Love and Sex and Loneliness (Logan / Veronica) PG-13
Title: Love and Sex and Loneliness
Author: Tina
Word Count: 1,820
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Logan / Veronica
Summary: Future fic. This isn’t the first time that she’s left him. He’s a little bit terrified that it might be the last.
Spoilers: Vague season three.
Author’s Note: In this universe, Logan and Wallace and Logan and Parker have been good friends since college. I know how, but it didn’t feel like being a part of this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the laptop I’m writing this on.
He wakes knowing that she’s already gone. The sheets are still warm from her body, and the pillow still smells like the floral shampoo she used the night before, but he doesn’t need to reach out to know that the pillow beside him is empty.
He’s still sticky from being pressed against her, from sweat and saliva and sex, but she’s already showered and gone, erased him from her in the same painfully precise manner that he should be used to by now.
This isn’t the first time that she’s left him. He’s a little bit terrified that it might be the last.
. . .
Veronica sits in the back for the ceremony. Wallace had asked her to be a groomsman, referencing an old Gilmore Girls episode that he blamed her for having watched, but she’d smiled and politely refused.
Standing in the front of an overly-crowded church with a couple hundred eyes focused just to his right, Logan wishes that he’d been able to do the same. He’s sick of weddings and babies and everything else that means that everyone else’s lives are moving forward while he keeps walking circles.
He’d told himself that this time would be different. As he’d gotten onto the plane two days before, he had promised that something would change this time.
He didn’t tell himself that she wouldn’t leave. He hasn’t been dumb enough for that line since high school.
He had only told himself that they would talk. Finally. First.
But then she’d surprised him by being late for the one and only time in her life. She’d walked into the rehearsal dinner almost an hour after everyone else had arrived, apologizing about work and planes and traffic and anything else she could wrap her lips around. She’d kissed Wallace on the cheek and given him an impromptu congratulations before ignoring Logan for the rest of the night.
Until she cornered him in the elevator on the way to his room. And he had promptly forgotten that his lips had even had the ability to form words, much less coherent sentences.
Wallace clears his throat, and Logan takes that a signal to play his one and only role in the ceremony. He pulls a thin gold band from his coat pocket, passing it along to Wallace.
He’d expected a lot of things during his first year of college. Becoming friends with Wallace had not been on the list. Staying friends with Wallace through half a dozen odd jobs and almost 3,000 miles of traveling hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Of course, pretty much everything he had planned had gone wrong.
…
“It was a pretty ceremony,” she tells him when she finds him on a patio during the rehearsal. “They’re good together.”
He nods, but he’s sick of idle chatter and pleasantries. She’ll be gone again in an hour, a day, a week. By the time he sees her again, she’ll probably have forgotten all about how insulting he will be today.
He’s been drinking since the bar opened more than an hour ago, and he still knows that’s a lie. Veronica’s never forgotten anything that she could use against someone.
“Are you ever going to tell me why, Veronica?”
She looks startled by the change in topics, but she covers it, her face quickly drawing to a look of resignation. “You want to do this now, Logan? You really want to mess with Wallace’s day?” She slants her eyes up at him, but she’s not running. He’s learned by now, Veronica doesn’t run. She is and then she’s gone, and there’s no in between.
“You didn’t even leave a note, Veronica.” His voice is low, but there’s no one around. It’s not their day - it never is - and no one really cares anymore. This is their mundane. “Our room was trashed. I thought you were hurt; I was terrified, Veronica. Then your dad just shows up to get the rest of your things like it’s no big deal.” He looks out into the rose garden. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”
“It was the FBI, Logan,” she says like that explains everything. “College undergrads don’t get opportunities like that. You thought I was going to turn it down?”
“Damn it, Veronica!” He slams his hand on a nearby table, his knuckles stiff from how tightly he's been clenching his fists. “I never asked you to give up a damn thing for me. Not because I never wanted to. Because I knew it wouldn’t mean a damn thing to you. You’d go off, dive headfirst into water way over your head, and then you’d call me reckless for being a college student. I gambled; I drank. You nearly got yourself hacked and raped because you were too damn stubborn to call for help!”
Veronica’s face went hard, the color draining to a pale white as she toyed with the stem of her glass. “Because I should’ve let the rapist run loose? After what happened to me, what kind of person would I have to be to have let him get away with that?” She shakes her head. “You’re doing the same thing I did. You’ve spent all this time helping these kids, getting them into good homes and out of situations like yours. You think that isn’t the same?”
“No one’s trying to kill me, Veronica.”
“And if they were?” she prods. “You’d turn and walk away? Leave the kids there?”
“I’d ask for help, damn it! I don’t want to be anyone’s martyr.”
“But I do?” she asks. “What was I supposed to do, Logan? Lamb still acts like my family’s a joke. My dad, you, Wallace… none of you liked when I got involved. I couldn’t let him keep doing that to people. God, Logan, you’ll never know what that feels like. The waking up and just… not knowing.” She takes a deep breath, forcefully pushing away the memory. “And, yeah, I put myself in danger. I did plenty of stupid things, Logan, but I did them all for a good reason.”
“You’re filled with noble causes, Veronica.” He picks he glass back up and tips it in her direction. “And a whole damn lot of good it’s done you.”
And then he turned and walked back into the party, leaving her gaping after him.
. . .
He knows that she’ll find him again. Veronica doesn’t like questions; she’s never liked knowing that someone knew something more than her.
He figures that’s probably part of what got her kicked out of the program. The FBI isn’t big on disclosure, and he can only imagine how Veronica’s tactics would’ve been received under those kinds of circumstances.
He’s standing behind the buffet table when she takes him by the arm, pulling him away into one of the many storage spaces around the building.
“Who told you?” She doesn’t turn the lights on, but a high window casts a glow around the room. Her eyes flash when she looks at him, a combination of anger, betrayal, and fear.
He shrugs, knowing that it will infuriate her. “Does it kill you that I know you that well?” he taunts. “Does it hurt that I can still read you that well?”
“Bullshit,” she spits. “You heard me talking to Wallace.”
“If you already know the answer, why ask the question, Mars?”
He’s not sure what happens next, but then he’s got her pinned up against the wall and her dress is wrapped around her waist. She’s biting at lips and scratching at skin like she might really want to do some kind of destruction, like she wants to leave her mark on him.
He thinks that maybe he’ll remember the blood and the burn when he thinks of her. When she’s gone.
The reminder hits him like a bucket of ice water.
She’s surprised when he puts her back on her feet, his belt half off, and her underwear forgotten somewhere around their feet. She’s clumsy and angry as she pulls him back, her nails twining in his hair as her teeth scrape his.
He pushes her back, his hands rough on her shoulders, and her eyes are wide with surprise and clouded with lust when he catches sight of them in the light. His breath is heavy, and he steps back from her, hoping he doesn’t stumble, as he puts himself back together.
“What the hell, Logan?” She’s still staring at him, her lips red and swollen, her hair disheveled.
It takes everything he’s got to keep from pinning her against the wall and doing his damn best to imprint himself inside of her.
“I’m not doing this anymore, Veronica,” Logan says, re-looping his belt. “This is it. Everyone’s grown up; everyone’s married with real lives. Parker’s got two fucking kids. We don’t even act like adults.”
She slumps back against the wall, readjusting the straps of her dress. “What do you want from me, Logan?”
“This is it, Veronica. The end. Mac’s married, Parker’s married, and now Wallace is married too.” He shrugs. “We won’t run into each other anymore. We never have to see each other again. It’s just what you’ve always wanted.”
“Logan, I-” But he doesn’t want to hear her anymore.
“No. You’ve never given a damn before, Veronica. Not about what you did to me or where I was or what I was doing; don’t start to pretend now.” He straightens his tie, then collects his jacket from the floor. “I’m not going to end this against the wall in a dingy coat closet. You can think of us however you want to, but I’m sure you realize that you were more than that to me.”
When he leaves, her mouth is open, but he’s not listening anymore.
…
He expects to see her again, at least once before she’s gone again, but she never turns up. He expects her to argue and finesse, to wear at his newly-placed defenses. He expects her to fight.
He doesn’t see her come back to the party.
When Wallace tells him that she’s already gone, he realizes that maybe he really doesn’t know her anymore.
. . .
He might’ve missed the note, had she not known him so well. Wrapped around one of the many bottles of tequila in the mini-bar, he finds a shred of paper, torn from the hotel stationary.
He still recognizes her handwriting. He hates the fact that his hands shake when he reaches for it.
It’s not much; she’s never been big on words. Just two lines scrawled in thin print.
645 Lexington Way
NYC, NY
He stares at his own address, his brow knit in confusion, when he sees the text along the back.
It’s always mattered, Logan.
I’ve always been close.
He looks over his shoulder, expecting a pair of eyes or another revelation, but there’s only the silence.
Author: Tina
Word Count: 1,820
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Logan / Veronica
Summary: Future fic. This isn’t the first time that she’s left him. He’s a little bit terrified that it might be the last.
Spoilers: Vague season three.
Author’s Note: In this universe, Logan and Wallace and Logan and Parker have been good friends since college. I know how, but it didn’t feel like being a part of this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the laptop I’m writing this on.
He wakes knowing that she’s already gone. The sheets are still warm from her body, and the pillow still smells like the floral shampoo she used the night before, but he doesn’t need to reach out to know that the pillow beside him is empty.
He’s still sticky from being pressed against her, from sweat and saliva and sex, but she’s already showered and gone, erased him from her in the same painfully precise manner that he should be used to by now.
This isn’t the first time that she’s left him. He’s a little bit terrified that it might be the last.
. . .
Veronica sits in the back for the ceremony. Wallace had asked her to be a groomsman, referencing an old Gilmore Girls episode that he blamed her for having watched, but she’d smiled and politely refused.
Standing in the front of an overly-crowded church with a couple hundred eyes focused just to his right, Logan wishes that he’d been able to do the same. He’s sick of weddings and babies and everything else that means that everyone else’s lives are moving forward while he keeps walking circles.
He’d told himself that this time would be different. As he’d gotten onto the plane two days before, he had promised that something would change this time.
He didn’t tell himself that she wouldn’t leave. He hasn’t been dumb enough for that line since high school.
He had only told himself that they would talk. Finally. First.
But then she’d surprised him by being late for the one and only time in her life. She’d walked into the rehearsal dinner almost an hour after everyone else had arrived, apologizing about work and planes and traffic and anything else she could wrap her lips around. She’d kissed Wallace on the cheek and given him an impromptu congratulations before ignoring Logan for the rest of the night.
Until she cornered him in the elevator on the way to his room. And he had promptly forgotten that his lips had even had the ability to form words, much less coherent sentences.
Wallace clears his throat, and Logan takes that a signal to play his one and only role in the ceremony. He pulls a thin gold band from his coat pocket, passing it along to Wallace.
He’d expected a lot of things during his first year of college. Becoming friends with Wallace had not been on the list. Staying friends with Wallace through half a dozen odd jobs and almost 3,000 miles of traveling hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Of course, pretty much everything he had planned had gone wrong.
…
“It was a pretty ceremony,” she tells him when she finds him on a patio during the rehearsal. “They’re good together.”
He nods, but he’s sick of idle chatter and pleasantries. She’ll be gone again in an hour, a day, a week. By the time he sees her again, she’ll probably have forgotten all about how insulting he will be today.
He’s been drinking since the bar opened more than an hour ago, and he still knows that’s a lie. Veronica’s never forgotten anything that she could use against someone.
“Are you ever going to tell me why, Veronica?”
She looks startled by the change in topics, but she covers it, her face quickly drawing to a look of resignation. “You want to do this now, Logan? You really want to mess with Wallace’s day?” She slants her eyes up at him, but she’s not running. He’s learned by now, Veronica doesn’t run. She is and then she’s gone, and there’s no in between.
“You didn’t even leave a note, Veronica.” His voice is low, but there’s no one around. It’s not their day - it never is - and no one really cares anymore. This is their mundane. “Our room was trashed. I thought you were hurt; I was terrified, Veronica. Then your dad just shows up to get the rest of your things like it’s no big deal.” He looks out into the rose garden. “I thought I meant more to you than that.”
“It was the FBI, Logan,” she says like that explains everything. “College undergrads don’t get opportunities like that. You thought I was going to turn it down?”
“Damn it, Veronica!” He slams his hand on a nearby table, his knuckles stiff from how tightly he's been clenching his fists. “I never asked you to give up a damn thing for me. Not because I never wanted to. Because I knew it wouldn’t mean a damn thing to you. You’d go off, dive headfirst into water way over your head, and then you’d call me reckless for being a college student. I gambled; I drank. You nearly got yourself hacked and raped because you were too damn stubborn to call for help!”
Veronica’s face went hard, the color draining to a pale white as she toyed with the stem of her glass. “Because I should’ve let the rapist run loose? After what happened to me, what kind of person would I have to be to have let him get away with that?” She shakes her head. “You’re doing the same thing I did. You’ve spent all this time helping these kids, getting them into good homes and out of situations like yours. You think that isn’t the same?”
“No one’s trying to kill me, Veronica.”
“And if they were?” she prods. “You’d turn and walk away? Leave the kids there?”
“I’d ask for help, damn it! I don’t want to be anyone’s martyr.”
“But I do?” she asks. “What was I supposed to do, Logan? Lamb still acts like my family’s a joke. My dad, you, Wallace… none of you liked when I got involved. I couldn’t let him keep doing that to people. God, Logan, you’ll never know what that feels like. The waking up and just… not knowing.” She takes a deep breath, forcefully pushing away the memory. “And, yeah, I put myself in danger. I did plenty of stupid things, Logan, but I did them all for a good reason.”
“You’re filled with noble causes, Veronica.” He picks he glass back up and tips it in her direction. “And a whole damn lot of good it’s done you.”
And then he turned and walked back into the party, leaving her gaping after him.
. . .
He knows that she’ll find him again. Veronica doesn’t like questions; she’s never liked knowing that someone knew something more than her.
He figures that’s probably part of what got her kicked out of the program. The FBI isn’t big on disclosure, and he can only imagine how Veronica’s tactics would’ve been received under those kinds of circumstances.
He’s standing behind the buffet table when she takes him by the arm, pulling him away into one of the many storage spaces around the building.
“Who told you?” She doesn’t turn the lights on, but a high window casts a glow around the room. Her eyes flash when she looks at him, a combination of anger, betrayal, and fear.
He shrugs, knowing that it will infuriate her. “Does it kill you that I know you that well?” he taunts. “Does it hurt that I can still read you that well?”
“Bullshit,” she spits. “You heard me talking to Wallace.”
“If you already know the answer, why ask the question, Mars?”
He’s not sure what happens next, but then he’s got her pinned up against the wall and her dress is wrapped around her waist. She’s biting at lips and scratching at skin like she might really want to do some kind of destruction, like she wants to leave her mark on him.
He thinks that maybe he’ll remember the blood and the burn when he thinks of her. When she’s gone.
The reminder hits him like a bucket of ice water.
She’s surprised when he puts her back on her feet, his belt half off, and her underwear forgotten somewhere around their feet. She’s clumsy and angry as she pulls him back, her nails twining in his hair as her teeth scrape his.
He pushes her back, his hands rough on her shoulders, and her eyes are wide with surprise and clouded with lust when he catches sight of them in the light. His breath is heavy, and he steps back from her, hoping he doesn’t stumble, as he puts himself back together.
“What the hell, Logan?” She’s still staring at him, her lips red and swollen, her hair disheveled.
It takes everything he’s got to keep from pinning her against the wall and doing his damn best to imprint himself inside of her.
“I’m not doing this anymore, Veronica,” Logan says, re-looping his belt. “This is it. Everyone’s grown up; everyone’s married with real lives. Parker’s got two fucking kids. We don’t even act like adults.”
She slumps back against the wall, readjusting the straps of her dress. “What do you want from me, Logan?”
“This is it, Veronica. The end. Mac’s married, Parker’s married, and now Wallace is married too.” He shrugs. “We won’t run into each other anymore. We never have to see each other again. It’s just what you’ve always wanted.”
“Logan, I-” But he doesn’t want to hear her anymore.
“No. You’ve never given a damn before, Veronica. Not about what you did to me or where I was or what I was doing; don’t start to pretend now.” He straightens his tie, then collects his jacket from the floor. “I’m not going to end this against the wall in a dingy coat closet. You can think of us however you want to, but I’m sure you realize that you were more than that to me.”
When he leaves, her mouth is open, but he’s not listening anymore.
…
He expects to see her again, at least once before she’s gone again, but she never turns up. He expects her to argue and finesse, to wear at his newly-placed defenses. He expects her to fight.
He doesn’t see her come back to the party.
When Wallace tells him that she’s already gone, he realizes that maybe he really doesn’t know her anymore.
. . .
He might’ve missed the note, had she not known him so well. Wrapped around one of the many bottles of tequila in the mini-bar, he finds a shred of paper, torn from the hotel stationary.
He still recognizes her handwriting. He hates the fact that his hands shake when he reaches for it.
It’s not much; she’s never been big on words. Just two lines scrawled in thin print.
645 Lexington Way
NYC, NY
He stares at his own address, his brow knit in confusion, when he sees the text along the back.
It’s always mattered, Logan.
I’ve always been close.
He looks over his shoulder, expecting a pair of eyes or another revelation, but there’s only the silence.