Kid Things, Chapter Six
Hmmm...what to say about this chapter...oh yeah! I want to pound it into little bits and flush it down the toilet! Hey! If I didn't have the rest of the chapters already written, this is the point at which I would've given up on this story. Seriously, though. Do you know how when you repeat a word over and over and over again it eventually loses all meaning on your tongue? Well, I've discovered that's what excessive editing is like. I honestly can't even tell how I feel about it any more, because it's been reduced to a series of jumbled letters and meticulous word choices in my brain. Ugh. But I think I'll go nuts if I read it through even one more time, so here it is. Out of my hands! Eeep.
Title: Kid Things (WIP, 6/10)
Author:
sowell
Characters: Logan/Veronica
Word Count: 2,262
Rating: Hard R, for violence and some seriously gratuitous swearing
Summary: 5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.
Spoilers: Spoiled through 2.22
Disclaimer: Sadly, they are still not mine. They are Rob Thomas's
Notes: Short but intense. 1) Writing this chapter was like a freaking wrestling match 2) I've been watching too much Sopranos
Read it at
veronicamarsfic
One...Two...Three...Four...Five
Six
Logan’s drug dealer turned out to live in the only section of LA that was worse than Sewell’s neighborhood. Cars on cinderblocks, graffiti on the brick and plaster walls, streets littered with trash - the entire area was like a generic inner city backdrop on a movie set. Accordingly, "apartment complex" was probably too nice a term for Adams’ home. The parking lot wasn’t even paved. A beach of grimy dust stretched out from the squat concrete walls, and rows of silent windows faced the lot, all of them covered with blinds, curtains, boards. In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon it was deserted and still, but Veronica made a mental note to get the hell out of dodge before the sun started to go down.
"Stay here," Logan told her. "I mean it this time." His face was deadly serious, and he was moving in sharp jerks, flicking off the ignition, ripping off his seatbelt.
"Ok," she said, and got out of the car.
Logan froze. "I am not screwing around. I don’t want you or Percy anywhere near this guy."
She looked at the taut lines around his mouth, the set, grim expression in his eyes, and her heart started to pound double-time. "What the hell is going on?" she said through clenched teeth.
"We didn’t…part on good terms," he said uncomfortably. "I don’t want you getting in the middle of it, so stay in the goddamn car."
"Logan, you tell me the truth right now," she said, voice shaking, "or I swear to God - "
"Logan Echolls," a rough voice called, cutting into their argument. She whipped her head around to see an immense, bald-headed, wife-beater-sporting mountain of a man staring at them from the doorway of the building. His Neanderthal eyebrows were drawn together, and he didn’t look happy. Her uneasiness started tumbling toward fear.
"Shit," Logan muttered under his breath.
"Let’s go," she whispered, trying to get back in the car.
Mountain Man reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a gun.
He wasn’t pointing the gun at them. He wasn’t waving his boulder-like hands around, or yelling, or threatening them in anyway. He just let the ugly weapon hang at his side as he surveyed them from across the lot. Somehow, she didn’t feel reassured. She heard Logan take a deep breath next to her. "Zeke. It’s been a while." Zeke. Ezekiel Adams. Fuck.
"You’re not fucking kidding, you piece of shit," Adams said, his tone oddly blank, and Veronica realized she had just stepped into something even worse than she’d imagined.
"I’m here about Trina," Logan said in a low voice. "She’s missing. I just want to see if you’ve heard from her."
"Touching," Adams said without expression, and raised the gun at Logan. She could almost feel the blood drain from her body. "You’re a messed up kid," he continued casually, approaching them slowly, "but I never thought you were stupid enough to come back here. I guess I was wrong."
"Wouldn’t be the first time," Logan murmured, and she really thought she might kill him herself. If he wanted to bait gun-wielding psychopaths on his own time, fine. But not with her standing a foot away. She felt five long fingers wrap around her wrist, and she realized Logan was tugging on her arm, trying to pull her behind him. Of course, she thought hysterically. Of course he would choose this moment to dig out his white knight act.
She could feel the pulse in Logan’s palm hammering into her skin. "Look," she said, struggling for a soothing tone. It was difficult when every fiber in her body was pulled guitar-string taut. "I don’t know what’s going on, but if he owes you money…"
"Owes me money?" Adams barked at her. "Do you know what he took from me?"
"Besides your girlfriend?" Logan smirked, still yanking on her wrist.
Adams slammed the gun against Logan’s jaw, and Logan went down, cursing and spitting out blood and nearly ripping her arm out of its socket in the process. Veronica bit her lip until she felt it split under the pressure. Her entire body was trembling. Logan clawed his way upright using the car, and she wanted to tell him to stay the fuck down for once in his life.
"It’s not my fault she wasn’t getting what she needed at home," Logan wheezed out, baring his teeth in an attempt to grin.
"Is it your fault the two of you used twenty-five grand of my personal stash, you little cocksucker?"
Veronica’s air supply cut off abruptly. She knew Logan wasn’t a boy scout, but Jesus.
Logan opened his mouth to say something else stupid, but Adams pistol-whipped him again, and this time he stayed down, thank God. Percy was beginning to whimper in the back seat.
"I can pay you, asshole," Logan grated, lying in the dirt.
"Really? I guess you misplaced my last invoice," Adams said, and kicked him in the ribs. Logan balled up, groaning. Veronica felt panic creeping in, starting to take over, to blind her. She forced herself to take deep breaths and not look at Logan’s contorted face. God, what had he gotten them into? She should never have taken this case, and she should never have let him come with her today, and she should have made him turn the goddamn car around the second he started lying to her.
And the worst part of all, was that she had started to believe everything was going to be ok. She had opened her door that morning, and seen Logan leaning against the wall and smiling with his eyes, and underneath the knee-jerk retort there had been an undeniable flash of happiness. Happiness that he was back in Neptune, that he was somewhere she could look at him, see for herself that he was still alive and functioning. Happiness and the very beginning of hope, because she’d seen him holding Percy’s hand, and she thought he might have really changed this time around.
But he hadn’t changed at all. He’d dragged her, and worse, his nephew, into this situation because he was too chickenshit to come clean with her. And now she found herself with Logan, a gun, and a crazy person for the third time in her life. And if he fucking died on her she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Adams hauled Logan up and slammed him against the side of the car, and Percy’s unobtrusive sniffles magnified into full-fledged howling. Adams whirled on her, gun and all. "Shut that fucking kid up," he said threateningly.
She hurried over and bundled the screaming Percy out of the car seat, trying desperately to shush him. The volume of his cries dimmed a bit, but he mashed his little face against the side of her neck, still sobbing. God, she wished she had the luxury of doing the same. Adams was looking mad enough to put a bullet through both of them any second.
"What do you want, an IOU?" Logan said, slumping wearily back against the car. "I don’t carry $25,000 around in my wallet."
"Then it’s your lucky day, Echolls. I have," he glanced at his watch, "half an hour before I have to catch my bus. I’ll just take the rest of my payment this way." He capped off the statement by slamming a fist into Logan’s stomach, and Logan doubled over. Logan’s face was a bruised, bloody mess, and she didn’t quite understand how he was still on his feet, but she supposed growing up with Aaron had given him a lot of experience in taking beatings from men twice his size.
"Jesus, am I paid up yet?" Logan breathed painfully, righting himself again with some effort.
Adams tossed a considering look her way. "Maybe after I fuck your girlfriend, too."
That certainly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It didn’t seem Logan was too pleased either.
"She’s not involved in this," he said in an uneven, dangerous voice, and she saw his hands fist against the metal side of the car. "You do whatever the fuck you want to me, but you keep your fucking hands to yourself."
Adams’ eyebrows drew together. "I’m sorry, are you threatening me?" He put the barrel of the gun right up against Logan’s throat, slid it right against the sweat and dirt on his skin, and the only reason Veronica managed to stay standing was the fact that Percy was still sobbing in her arms.
Logan was scared; there was no doubt in her mind that that was fear hiding behind his dark eyes. But he wasn’t scared enough - he was never scared enough - and she had the paralyzing notion that he was going to say something else stupid, just goad Adams into pulling the trigger and finally ending his miserable life that way.
And then she would never get over him.
She found her voice, finally. "Wait," she said, distantly shocked by how steady she sounded. "You don’t have to do this. He can pay you right now." Percy’s sticky fingers were digging into her neck, and Logan’s eyes were almost audibly panicked, and Adams looked ready to snap any second.
"Take the car."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"Excuse me?" Logan said.
If she ignored the gun and Logan’s swaying form, it was really just like bargaining with a client, she told herself. Really. "It’s air-conditioned," she continued calmly, watching Adams’ face. "It’s got a CD player, a full tank of gas, and it’s a lot faster than the bus. Take the car as payment."
Adams looked her up and down, then looked at Logan. Then looked at the perfect, shiny SUV that probably cost three times what Logan owed him.
"Fuckin’ A," he said.
"Logan, give him your car keys," she ordered evenly.
"It’s a new car," Logan said, appalled, blood running down the side of his face.
"Give. Him. Your. Keys." she gritted.
Logan’s mouth drew into a thin line of displeasure, but he fumbled around in his pocket and finally drew out the keys. He tossed them at Adams, who caught them expertly. He looked down at them admiringly, then back up at her. "You’re a smart girl," he said, casting an appraising eye over her. "Pretty cute, too. Are you sure you don’t wanna come with?"
She was just about angry enough to take his offer if it meant getting the hell away from Logan, but she said, "No, thanks.
"Then I’m gonna need your cell phones, too," he said regretfully. "Can’t have you calling the cops on me before I can get rid of the tracker."
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and handed it off, and Logan did the same, still looking vaguely disgruntled. "There goes the car seat," he said under his breath.
Adams slid into the front seat and turned the ignition, smiling when the SUV started beautifully. Logan glowered. "Trina," he said again, as Adams was rolling down the window. "Have you seen her?" God, she’d completely forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. And it probably said something for Logan’s state of mind that he hadn’t.
Adams smiled lazily, newly chipper in the driver’s seat of his latest paycheck. "I haven’t seen her for a few months. Last I heard, she was a regular patron at the Gypsy Room downtown. Good luck with that one." He was practically whistling as he coasted out of the parking lot.
They watched the car disappear down the empty side street in silence. Then she very calmly unhooked Percy’s arms from around her neck, turned to Logan, and nailed him across the jaw as hard as she possibly could with her fist.
"Jesus," he exploded, "does Percy want to get in a fucking swing too?" He touched his already-swelling cheek, scowling furiously.
She hit him again, lifted a fist and slammed it against his chest, and she could feel the tears coming now, feel the rage and the shock sliding into place now that the paralyzing fear was gone. "You fucking asshole," she choked out, slapping at him like a stupid, hysterical girl. He turned her into a stupid, hysterical girl. She couldn’t stop hitting him, and she couldn’t stop crying, and she’d been so scared, so fucking scared.
She felt his arms come up around her, felt him dragging her against his body, running a hand over her hair. Percy had kicked up his crying again, just sat down wailing in the dirt where she’d left him, his little legs sticking straight out from his short body. Logan was talking, his low, soothing voice washing over her ears, and he might have been trying to comfort her. She didn’t want his comfort. She wanted to not care so damn much that he’d been in danger, to not feel this numbing fear still squeezing her lungs. His arms felt far too safe, considering he was the reason she could barely see through her tears in the first place, and she wanted to tell him to get the fuck away from her before he sent her to pieces all over again.
She opened her mouth to let him know exactly how much she hated him, she hated him, how much she’d haunt him if he up and died on her, too. All that came out was, "I told you not to bring Percy." His chest lifted once under her cheek, and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying.
Chapter Seven
Title: Kid Things (WIP, 6/10)
Author:
sowell
Characters: Logan/Veronica
Word Count: 2,262
Rating: Hard R, for violence and some seriously gratuitous swearing
Summary: 5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.
Spoilers: Spoiled through 2.22
Disclaimer: Sadly, they are still not mine. They are Rob Thomas's
Notes: Short but intense. 1) Writing this chapter was like a freaking wrestling match 2) I've been watching too much Sopranos
Read it at
veronicamarsfic
One...Two...Three...Four...Five
Six
Logan’s drug dealer turned out to live in the only section of LA that was worse than Sewell’s neighborhood. Cars on cinderblocks, graffiti on the brick and plaster walls, streets littered with trash - the entire area was like a generic inner city backdrop on a movie set. Accordingly, "apartment complex" was probably too nice a term for Adams’ home. The parking lot wasn’t even paved. A beach of grimy dust stretched out from the squat concrete walls, and rows of silent windows faced the lot, all of them covered with blinds, curtains, boards. In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon it was deserted and still, but Veronica made a mental note to get the hell out of dodge before the sun started to go down.
"Stay here," Logan told her. "I mean it this time." His face was deadly serious, and he was moving in sharp jerks, flicking off the ignition, ripping off his seatbelt.
"Ok," she said, and got out of the car.
Logan froze. "I am not screwing around. I don’t want you or Percy anywhere near this guy."
She looked at the taut lines around his mouth, the set, grim expression in his eyes, and her heart started to pound double-time. "What the hell is going on?" she said through clenched teeth.
"We didn’t…part on good terms," he said uncomfortably. "I don’t want you getting in the middle of it, so stay in the goddamn car."
"Logan, you tell me the truth right now," she said, voice shaking, "or I swear to God - "
"Logan Echolls," a rough voice called, cutting into their argument. She whipped her head around to see an immense, bald-headed, wife-beater-sporting mountain of a man staring at them from the doorway of the building. His Neanderthal eyebrows were drawn together, and he didn’t look happy. Her uneasiness started tumbling toward fear.
"Shit," Logan muttered under his breath.
"Let’s go," she whispered, trying to get back in the car.
Mountain Man reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a gun.
He wasn’t pointing the gun at them. He wasn’t waving his boulder-like hands around, or yelling, or threatening them in anyway. He just let the ugly weapon hang at his side as he surveyed them from across the lot. Somehow, she didn’t feel reassured. She heard Logan take a deep breath next to her. "Zeke. It’s been a while." Zeke. Ezekiel Adams. Fuck.
"You’re not fucking kidding, you piece of shit," Adams said, his tone oddly blank, and Veronica realized she had just stepped into something even worse than she’d imagined.
"I’m here about Trina," Logan said in a low voice. "She’s missing. I just want to see if you’ve heard from her."
"Touching," Adams said without expression, and raised the gun at Logan. She could almost feel the blood drain from her body. "You’re a messed up kid," he continued casually, approaching them slowly, "but I never thought you were stupid enough to come back here. I guess I was wrong."
"Wouldn’t be the first time," Logan murmured, and she really thought she might kill him herself. If he wanted to bait gun-wielding psychopaths on his own time, fine. But not with her standing a foot away. She felt five long fingers wrap around her wrist, and she realized Logan was tugging on her arm, trying to pull her behind him. Of course, she thought hysterically. Of course he would choose this moment to dig out his white knight act.
She could feel the pulse in Logan’s palm hammering into her skin. "Look," she said, struggling for a soothing tone. It was difficult when every fiber in her body was pulled guitar-string taut. "I don’t know what’s going on, but if he owes you money…"
"Owes me money?" Adams barked at her. "Do you know what he took from me?"
"Besides your girlfriend?" Logan smirked, still yanking on her wrist.
Adams slammed the gun against Logan’s jaw, and Logan went down, cursing and spitting out blood and nearly ripping her arm out of its socket in the process. Veronica bit her lip until she felt it split under the pressure. Her entire body was trembling. Logan clawed his way upright using the car, and she wanted to tell him to stay the fuck down for once in his life.
"It’s not my fault she wasn’t getting what she needed at home," Logan wheezed out, baring his teeth in an attempt to grin.
"Is it your fault the two of you used twenty-five grand of my personal stash, you little cocksucker?"
Veronica’s air supply cut off abruptly. She knew Logan wasn’t a boy scout, but Jesus.
Logan opened his mouth to say something else stupid, but Adams pistol-whipped him again, and this time he stayed down, thank God. Percy was beginning to whimper in the back seat.
"I can pay you, asshole," Logan grated, lying in the dirt.
"Really? I guess you misplaced my last invoice," Adams said, and kicked him in the ribs. Logan balled up, groaning. Veronica felt panic creeping in, starting to take over, to blind her. She forced herself to take deep breaths and not look at Logan’s contorted face. God, what had he gotten them into? She should never have taken this case, and she should never have let him come with her today, and she should have made him turn the goddamn car around the second he started lying to her.
And the worst part of all, was that she had started to believe everything was going to be ok. She had opened her door that morning, and seen Logan leaning against the wall and smiling with his eyes, and underneath the knee-jerk retort there had been an undeniable flash of happiness. Happiness that he was back in Neptune, that he was somewhere she could look at him, see for herself that he was still alive and functioning. Happiness and the very beginning of hope, because she’d seen him holding Percy’s hand, and she thought he might have really changed this time around.
But he hadn’t changed at all. He’d dragged her, and worse, his nephew, into this situation because he was too chickenshit to come clean with her. And now she found herself with Logan, a gun, and a crazy person for the third time in her life. And if he fucking died on her she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Adams hauled Logan up and slammed him against the side of the car, and Percy’s unobtrusive sniffles magnified into full-fledged howling. Adams whirled on her, gun and all. "Shut that fucking kid up," he said threateningly.
She hurried over and bundled the screaming Percy out of the car seat, trying desperately to shush him. The volume of his cries dimmed a bit, but he mashed his little face against the side of her neck, still sobbing. God, she wished she had the luxury of doing the same. Adams was looking mad enough to put a bullet through both of them any second.
"What do you want, an IOU?" Logan said, slumping wearily back against the car. "I don’t carry $25,000 around in my wallet."
"Then it’s your lucky day, Echolls. I have," he glanced at his watch, "half an hour before I have to catch my bus. I’ll just take the rest of my payment this way." He capped off the statement by slamming a fist into Logan’s stomach, and Logan doubled over. Logan’s face was a bruised, bloody mess, and she didn’t quite understand how he was still on his feet, but she supposed growing up with Aaron had given him a lot of experience in taking beatings from men twice his size.
"Jesus, am I paid up yet?" Logan breathed painfully, righting himself again with some effort.
Adams tossed a considering look her way. "Maybe after I fuck your girlfriend, too."
That certainly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It didn’t seem Logan was too pleased either.
"She’s not involved in this," he said in an uneven, dangerous voice, and she saw his hands fist against the metal side of the car. "You do whatever the fuck you want to me, but you keep your fucking hands to yourself."
Adams’ eyebrows drew together. "I’m sorry, are you threatening me?" He put the barrel of the gun right up against Logan’s throat, slid it right against the sweat and dirt on his skin, and the only reason Veronica managed to stay standing was the fact that Percy was still sobbing in her arms.
Logan was scared; there was no doubt in her mind that that was fear hiding behind his dark eyes. But he wasn’t scared enough - he was never scared enough - and she had the paralyzing notion that he was going to say something else stupid, just goad Adams into pulling the trigger and finally ending his miserable life that way.
And then she would never get over him.
She found her voice, finally. "Wait," she said, distantly shocked by how steady she sounded. "You don’t have to do this. He can pay you right now." Percy’s sticky fingers were digging into her neck, and Logan’s eyes were almost audibly panicked, and Adams looked ready to snap any second.
"Take the car."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"Excuse me?" Logan said.
If she ignored the gun and Logan’s swaying form, it was really just like bargaining with a client, she told herself. Really. "It’s air-conditioned," she continued calmly, watching Adams’ face. "It’s got a CD player, a full tank of gas, and it’s a lot faster than the bus. Take the car as payment."
Adams looked her up and down, then looked at Logan. Then looked at the perfect, shiny SUV that probably cost three times what Logan owed him.
"Fuckin’ A," he said.
"Logan, give him your car keys," she ordered evenly.
"It’s a new car," Logan said, appalled, blood running down the side of his face.
"Give. Him. Your. Keys." she gritted.
Logan’s mouth drew into a thin line of displeasure, but he fumbled around in his pocket and finally drew out the keys. He tossed them at Adams, who caught them expertly. He looked down at them admiringly, then back up at her. "You’re a smart girl," he said, casting an appraising eye over her. "Pretty cute, too. Are you sure you don’t wanna come with?"
She was just about angry enough to take his offer if it meant getting the hell away from Logan, but she said, "No, thanks.
"Then I’m gonna need your cell phones, too," he said regretfully. "Can’t have you calling the cops on me before I can get rid of the tracker."
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and handed it off, and Logan did the same, still looking vaguely disgruntled. "There goes the car seat," he said under his breath.
Adams slid into the front seat and turned the ignition, smiling when the SUV started beautifully. Logan glowered. "Trina," he said again, as Adams was rolling down the window. "Have you seen her?" God, she’d completely forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. And it probably said something for Logan’s state of mind that he hadn’t.
Adams smiled lazily, newly chipper in the driver’s seat of his latest paycheck. "I haven’t seen her for a few months. Last I heard, she was a regular patron at the Gypsy Room downtown. Good luck with that one." He was practically whistling as he coasted out of the parking lot.
They watched the car disappear down the empty side street in silence. Then she very calmly unhooked Percy’s arms from around her neck, turned to Logan, and nailed him across the jaw as hard as she possibly could with her fist.
"Jesus," he exploded, "does Percy want to get in a fucking swing too?" He touched his already-swelling cheek, scowling furiously.
She hit him again, lifted a fist and slammed it against his chest, and she could feel the tears coming now, feel the rage and the shock sliding into place now that the paralyzing fear was gone. "You fucking asshole," she choked out, slapping at him like a stupid, hysterical girl. He turned her into a stupid, hysterical girl. She couldn’t stop hitting him, and she couldn’t stop crying, and she’d been so scared, so fucking scared.
She felt his arms come up around her, felt him dragging her against his body, running a hand over her hair. Percy had kicked up his crying again, just sat down wailing in the dirt where she’d left him, his little legs sticking straight out from his short body. Logan was talking, his low, soothing voice washing over her ears, and he might have been trying to comfort her. She didn’t want his comfort. She wanted to not care so damn much that he’d been in danger, to not feel this numbing fear still squeezing her lungs. His arms felt far too safe, considering he was the reason she could barely see through her tears in the first place, and she wanted to tell him to get the fuck away from her before he sent her to pieces all over again.
She opened her mouth to let him know exactly how much she hated him, she hated him, how much she’d haunt him if he up and died on her, too. All that came out was, "I told you not to bring Percy." His chest lifted once under her cheek, and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying.
Chapter Seven