pink flier carried by the swirling wind hits Veronica Mars squarely in the chest. A few of the students scampering across the parking lot turn and titter. Yes, how appropriate. Trash for the trash. Isn’t the world *poetic* like that?
Veronica smiles wryly and gives a sarcastic wave as she peels the offending sheet from where the wind had pinned it and gives it a quick glance.
Then - she flinches.
The front of the flier bears the image of a death’s head smiling, all empty eyes and gaping mouth. A date, at the bottom - four days from today. And in bold font, “The hunt begins.”
Veronica clenches the fist holding the flier, crumpling the paper in one quick squeeze as her narrowed eyes dart around the parking lot.
Neptune High -always a game of kill or be killed. Lilly was right. But knowing all the rules doesn’t keep you safe in this world.
If it did, she’d still be here.
*
It was supposed to be a game.
Between Prom preparation and SAT cramming sessions, the junior class elite managed to find time to organize another, off the books spring event: the Assassins hunt. Of course, unlike the prom and the SATs, this Neptune tradition’s roots were strictly upper class. You didn’t know someone, you couldn’t play. The way the 09ers explained it, it was like the hoods had more time worried about actual drive-bys than pretend ones. When the week after spring break - traditional Assassins season - had passed without so much as a muffled gunshot, Veronica had assumed that it wasn’t going to happen this year.
Obviously? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
*
Flier in hand, Veronica storms into the school where students are scattered in groups, enjoying the lazy calm before the warning bell rings.
"Somebody's putting the combat into boots," she hears as she storms towards one of the clumps of students, leans up to get in their collective smirking face.
"Who’s doing this?" she demands. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Logan Echolls, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth.
"You think this is funny?" she asks, whirling around pressing towards him, even as he's surrounded by his own bunch of stupid cronies. "Are you forgetting your classmate? Your friend? Lilly Kane, who’s out there in her GRAVE while you people treat murder like it’s a round of Frisbee golf?"
A murmur from somewhere behind her catches her off guard. "Dude, someone hasn’t gotten laid recently."
"Or someone’s getting laid too MUCH."
Laughter. The warning bell is all that saves a random in a letterman's jacket from getting kneed in the balls.
Veronica wishes that instead of turning and running, she would have barfed on someone's shoes. Right now, she feels like she could.
*
The school quiets down for a few days, which means no one eggs her car or scratches classy terms into the paint of her locker, which says something about the collective attention spans of Neptune teens. Of course, it's too good to last and sooner or later, it happens. People, at lockers, peeking into the tiny envelopes they find there. Smiling.
The game’s afoot.
Assassins. A game with roots going back to Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth, now popular among the 09-er set. The way it worked was simple: on the chosen day, those selected for the game received a set of instructions in their locker. A name, of an equally socially acceptable target. A sheet of round neon stickers had replaced the more traditional Nerf guns after everyone went wacky post-Columbine. Somehow, the ever-vigilant Neptune High administration that could overlook binge drinking on the bleachers had developed a zero-tolerance policy on cheap plastic weaponry. It was nice to know they were cracking down on the REAL problems.
Of course, the object of the game hadn’t changed throughout the years. Kill or be killed. Killed? Pass off the name of your target to your killer. A simple process of elimination, gangland style.
Well, it wasn’t quite that easy. No one was allowed to witness you placing the mark of death on your target - if you were caught, not only could you not attempt an attack for the rest of the day, your cover was totally blown for the next time you tried to hunt down your prey. During Assassins, people took (even more than usual) to huddling in little packs around campus, looking suspiciously over their shoulders.
The unpredictable aspect of Assassins was the best part - no place was off limits, in school or out. This lead to at least a half-dozen Assassins parties the first week of the hunt, where you hoped your target would get so wasted that they wouldn’t notice when you stuck a big neon orange dot in the middle of their forehead.
That was the other thing. No one knew how long Assassins would last. Rumor had it that back in the seventies, it had taken three and a half long months for the winner to emerge. On the day of graduation, as one student shook the hand of another in congratulation, he palmed the death note (the mode of killing in the early years) into his opponent’s hand.
These days, things went usually went a little faster. Last year, after a week and a half of grueling stickering, the honors went to Rodney Miller, a basketball playing senior more known for his forehead can-crushing prowess and triple-digit SAT scores than his stealth capabilities.
Veronica sighs as she twirls her combination lock. Breathe, Veronica, she tells herself as the dial clicks into place. Worst case scenario, they'll all be too hung over from Assassins festivities to remember her one-woman crusade from last week, much less pay her much mind. Best case -
But she doesn't get that far in her train of thought - oh god.
Because in the middle of her locker, on top of her books? A small envelope. The kind that come attached to floral bouquets. On the front: her name. Bright red target drawn on in the corner. The same as everyone else’s.
Shit. She’s in.
Adrenaline ricochets to her fingertips and makes them twitch. She turns her head sharply, her eyes darting from person to person, hoping to spy the one with their eyes on her, waiting for her to explode. But they're wrapped up in their own envelopes, own targets. If it's a joke, no one's laughing, or they're hiding it well.
But she should have known it wouldn't be as easy as that. When it comes to the person or conglomerate who decides which lucky Neptuners get to be in the game, and more importantly, who assigns targets, well - that secret's more well guarded than the virginity of Edith Mitchell, also known as Neptune High's token fundamentalist Christian.
Envelope carefully concealed in her palm, she closes her locker with a slam before resting her forehead briefly on the cool metal door, trying to hone in on an incriminating voice in the cacaphonous hallyway chatter. Something tells her that this isn't going to be as easy as catching a money shot at a seedy motel. Of course not. Because this is personal.
She pushes herself upright and scans the hallway once more.
The real question isn't why the mystery Assassins team invited me into their sordid underworld. It's about who has a vested interest in my metaphorical death? Duncan Kane, whose family’s mortar had been chipped away by my father’s investigation?
Duncan, wearing a blue checked shirt, meticulously stacking books in his locker as Veronica watches, lips pursed.
Logan Echolls, who seems to place the misery of others at the top of his to do list?
Logan, slouching lazily against a row of yellow lockers in the middle of a crowd of J.Crew and Pac Sun clad guys, laughing as rubber bands whizzed from his outstretched finger into the middle of the crowded hall. A tall girl with a patterned scrunchie on her frizzy ponytail cringes as the projectile makes contact with the back of her neck.
Or is it the unidentified amateur vandal who had shoe-polished the words “Abel, it should’ve been her” on the back of my car at Shelley Pomroy's party?
A gaggle of girls in the green and gold cheerleading uniforms of Neptune sweep by, turning away from Veronica in what is obviously a deliberate snub.
I trust I don’t have to explain that there’s no love lost between me and the 09ers.
Veronica eyes the nondescript white envelope in her hand, with her name in clear black printing, then shoves it hastily into her bag as the bell reverberates through the hallway, dispersing the groups of students into the waiting classrooms.
Even though last year, I was just as much of a killer as the rest of them…
*
"God, I hate this," Lilly moaned, her face pressed into her crossed arms which rested on the picnic table. "Can't it just end already?"
Veronica laid a hand on Lilly's shoulder. "Lilly, don't feel dejected. I mean, nobody except the seniors ever win."
She knew this from experience. Veronica herself had been taken out the day before by Ivan Stokes, who had stopped to help her pick up a notebook she had dropped as she hustled down an empty hallway to a class she was already late for and almost apologetically laid his hand on her hip.
"No!" Lilly's voice was muffled. "I don't care about winning, duh. It's just that the sticker totally ruined my pink mohair sweater!" She flipped her head up and her hair fanned out behind her. "See?" she said, twisting her body and pointing at a barely visible bit of pilling on her left shoulder.
"Oh." Veronica watched as three senior girls across the lawn pressed their heads together to look at a small piece of paper that had been removed from an envelope. Two high fived as one of the girls, a short brunette, blushed. "I mean, yeah, whatever, I totally don't care either."
"Yeah?" Lilly's eyes narrowed as she followed Veronica's gaze. "Then what are you looking at?"
"Wuh?" Veronica blinked. "Oh, I think Leigh got Mike Holt as her next target," she whispered conspiratorially. "Did you see how she freaked out when she showed her friends the envelope? Everyone knows she totally has a crush on him." The brunette was hastily tucking the envelope back into her Louis Vuitton purse, as one of her friends grabbed her arm.
"How totally wise of you! But now, junior detective, it is time to put away the decoder ring and let's talk about something that really matters," Lilly's eyes flashed and she pulled a Cosmo from her bag. "How to make your man moan in five easy steps! Step one…"
"Lilly!" Veronica squealed, but her eyes followed the three girls until they were out of sight.
The next day, the rumor mill reported Mike Holt out of the game, and Veronica felt a warm rush when she discovered she had been right about his killer.
*
"Hey honey, how was school today?" Her dad kisses the side of her head as she adds salt to the boiling pot on the stove.
"You know. The usual. Mass murder, schoolwide conspiracy, soggy tater tots."
"Owch. I'll call in my favor from Oliver Stone, put him on Ore-Ida detail."
She smiles and tilts her head. So maybe making the drama into a joke isn't the best way of highlighting her growing concerns. It's not like she's intentionally keeping secrets. But he's got enough to worry about without causing him stress in the form of neon stickers, and the last thing she needs is for him to make a trip down to Office Depot and buy out all their brightly colored labels.
It's not until Veronica is safely in the confines of her bedroom, digging for her yellowing copy of Dickens' Tale of Two Cities that the envelope falls out of her bag. Flinging it into the garbage along with a half eaten apple seems like an excellent choice at first. But, dammit, curiosity gets the best of her. Her fingers fumble as she tears at the flap.
She has to blink three times to make sure she's reading the words right.
Well, Veronica, no one ever said fate didn’t have a sense of humor.
In clear block lettering, the sheet of paper reads Logan Echolls.
*
It's a tense few days at Neptune High, and Veronica keeps looking over her shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Strangely, it never does.
Whoever did it put her in the game for a reason, she has no doubt. She goes back and forth on the why. If they did it to make her paranoid - well, they've succeeded.
Every afternoon she checks her backseat before climbing into her car. Twice, she whirls around in an empty hallway to find that no one is there. During study hall, she taps her fingernails on the side of the desk for so long that the monitor approaches her, asks her if she's considering trying out for the percussion section of the high school band.
She keeps the envelope with Logan's name in her bag. More than once she has been tempted to throw it away, but she hasn't.
Her eyes have been trained on her given 'target' for three straight days. Not because she's out to kill him, but because - well, he's Logan. Strangely, if anything, he's even less abrasive than usual. Once, he catches her looking in his direction and he doesn't even leer or throw anything sharp or sticky.
In her book, his good behavior alone is enough to make him a suspect.
The problem is, all she's had to run on is conjecture, and the truth of the matter is that by Thursday afternoon, she's no closer to figuring out the who or the why.
*
The final bell hasn't rung yet in her eighth period Thursday class, so there’s plenty of chatter as the students open textbooks and three ring binders, preparing for another one of Zimmerman's soporific lectures on Abraham Lincoln's accomplishments. Just as it has gone for the past three days, Assassins rumors and facts, are of course, the gossip du jour.
"He's been looking for an excuse to break up with her for weeks, and so the sticker did double duty..."
"First, she distracted him with a blow job, then, before the sheets had time to dry…"
Gross.
Mercifully, the bell rings before Veronica has to hear a single 'little death' metaphor and Mr. Zimmerman calls the class to order.
“I trust everyone remembers that your projects on major battles of the Civil War are due tomorrow. They’re worth ten percent of your final grade,” he scrawled a “10” on the board. Why did teachers always feel the need to reiterate the obvious? Veronica glanced at Dick, who was gazing up at a pencil that had he had lodged in the ceiling tiles moments before.
Then again…
“Be ready to present with or without your partner, people. Their emergency appendectomy is not your excuse.”
Self-selecting group projects. Nature’s way of justifying cheating, with the super extra bonus of creating social awkwardness. Fortunately, the year’s requisite Vietnamese exchange student seemed to have no issue with working with Veronica. Most likely, her limited knowledge of the English language hadn’t extended to the phrase “social pariah.” And once she had been brought up to speed on General Lee’s biography and why people in Texas still liked to drive with Confederate flags plastered to the bumpers of their pick up trucks, Than-ho had proven to be a remarkably competent partner.
Unlike some people’s choices.
"Um, Mr. Zimmerman?" A blonde girl raises her hand.
That would be Madison Sinclair. Now there's a girl who is physically incapable of speaking without a corresponding hair-flip. She's been used to getting her way since first grade, when our teacher let her do a diorama composed entirely of My Little Ponies.
"Can Dick and I have an extension on the project - after all, I’m totally busy with my myriad school duties." She smiles smugly.
“Miss Sinclair, Mr. Casablancas," Mr Zimmerman castigates, "I’m afraid that covering people’s backpacks with post-it notes isn’t covered under the umbrella of ‘extracurriculars’”
Madison glares at Dick, getting in a good thwack of his shoulder with her spiral bound notebook. He shrugs.
Poor Madison. That’s what you get for overestimating the work ethic of a man-boy who owns a “My Mexican works for less than your Mexican” t-shirt.
As Zimmerman drones on, Veronica picks up disjointed whispers from the back of the class.
"This is your fault entirely, Dick - I’m out of the game! Winning the game matters more to you than your grades."
"If I had gotten you, you know I’d have taken you to the end, baby," Dick smarms. As if on cue, the pencil in the ceiling wiggles, begins to fall.
Wait a second - here we have DICK, he who is surprised when the pencil *he* threw dislodges from the ceiling and falls on his head - still in the game? How is that even possible?
That's when it hits home. My god. She’s been so hung up on the fact that people want to kill her that she’d almost forgotten…
*
"So, it appears the misery is over," Duncan observed blandly, poking a spork into a limp tater tot.
"Ohmigod Veronica!" Lilly waved her hands. Little droplets of oil and vinegar flew from her plastic cutlery and sprayed in Duncan's direction, but he seemed unfazed. "Wouldn’t it be great if next year, I had you and you had me? Then while everyone else went around knocking each other off, we’d totally be safe. Plus, it would cut back on my dry-cleaning bills.”
"Um, wouldn’t that be, like, cheating? Could you even DO that?"
Lilly leaned in, eyes twinkling. "I’ve got friends in high places." She paused and pressed her lips together. "Besides, how do you think Rod Miller won this year?" She gestured across the patio as Rod and his friends stood on a table, cheering and pumping their fists. "He and his friends “miraculously” wound up with each other as targets, and called a cease-fire until they were the only ones left.” Lilly waved her hand in jaded dismissal. “Victory.”
"So then how did they pick the winner?" Veronica asked.
“Dick measuring contest,” Lilly said offhandedly, taking a sip of her Dr. Pepper. “God, where were you, I’m absolutely famished,” she said into the air behind Veronica.
But Veronica’s eyes were wide. “So you mean the guy with the biggest…” she began.
Logan cut her off by swooping past Veronica. He plopped down at the table between Lilly and Veronica, steaming pizza box in one hand, other arm falling easily around Lilly’s shoulders. “Smallest,” he said matter-of-factly. “I mean, guy’s got to have something to feel good about, right?”
“Someone’s been peeking around in the locker room again,” Lilly yawned. She rolled her eyes in Veronica’s direction, and Veronica giggled behind her hand.
“So I guess that means you’re going to win next year?” Duncan’s eyes were innocent for a moment. Then he smirked, and the table dissolved into a round of giggles and false punches. A happy family, bathed in the odd bluish light cast on the table by a large patio umbrella.
Logan pulled Lilly closer until she was almost on his lap and smiled. “With you guys protecting me, I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
*
How could she have been so blind? That was it. This year’s juniors were just beyond marginally pathetic. Or maybe they were just tasteful. The torch was passed on early, and the sophomore guys headed Assassins this year. The old boys club was behind it. They were the ones who picked the targets, assigned names.
And, sure enough, a little research via eavesdropping proves it. They're all still in. Duncan, Logan, Dick, Sean - it’s the ultimate partner project.
Sure, maybe they've left her alone for the past three days, but they're not the type to let this slide. No. And Logan's uncharacteristic lack of assholery this week makes sense, in a calm before the storm way. She knows their M.O. They’ve set her up for some big fall, a giant dramatic overstaged death. Dodgeball style, stickers all over her body, no one willing to stand up for her and witness. Hallway humiliation. They had the power and the motive to set her up.
Now, to find out what they’re planning, and when it’s going to happen.
It's time for some surveillance.
*
She knows just where to find them, that crowd of usual suspects: Dick, Duncan, Beaver, Logan, Sean. One of the many safe havens of the 09er - the public beach.
When Veronica arrives, headlights off and coasting in neutral, the sky is just turning to dusk and it's still light enough to find the small crowd that has gathered, although even if it were dark, following their voices wouldn't have been difficult. When she gets close enough to see the group, she can tell that although they’ve broken out the flasks, no one’s plastered enough to be incoherent - yet - but the guyspeak is flying. Veronica yawns and positions herself and her camera behind a large garbage can. Welcome to the Neptune Thursday night equivalent of Must See TV.
Fortunately, she doesn't have long to wait before the conversation heads into incriminating territory.
"Dude, you still haven’t told us who you have now. You’re not going to try to pop a cap in one of us after we pass out, right?" Dick is using a surfboard for a pillow. Veronica would say that’s gotta be uncomfortable, but with Dick's thick skull and the assistance of 80 proof fiberfill, she highly doubts it.
"Easy, Snoop," Logan rolls a bottlecap over the tops of his knuckles with the same ease as he would a quarter. "You’d have better luck getting Johnny Foreplay here to give up the reason why he never did the deed with Veronica."
Veronica, from her safe position, is still embarrassed to have heard, but the fact that Duncan's eyes don't raise to meet the group catches her off guard.
"Way to go with the vague answers, Logan. I think that why you’re so good at this game. You’re a Master of Avoidance! I mean, you’ve already figured out who has you, right? ‘Cause I still haven’t seen anyone after you and it’s been like, a week," Sean butts in.
Logan, presses his fingertips together, impersonating an Indian Guru: "Ahh, the Master never reveals his secrets."
Oh my god. That's it? That's ALL? What a downer of a big reveal. Logan’s friends don’t know who has him, so he’s not using them to protect him. But Logan knows the strategy - and he’s always had friends in high places - he even managed to dupe the people who were supposed to be organizing the game. What better way to ensure his safety than to pick someone who had loudly proclaimed that she wasn't going to play?
She decides not to stick around much longer after they break out the fart jokes. After all, she's heard all she needs to hear. Her lips press into a straight line. Suddenly, she’s in the game.
Logan thinks he’s safe? He’s so dead.
*
Friday morning is bright and sunny. The perfect weather to interrupt your arch nemesis' inevitable hangover with a little old fashioned confrontation.
It's remarkably easy to corral Logan into the Janitor's closet before first period, and she seems to have been right about the hangover: he doesn't even make a crack until well after she's pushed his lanky frame through the narrow doorway.
"Hmm," he tents his fingers. "How those on a high moral pedestal have stumbled ever downwards. Although you're a tiny bit rusty on the rules. Given that you've already gotten my attention, it's going to be pretty difficult to exterminate me without my taking notice. On the upside, the sink will make for easy cleanup of any spilled blood..."
"So you knew," Veronica's eyes flash in triumph.
Logan bows his head. "Confession? Yes. I'm underwhelmed by your surprise. Next time work harder on your Macaulay Culkin impression."
Veronica smiles thinly. "Yeah," she draws out the word. "See, Logan, I'm on to your little plan. The one you'd made with your so-called friends, Dick, Duncan? But, you know, I don't think that your trust in their friendship was enough. You’ve got enemies everywhere, so why should you believe that they were going to hold up their end of the bargain? Here’s a bright idea: why not rig the game so that the one girl who made a very vocal public protest against the contest was your assassin so you'd be guaranteed safety? After all, my name was still on the lists from last year. A few words to convince the others - wouldn’t it be just dandy if we humiliated Veronica a little more? Hunted her down in various pants-wetting scenarios?" Veronica's voice was becoming a yell. " Didn’t let her forget, even just one tiny bit, that her best friend was dead, and that if they had it their way, she’d follow in those footsteps?"
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to award you an 'F' in perception. Perhaps you haven't had time to notice, but given the relative dryness of your pants, I'd hoped you'd already figured out it wasn’t like that," Logan's voice cracked on 'that," then hushed to a whisper. "I just did it to come out on top."
"Already figured that part out, exposition boy. And if I was killed? Did you think of what would happen to your plan if some Neptune random killed me, picked up YOUR name and hunted you down like the dog you are?"
Logan turns his back and rustles through his bag. Veronica's heart is racing. He pulls out the tiny wrinkled envelope and flourishes the paper and stickers inside, pushing his arm out so his body stays at a safe distance while she can still read the words. On the paper, in the same neat block lettering as the slip in her envelope - “Veronica Mars”
"Luck of the draw?" she asks bitterly.
Logan is quick to correct, even as he is shoving the paper with Veronica’s name and the stickers into the back pocket of his jeans.
"Hey, do you know how many people I had to kill to get to you?"
Veronica struggles to keep her voice firm, her eyes looking straight into Logan’s. "I don’t know, but I’m guessing one of them wasn’t Lilly Kane."
Logan is mollified.
"I can’t believe, you, of all people, would be the one to spearhead this. Death isn’t a game, Logan."
"You don’t think I know that?" His next words turn bitter, mocking Veronica's tone. "My girlfriend died, Veronica."
"And what a fitting tribute to her life. Wouldn’t a marble fountain have been more apropos?"
Her voice remains sharp and cutting, but her steel is bending, and Logan flickers in front of her. She wouldn't have caught it if she hadn't been looking closely, but his shoulders fall. Veronica's spent time watching her dad work, learning to read body language, and if she's not mistaken, Logan’s ready to let go of a burden.
For that one brief moment she no longer views him as he is now, cold and rigid and hateful. He is the thirteen year old boy that she played party games with at Lilly's fourteenth birthday after all the other invited guests had gone home; infantile time wasters like "stiff as a feather, light as a board." When she had laid on the ground she had thought Duncan had been at her head. "Close your eyes," Lilly had said, but then, when she had opened them, she found that it was Logan's fingertips under her shoulders. She remembers that in that instant, she felt as though she really could float.
"I just thought - if I could win - if I could be the one to cheat death - well, maybe I’d make up for the fact that Lilly couldn’t. Didn’t."
Veronica catches her reflection in the dirty glass mirror that hangs above the utility sink and is surprised at what she sees. Hell, her face almost looks like she’s going to buy it, for a second. That must be what makes Logan's face soften; she sees that too, the lines on his forehead settling into relief, or sympathy, and she is surprised by him for the second time in less than a minute.
Then -
"That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard, Logan."
Then Logan is angry, she can also see that in his face - he gave something up to her, for a second, but it didn’t work. He throws his arms wide and his mouth twists into a grimace.
"So go ahead. Kill me. End it now."
He steps closer and closer, getting in her face like a dare. Her heart races, and she does not move.
"Thought so," he says. Then he is kissing her, harshly, his teeth clacking against hers. And she - she gives in.
The fact of the matter is, Lilly's death fucked them both up, in opposite directions, but she can see it now, for the first time, that they're kind of the same.
Her mouth opens against his and she feels the tip of his tongue, the press of his thighs as he steps her backwards until she is almost to the wall. A hanging broom tickles the back of her neck, and even as he pulls his head away for a moment, his breath is warm enough on her cheek and his eyes are open, watching.
His thumb traces her lower lip, pulls it down.
Veronica closes her eyes again, lets her mouth find his. She drops her bag and skates her right hand over his side, down to his ass, searching. Her fingers slip into his back pocket as they kiss, and he takes it as an invitation, dipping his knees and pressing his hips into hers. Slowly, deliberately, her hand comes up to his chest, settles there, though only for a moment.
Before she opens her eyes, she imagines what they must look like, standing there, bodies inches apart, her hand moving from chest to shoulder, his fingertips under her chin. Probably almost tender.
They break. Veronica takes one step back. Picks up her bag. Looks him straight in the eyes. Emotionless.
You see, Logan, here’s the deal: you might think you’re wise and mighty, but I know your secrets, because Lilly told them to me. Underneath the façade that adds the -moric to sophomore, you’re just as hurt as the rest of us. I see that now.
Logan slowly looks down. His face falls.
But that doesn't mean you get to be forgiven. Because winning your stupid game isn’t going to bring her back. And that kiss? Unlike the rest of the girls in the class who are dying to be Aaron Echolls’ daughter in law, I’m not going to fall at your feet and swoon.
Veronica bites her lower lip, just the edge. Shakes her head like she’s trying to brush something off. Fine. Maybe there was a little swooniness there - not that she would publicly admit it.
The point is, Logan, you’re going to have to drop the games and find a better method of coping. Because me? I follow Gloria Gaynor’s philosophy. And you? If you’d really wanted to win, you shouldn’t have put me in the game.
Logan steps back, almost a stumble. On his chest, where Veronica’s hand had been during their kiss, is a solitary red sticker.
Bang.
-end-