[VMars]Fanfiction; Frengers; Logan/Veronica; R; 3/3
Title: Frengers
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing/Character: Logan, Logan/Veronica, Veronica, mentions of Mac/Dick and the esemble
Word Count: 2058 for this Chapter, 6195 for the whole thing
Rating: R
Summary: Not quite friends, not quite strangers
Spoilers: Future fic, but mentions events and conversations that take place in season 3. Nothing past 3.10 Show Me the Monkey, though.
Warnings: angst, language, adult situations, vague mentions of sex
Disclaimer: I am in no way assosioated with the owners of the show. I am however sure that they reserve the right to sue my very broke ass. Only thing they are going to get by doing it however, would be just one very angry fangirl, and I'm sure they already have enough of those.
A/N: The title is an album name of a danish band called Mew. It's also the word that instantly pops in to my head when ever I see either Logan or Veronica trying to come with a word to describe their relationship. You can find the previous parts here. Thanks and cookies for starxd_sparrow for doing great job with betaing this.
A/N2: All done! This is so far the longest fic ever, that I have written, and actually finished! It's been fun doing it, and I hope you all have enjoyed it as much as I have. Thanks for everyone who has read this and to those that have commented.
Veronica knows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the tiniest spark of hope the initial look of jealousy on Logan face brings when she tells him about Joseph for the first time. Joseph is with the Doctors Without Borders and he’s no more than one more casual fuck at first. He’s comfortable enough to be with though, and soon they progress from casual to regular and then more or less exclusive. Not that she has any kind of illusions about them as anything more than glorified fuck buddies, and she makes that clear to Logan as well. She’s not really sure why she’s telling him about him in the first place, but she finally settles to simply accept the fact that not telling him would feel even more wrong somehow. She’s glad enough to have Logan understand in the end. When it’s her turn to listen to him talk about Ange, a work friend, she doesn’t even have to work so very hard to return the favour. The dark, locked room in her mind that still doesn’t exist only has one thought to occupy it now: someday, it will be the right time.
Six months in the tour, Veronica meets Noemi. She has been raped and then nearly beaten to death by a group of men on her way home in broad daylight. Unlike so many women in the same situation, Veronica has had the not-so -pleasant chance to meet, those who are silent, ashamed and resigned, Noemi is full of anger from the first minute they bring her in. As if the only thing she has left is to fight ‘til the very end, she’s screaming and kicking even after the sheer pain she is in should have long ago made her lose consciousness. Joseph later tells Veronica that he doesn’t remember when was the last time he had had to use so many sedatives on someone so badly battered. When Veronica goes to see her, after all of her worst injuries have been treated, she’s still under their influence, sleeping in one of the more silent corners of the hospital tent. There are ants under her eyelids, and Veronica doesn’t want to remember that she knows just exactly how bad Noemi’s nightmares will be from now on. She watches Noemi sleep for hours, and somewhere a girl is breaking over her missing underwear and another girl is screaming in front of a mirror for the hair that has been taken away. Symbols and trophies, from which she couldn’t save either of them. So she’ll try to save this one. Even if she knows that the battle she’s fighting is once again an already lost one.
Noemi’s recovery is painfully slow, made even more so by the fact that for weeks, she can’t wake up without panicking and trashing around her bed, setting whatever process that has been made back to starting point. Eventually she - her body at least - does get better. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, it’s nearly enough to scare even Veronica. With Noemi, there is none of the snarkyness that helped Veronica to cope, or the faked perkiness Parker used to hide behind. No, Noemi is all about the venom and revenge that seems to be directed at the whole world in general. Veronica, the girl who spent most of her high school years turning revenge into an art form, of being the true embodiment of the scorned woman, tries to tell Noemi about how nothing is gained by revenge, and that sometimes you just have to let it go. The irony of it all doesn’t escape her.
Oh but you’ll see. Someday I will make them pay, and it will be the best day of my life!
How? In all likelihood, the men that did this to you will never be found. So where exactly will you get your payback from? Are you just going to pass the pain along to some innocent bystander? Do you really think that will make it all better? Just nailing someone on the wall simply to have something, anything there?
Noemi’s answer is to tell her that nobody is innocent, and Veronica knows that she isn’t ready to understand. But then again, neither was she, when she said the words for the first time. That night in the dark, her body wrapped around Joseph’s sleeping one, it comes to her that it’s time to stop nailing herself on the wall. There’s a smile on her lips when she finally falls asleep. She doesn’t have a single nightmare that night.
Sometime later, Noemi tells Veronica about her family, who she hasn’t seen since the catastrophe came knocking on their door, wreaking havoc over the lives of everyone she ever knew. Veronica doesn’t know if it’s only wishful thinking, but Noemi’s voice seems to soften just a little bit when she tells her that she had wanted to become a singer. She sings for her, and even if Veronica can’t understand the words, she understands the loss in Noemi’s voice. Halfway through, she breaks down, fighting a brief battle, trying to hold the tears at bay. It’s the first time she has cried since being brought there, and Veronica doesn’t even try to calm her down. She just edges little closer without ever touching her. Then the sobs subside and Noemi’s voice is still just as hard as ever, and the anger hasn’t gone anywhere.
I used to have a future.
You still do.
A week and a half passes, and suddenly Noemi has disappeared. Veronica tries her best at finding her of course, but it would be hard enough even if she’d wanted to be found. Veronica never knows if she even gave her real name. Surrendering it as hopeless, Veronica tries to think that somewhere, Noemi has found her family and sings happier songs for the rest of her life. It’s a comforting enough lie. As always, she uses work as a way of getting over this latest loss of hers. This time, she just can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something is missing.
When Logan tells her that an actor friend of his is offering to donate three million dollars for the Backup Foundation as a part of his PR washout, Veronica’s first thought is that it’s way too good to be true. Sure enough, he continues to tell her that he wants a trip to one of their ongoing projects in return. And to bring the press with him. The press that they had both agreed to keep away from this, to let this be the one thing it couldn’t rip open and break. Neither say the words, but both still hear them as clearly as if they’d been shouted. But if there’s one subject Veronica has had more than enough of hard and painful lessons in, it’s the fact that money does move the world. With three million dollars you can even make it run. It’s still just barely enough to make Veronica promise to play nice. She’s already starting to get mentally ready for a month of being slowly tortured and forced to guard her words every single second. It hits her when she hears Logan voice her own thoughts.
Wait, what? You’re coming too?
Yeah, well I think it’s about time I come to see just what kinds of problems you’ve been getting yourself into out there. Besides, someone has to be there to watch that you won’t bite some poor paparazzo’s head off.
Instead of a one tiny butterfly, there’s suddenly a whole flock of them intending to make a nest in her stomach. The same day, Joseph tells her that he has lately preferred some Belgian aid-worker’s bed over hers. With her best poker face on, Veronica puts on the act of being angry, to save them both the effort anything else would require. She doesn’t tell him, that only thing she really wants is to congratulate him for the perfect timing.
Three months later, Veronica is standing in front of the arrivals gate at an airport that seems to be Hell-bound on making the wait as painful as possible. It’s too hot and too loud and the board she’s trying with all of her strength not to look at every two minutes keeps blinking ‘delayed’. Part of her is almost glad for the distraction. Because between counting how late the plane is - sixty-three minutes and forty seconds - and going over the ever growing mental list of things possibly gone wrong, she doesn’t have time to remember what it is that she’s really nervous about. When the plane finally lands, it takes Logan another half an hour to get clear the customs and passport check. So by the time Veronica spots him, she is nearly ready to curse everyone on sight to the lowest circle of Hell. That is, until she sees him walking towards her. She’s suddenly very happy that Logan decided to come alone week before his friend and the press. The last thing she wants is for the “Veronica Mars is still holding a torch for Logan Echolls” look she can’t keep off of her face to end up on the cover of every single tabloid from here to Neptune. She wonders if there will ever be a day when her first instinct isn’t to kiss him. Their greeting is stiff and awkward, and her thoughts are running around hundred miles an hour trying to come up with something, anything, to say. In the end, she just mumbles something barely coherent about her car and leaves. She can’t find it in her to look back and make sure he’s following.
The refuge camp is an old one - the kind that Veronica secretly hates because they make her feel like no matter what she does or how hard she works, things will never change - with actual housing for the aid-workers instead of tents. They settle Logan into the only room currently empty, which naturally has to be the one next to Veronica’s. In only two days she’s contemplating on going back on the sleeping pill, because Hell if she’s going to admit that the thought of him and only a thin wall separating them is causing her to lose sleep.
It’s when she hears the knock on her door and the all-too -familiar voice whispering her name, that Veronica is forced to admit, that what ever it is that she’s feeling, that they are feeling, it’s not going to go away. They wander around the dark camp for the whole night, all the while holding each others hands, as if afraid that letting go means losing the other for good this time. The conversation floats around them, sometimes dying away, replaced by a silence that’s anything but awkward, but comforting and healing instead. They kiss at the sunrise, and there are no promises of eternal love in it. The heavens don’t open, and no orchestra starts playing. There’s finally only the two of them, no longer strangers, and it’s more than either of them ever had the courage to ask for.
The next day, Logan finds Veronica sitting under a tree, watching children play in front of the school building. She’s smiling, and there’s a sort of peace, serenity, to her that Logan’s sure he hasn’t seen before. They don’t speak when he sits next to her, but their hands find each other’s without hesitation. After a while, Veronica leans her head to rest on his shoulder and she can hear him letting out a breath she didn’t know he was holding. Around them, the camp goes on with it’s life, and Veronica thinks it’s time she stops running.
Will you come home with me?
I will. And I will stay.
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing/Character: Logan, Logan/Veronica, Veronica, mentions of Mac/Dick and the esemble
Word Count: 2058 for this Chapter, 6195 for the whole thing
Rating: R
Summary: Not quite friends, not quite strangers
Spoilers: Future fic, but mentions events and conversations that take place in season 3. Nothing past 3.10 Show Me the Monkey, though.
Warnings: angst, language, adult situations, vague mentions of sex
Disclaimer: I am in no way assosioated with the owners of the show. I am however sure that they reserve the right to sue my very broke ass. Only thing they are going to get by doing it however, would be just one very angry fangirl, and I'm sure they already have enough of those.
A/N: The title is an album name of a danish band called Mew. It's also the word that instantly pops in to my head when ever I see either Logan or Veronica trying to come with a word to describe their relationship. You can find the previous parts here. Thanks and cookies for starxd_sparrow for doing great job with betaing this.
A/N2: All done! This is so far the longest fic ever, that I have written, and actually finished! It's been fun doing it, and I hope you all have enjoyed it as much as I have. Thanks for everyone who has read this and to those that have commented.
Veronica knows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the tiniest spark of hope the initial look of jealousy on Logan face brings when she tells him about Joseph for the first time. Joseph is with the Doctors Without Borders and he’s no more than one more casual fuck at first. He’s comfortable enough to be with though, and soon they progress from casual to regular and then more or less exclusive. Not that she has any kind of illusions about them as anything more than glorified fuck buddies, and she makes that clear to Logan as well. She’s not really sure why she’s telling him about him in the first place, but she finally settles to simply accept the fact that not telling him would feel even more wrong somehow. She’s glad enough to have Logan understand in the end. When it’s her turn to listen to him talk about Ange, a work friend, she doesn’t even have to work so very hard to return the favour. The dark, locked room in her mind that still doesn’t exist only has one thought to occupy it now: someday, it will be the right time.
Six months in the tour, Veronica meets Noemi. She has been raped and then nearly beaten to death by a group of men on her way home in broad daylight. Unlike so many women in the same situation, Veronica has had the not-so -pleasant chance to meet, those who are silent, ashamed and resigned, Noemi is full of anger from the first minute they bring her in. As if the only thing she has left is to fight ‘til the very end, she’s screaming and kicking even after the sheer pain she is in should have long ago made her lose consciousness. Joseph later tells Veronica that he doesn’t remember when was the last time he had had to use so many sedatives on someone so badly battered. When Veronica goes to see her, after all of her worst injuries have been treated, she’s still under their influence, sleeping in one of the more silent corners of the hospital tent. There are ants under her eyelids, and Veronica doesn’t want to remember that she knows just exactly how bad Noemi’s nightmares will be from now on. She watches Noemi sleep for hours, and somewhere a girl is breaking over her missing underwear and another girl is screaming in front of a mirror for the hair that has been taken away. Symbols and trophies, from which she couldn’t save either of them. So she’ll try to save this one. Even if she knows that the battle she’s fighting is once again an already lost one.
Noemi’s recovery is painfully slow, made even more so by the fact that for weeks, she can’t wake up without panicking and trashing around her bed, setting whatever process that has been made back to starting point. Eventually she - her body at least - does get better. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, it’s nearly enough to scare even Veronica. With Noemi, there is none of the snarkyness that helped Veronica to cope, or the faked perkiness Parker used to hide behind. No, Noemi is all about the venom and revenge that seems to be directed at the whole world in general. Veronica, the girl who spent most of her high school years turning revenge into an art form, of being the true embodiment of the scorned woman, tries to tell Noemi about how nothing is gained by revenge, and that sometimes you just have to let it go. The irony of it all doesn’t escape her.
Oh but you’ll see. Someday I will make them pay, and it will be the best day of my life!
How? In all likelihood, the men that did this to you will never be found. So where exactly will you get your payback from? Are you just going to pass the pain along to some innocent bystander? Do you really think that will make it all better? Just nailing someone on the wall simply to have something, anything there?
Noemi’s answer is to tell her that nobody is innocent, and Veronica knows that she isn’t ready to understand. But then again, neither was she, when she said the words for the first time. That night in the dark, her body wrapped around Joseph’s sleeping one, it comes to her that it’s time to stop nailing herself on the wall. There’s a smile on her lips when she finally falls asleep. She doesn’t have a single nightmare that night.
Sometime later, Noemi tells Veronica about her family, who she hasn’t seen since the catastrophe came knocking on their door, wreaking havoc over the lives of everyone she ever knew. Veronica doesn’t know if it’s only wishful thinking, but Noemi’s voice seems to soften just a little bit when she tells her that she had wanted to become a singer. She sings for her, and even if Veronica can’t understand the words, she understands the loss in Noemi’s voice. Halfway through, she breaks down, fighting a brief battle, trying to hold the tears at bay. It’s the first time she has cried since being brought there, and Veronica doesn’t even try to calm her down. She just edges little closer without ever touching her. Then the sobs subside and Noemi’s voice is still just as hard as ever, and the anger hasn’t gone anywhere.
I used to have a future.
You still do.
A week and a half passes, and suddenly Noemi has disappeared. Veronica tries her best at finding her of course, but it would be hard enough even if she’d wanted to be found. Veronica never knows if she even gave her real name. Surrendering it as hopeless, Veronica tries to think that somewhere, Noemi has found her family and sings happier songs for the rest of her life. It’s a comforting enough lie. As always, she uses work as a way of getting over this latest loss of hers. This time, she just can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something is missing.
When Logan tells her that an actor friend of his is offering to donate three million dollars for the Backup Foundation as a part of his PR washout, Veronica’s first thought is that it’s way too good to be true. Sure enough, he continues to tell her that he wants a trip to one of their ongoing projects in return. And to bring the press with him. The press that they had both agreed to keep away from this, to let this be the one thing it couldn’t rip open and break. Neither say the words, but both still hear them as clearly as if they’d been shouted. But if there’s one subject Veronica has had more than enough of hard and painful lessons in, it’s the fact that money does move the world. With three million dollars you can even make it run. It’s still just barely enough to make Veronica promise to play nice. She’s already starting to get mentally ready for a month of being slowly tortured and forced to guard her words every single second. It hits her when she hears Logan voice her own thoughts.
Wait, what? You’re coming too?
Yeah, well I think it’s about time I come to see just what kinds of problems you’ve been getting yourself into out there. Besides, someone has to be there to watch that you won’t bite some poor paparazzo’s head off.
Instead of a one tiny butterfly, there’s suddenly a whole flock of them intending to make a nest in her stomach. The same day, Joseph tells her that he has lately preferred some Belgian aid-worker’s bed over hers. With her best poker face on, Veronica puts on the act of being angry, to save them both the effort anything else would require. She doesn’t tell him, that only thing she really wants is to congratulate him for the perfect timing.
Three months later, Veronica is standing in front of the arrivals gate at an airport that seems to be Hell-bound on making the wait as painful as possible. It’s too hot and too loud and the board she’s trying with all of her strength not to look at every two minutes keeps blinking ‘delayed’. Part of her is almost glad for the distraction. Because between counting how late the plane is - sixty-three minutes and forty seconds - and going over the ever growing mental list of things possibly gone wrong, she doesn’t have time to remember what it is that she’s really nervous about. When the plane finally lands, it takes Logan another half an hour to get clear the customs and passport check. So by the time Veronica spots him, she is nearly ready to curse everyone on sight to the lowest circle of Hell. That is, until she sees him walking towards her. She’s suddenly very happy that Logan decided to come alone week before his friend and the press. The last thing she wants is for the “Veronica Mars is still holding a torch for Logan Echolls” look she can’t keep off of her face to end up on the cover of every single tabloid from here to Neptune. She wonders if there will ever be a day when her first instinct isn’t to kiss him. Their greeting is stiff and awkward, and her thoughts are running around hundred miles an hour trying to come up with something, anything, to say. In the end, she just mumbles something barely coherent about her car and leaves. She can’t find it in her to look back and make sure he’s following.
The refuge camp is an old one - the kind that Veronica secretly hates because they make her feel like no matter what she does or how hard she works, things will never change - with actual housing for the aid-workers instead of tents. They settle Logan into the only room currently empty, which naturally has to be the one next to Veronica’s. In only two days she’s contemplating on going back on the sleeping pill, because Hell if she’s going to admit that the thought of him and only a thin wall separating them is causing her to lose sleep.
It’s when she hears the knock on her door and the all-too -familiar voice whispering her name, that Veronica is forced to admit, that what ever it is that she’s feeling, that they are feeling, it’s not going to go away. They wander around the dark camp for the whole night, all the while holding each others hands, as if afraid that letting go means losing the other for good this time. The conversation floats around them, sometimes dying away, replaced by a silence that’s anything but awkward, but comforting and healing instead. They kiss at the sunrise, and there are no promises of eternal love in it. The heavens don’t open, and no orchestra starts playing. There’s finally only the two of them, no longer strangers, and it’s more than either of them ever had the courage to ask for.
The next day, Logan finds Veronica sitting under a tree, watching children play in front of the school building. She’s smiling, and there’s a sort of peace, serenity, to her that Logan’s sure he hasn’t seen before. They don’t speak when he sits next to her, but their hands find each other’s without hesitation. After a while, Veronica leans her head to rest on his shoulder and she can hear him letting out a breath she didn’t know he was holding. Around them, the camp goes on with it’s life, and Veronica thinks it’s time she stops running.
Will you come home with me?
I will. And I will stay.