VERONICA MARS Fic: Cold Comfort (V/L, Dick, Beaver, Keith, Duncan) R
Title: Cold Comfort
Author: Truemyth
Pairing / Character: Veronica / Logan
Rating: R (language and sexual situations)
Word Count: 5,032
Summary: “Veronica Mars was an advocate for the comforting powers of ice cream. She had certainly put it to the test in these early summer months.”
Spoilers / Warnings: All of Season 1. Angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the loveathons’s Ice Cream challenge and x-posted there. Also x-posted HERE at veronicamarsfic. Beta’d by the fabulous sophia_bee. Constructive criticism is faboo! It should be obvious after reading this that I don't mind the pain so much, so be as brutal as you want to be.
It is a well known fact that nothing can comfort a girl’s broken heart quite like ice cream. It is delicious and decadent, smooth and sinful. It is sweet while the world is bitter, and its chill can slide down a tongue and freeze the hurt deep inside. For a time.
Veronica Mars was an advocate for the comforting powers of ice cream. She had certainly put it to the test in these early summer months.
Creamy Chocolate, virgin Vanilla, ironically humorous Rocky Road, innocent Strawberry, exotic Passionfruit, energizing Coffee, traditional Pralines ‘n’ Cream. Not mint. Never mint.
The flavors had paraded through her mouth and for a time she could forget to think about the things that made her sad.
_\|/_
“I was hoping it would be you.” She had sweetly smiled at Duncan and invited him inside.
They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Veronica slowly began to speak. It was like a dam of denial and silence had burst and the misconceptions and pain of the past two years were finally allowed to run their course. They talked about so many things; Lilly, Aaron, and Celeste’s lies. A faint peace, like a whisper from her recent dream, overcame her as the rush of words slowed to a tranquil stream, like a quiet lily pond on which she could float at rest.
He had hugged her while saying goodbye, and then ducked his head to kiss her gently. She let him, lost in memories. He tasted like a fine, mellow dust in her mouth, soft and harmless and yet wholly vile. He tasted like yesterdays. It was wrong, so wrong. And Veronica suddenly realized what Lilly had been saying with her final silent smile.
She searched Duncan’s expectant face and felt her heart break in sympathy for the pain she was about to cause him. How could she explain to him the changes that time had wrought? He was no longer her perfect love. He never talked about the hard things until she brought them to the surface. And she wasn’t the girl she had been. She was literally tried by fire and proofed against the elements.
In the end, she spoke the hard words, as warmly as she could, but firmly and completely to leave no doubt. And she had watched him crumble before her as she stood fast. He had been so sad, disappointed in her and himself, as he stumbled out the dark rectangle of her front door and into the fog-shrouded night.
_\|/_
She ate ice cream in many shapes now.
Perfect balls on the ends of sugar cones, rectangular Dove bars on a stick in the hot sun, homemade sundaes in small round bowls, in sandwiches smashed between thin, square layers of chocolate cookie, in insignificant blobs from a dainty glass goblet at her favorite restaurant. The last always garnished with mint. She never ate the mint.
It was always the same; it didn’t matter when it happened. She may have awoken from a nightmare of fire and darkness. She may have heard a news report on the trial a few seconds before her dad quickly clicked off the television. She may have seen the flash of a bright yellow car disappearing around a corner. It was always the same; her face would grow hot and she would feel tears pressing at the back of eyes. It didn’t matter, because she knew how to keep the tears from falling. She would find her cold comfort in each spoonful of delight and she could forget again, for a time, about the things that made her despair.
_\|/_
Veronica walked tall and proud down the corridor of reporters and cameramen held at bay by strips of orange plastic tape and straight into the courthouse. She kept her mind clear and focused and knew Lilly was happy; that her killer would pay. She took her seat in the front row and thought ‘it has all been worth it.’
Logan entered, flanked by handlers in dark gray suits. He lurched a bit, but his head was high and his eyes were alert. It was the first time she’d been allowed to see him and she jumped up, stood at the aisle, waiting to exchange even a momentary glance of understanding.
His dark eyes burned right through her, as if she was as insignificant as his g-men or the court reporters. Veronica was left reeling from her apparent invisibility as he took a seat across the aisle and sat staring straight ahead. She couldn’t take her eyes from him, during the entire arraignment hearing. And yet he never looked at her.
Veronica had never seen Logan so non-reactionary. Even in their days of grand antagonism, he would go out of the way to confront her, picking at her insecurities as only he could, until she ran away or acted out. It had taken forever to discover the secret to truly pissing him off. Do nothing. Logan, as nature, abhorred a vacuum. He was constant motion, action and reaction, and always had been.
This Logan was so cold, removed from her and from everyone around him. She had known there would be issues that they would need to overcome, but now she was left to wonder if she was the only one who wanted to try. And she truly began to feel alone.
_\|/_
She rarely ate ice cream by itself after the arraignment. She made sure it had something extra, something to keep it company on its journey of consolation.
If it was chocolate coated, it had to have nuts. If it was a simple bowl, she had to have two flavors. M&M’s, Marshmallows, Carmel Cream, Hot Fudge, Maraschino Cherries, Chocolate Syrup, Fresh Fruit, Cookie Crumbs. Never anything with mint.
The ice cream gave her courage. With her insides numb, she could think about the future instead of dwelling on the past. She was free to act, when she could forget about the things that held her paralyzed with regret.
_\|/_
She followed the shredded pieces of yellow police tape down the patio steps and stood on the threshold of the pool house bedroom. She flinched at the wreckage Logan had already wrought and gasped as he calmly brought his sledgehammer down on the set of shelves to the right of a sparking mess of electronic, all that was left of Aaron Echolls’ little ‘home studio.’
Logan had turned at her gasp, the blue light from the pool rippling over his bare and sweating chest.
“Sorry, Ronnie,” his voice dripped with venom. Veronica flinched at his use of the nickname he’d given her even though she’d never asked for it. It brought back all the anger, the coldly placed insults over the last year and a half. Logan watched her face, his eyes glowing with dark satisfaction at her grimace, then continued his tirade.
“I cleared it with Lamb. I can do whatever I want with this place, now that they’ve got their evidence.” He casually picked up a bejeweled egg from the corner and smashed it at his feet with a little hop and a strange, mirthless giggle. “You’ll have to find another reason to turn me in, because this one won’t fly.”
It took a moment for Veronica to gather her wits as her eyes traced the wreckage of shattered wood and plaster on the pool house floor. When she looked up and began to speak, she found Logan had used that moment to cross the room. He was standing in front of her and his bitter look froze the words in her throat.
“Is this the good part now? The apology?” His voice shifted to a higher register, his face twisted into an ugly snarl, as he mimicked, “’Oh, I’m so sorry Logan! If I had only known it was your perverted fuck of a father who’d bashed in Lilly’s skull, I would have never run out on you.’” He snorted, “Please!” He threw his hands in the air in a gesture of horrified indignation. “Spare me!”
Veronica had narrowed her eyes. ‘He must be drunk,’ she’d thought.
Then Logan’s face had taken on a disturbingly innocent cast and he’d moved his head closer to hers.
“Or maybe that’s not it at all. Did you miss me? Is that why you’re here?” His lips hovered a breath from hers as he whispered words of poison across her mouth.
“Did you want the final fuck in the bed of the movie star before I set it on fire?” Then he was kissing her hard, grinding his teeth into her mouth, and she pulled back fast and slapped him just as hard across the face.
“Go to hell, Logan,” she hissed as she turned to escape that pool house for a second time.
His voice was like a chill on the night wind, “Already there, pumpkin.” There was a smash behind her. Then another. He set an exact rhythm to his devastation.
Her mind clicked and catalogued in time to his destructive beat. She realized what she’d tasted on his clean breath.
*BASH*
And what she hadn’t tasted.
*SMASH*
And what it meant.
*CRASH*
He had been stone-cold sober.
_\|/_
Veronica was starting to get a little sick of ice cream. But you stick with what you know until you find something better. And you keep moving; keep doing; that’s what made her a survivor. Veronica Mars was nothing if she wasn’t a survivor.
She and her father had decided, on the same day, not long after school let out, that she needed a new job. She loved spending time with him, but the PI work was killing her. She didn’t have the same drive for it now that she’d solved Lilly’s case. The hours spent watching couples grope at the Camelot, thinking of the stench of betrayal left behind, the cheating and the lying; it all left a bitter taste in her mouth. The normality of retail or food service called to her like a garbled sirens’ song of peace, tranquility, and blissful banality.
She got a job at Ricos, a hip little restaurant and café that served only deserts and pastries. Carrie Bishop, of all people, had recommended her to the management. It paid fifty cents above minimum wage and the majority of the work was at night, but it had its perks. One was that they made all of their gourmet ice cream on-site, in the labyrinthine back rooms. That there was an employee discount had moved this job straight to the top of her list.
She came off a break one Saturday night, re-tying a lacy bow behind her back and straightening the small white apron they were made to wear. She flipped her order pad to a clean sheet with a small sigh and moved briskly from the break room, past the bar, and towards a group of men sitting at her first table. She was less than three feet away when she looked up and found Logan Echolls glaring at her from his perch on the two hind legs of his leaning chair.
She snapped her gaze away from him before she was lost in his intense, dark stare. Unfortunately, she then found herself looking into the washed-out blue of Dick Casablancas’ eyes.
“Well, well! Veronica Mars! Finally find your true calling?” Dick sneered as he rubbed his hands together and opened his mouth to let another insult fly.
“Cram it, Dicky,” snapped a balding blonde man with a florid face, who was sitting to Dick’s right. He smiled winningly at Veronica as he continued to chastise her tormentor, “This young lady has done nothing to merit any of your lip.” He turned his full concentration towards Veronica and she felt his gaze crawl over her.
“Your name’s Veronica then? I’m Richard Casablancas, but, since you seem to know the boys, please call me Dick. All my friends do.” His face was nearly split by his blinding white smile as he finished with a nod to his son, “that is Big Dick, of course.” He actually winked.
The front legs of Logan’s chair slammed to the floor, but Veronica seemed to be the only one who noticed. Dick - that is Dicky - had folded his arms and was staring peevishly at a menu. ‘Big Dick’ continued to smile gamely at Veronica. A small movement across the table drew her attention to Cassidy as he squirmed uncomfortably and darted apologetic and appalled looks between Veronica and his father.
Veronica had heard that Logan was now living with the Casablancas family. He’d been placed there by the courts when they ruled Trina Echolls an unfit guardian. It wasn’t a surprising decision considering nearly half the pool house had gone up in the blaze he’d set. He’d been very methodical about it, using piles of broken furniture and liberal splashes of gasoline, setting a series of small fires in calculated locations. The bedroom had been a charred hole by the time the fire trucks had roared up the drive. Not a small feat given the response time in the 90909 zip code.
And now he was focusing all his considerable concentration on her.
‘Isn’t this perfect.’ Veronica sighed. She looked anywhere but at Logan as she summoned both her week’s worth of experience at waitressing and her life’s worth experience at handling jackasses.
She inquired perkily, “What can I get for you gentlemen this evening?”
Dick mumbled his order sullenly. Cassidy stuttered out his selection. Big Dick ran through two or three items, asking her to describe them and moaning his pleasure at her practiced spiel. He finally settled on a slice of chocolate mousse cake.
Silence drifted over the table like a smothering blanket of chilled silk as each pair of eyes slowly made their way, in turn, to look at Logan, who sat with his fingers slowly drumming on the closed menu in front of him. He didn’t speak until Veronica met his gaze fully, raised a pale brow, and opened her mouth. He stopped her words before they could trip from her tongue with an answering raise of his own brows.
He templed his fingers under his chin and chirped, “Well now -“ he made a production of squinting at her plastic name-tag “- Ver-on-i-ca, what would you suggest, hmm? What is your favorite desert?”
The three Casablancas men swung their heads towards Veronica, following the volley of words, even if they didn’t fully understand the meaning behind them. Like spectators at the coliseum, they scented bloody possibilities hanging in the air.
Veronica hardened her jaw and squeezed the ball-point Bic behind her back. She could play this game as well as he. She smiled with the brightness of a Death Valley sun and recited her favorite deserts with a detached and careless enthusiasm; warm chocolate lava cake with fresh raspberries, hot apple strudel drenched in caramel sauce, fresh-baked rhubarb pie with crystallized ginger… and here Logan held up a hand, damning her rush of saccharine words.
“It’s funny, you know?” he questioned the still and expectant air.
“What is?” Veronica demanded, her voice sharp and bright.
Logan’s eyes flitted around the room as he speculated.
“Oh, I just would have thought you would appreciate your desserts a bit more…”
His eyes found hers as he fired home his barb.
“- Cold.”
God knows it was a stupid insult. Hardly worth his wit, and he knew it too, because he wasn’t smirking the way he always had when he got off a good one at her expense. And yet the small, icy dart stuck like a sliver in Veronica’s breast, and her suddenly shaky breath couldn’t dislodge it. She felt her body heat rise, trying to melt Logan’s chilling malice, and she knew a red flush was climbing up her throat, her cheeks. Her eyes began to burn and she couldn’t take it.
So she did what she always did with this boy. She turned. She moved away, feet pacing faster and faster, until she was running as she threw her order pad and pen on the bar and plunged through the staff door.
The night manager had moved to confront her for dereliction of post, but she stopped after one look at Veronica’s face. ‘I must look really terrible.’ And the sick humor of that almost halted her flight until she looked back through the swinging door and saw Logan was standing at his table and beginning to head after her.
She dashed through the corridors, past the break room, the kitchen, random storage lockers; right, left, left again. She found herself in a dark and quite corner at the end of a narrow hallway, one side stacked high with boxes. She labored to settle her breathing with concentration and force of will, but that never really worked. It just served to heap embarrassment and self-disgust on top of the original hurt.
Her wits whirled and she felt as if the floor moved with them. She pressed her hands against the cold ceramic tiles of the wall in front of her. Their impersonal chill calmed her emotions the way her conscious thoughts could not. Her nails dug at the old grout and the slight pain helped to clear her head too. Her lashes stuck damply when she blinked, but her cheeks were dry, and so they would remain.
She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let him make her cry for him. She hadn’t yet, the whole summer long, and she wouldn’t start now.
She heard a shuffled step behind her, someone stopping at the nearest intersection. She knew who it was and her spine went as stiff as a rod of cold iron as she forced herself to pull away from the wall and stand on her own two feet. The footsteps sounded closer and closer as he came down the hallway towards her and she felt them hit the ground in time with the pulse at her throat. He paused close behind her. She lifted her head to the practiced angle that would allow her to look into his eyes and spun around.
Logan was closer than she thought. Her shoulder brushed his corduroy jacket as she turned and she found herself staring defiantly at his Adam’s apple. She corrected quickly, bending her neck to a near painful position, and she found herself unsettled again by what she saw in his eyes. Oh, there was still anger, hate, distaste, and chill, unimpassioned spite on his face, but his eyes… in their warm - oh hell, how could they still be warm? - chocolaty depths she saw something she could only call concern, compassion and possibly…
Before she could identify that third, hazy emotion, he was moving, his hand reaching towards her face, and she, consumed by her examination of his eyes, did not react as he so carefully, so gently - and god, that was painful - touched two fingers to the corner of her eye.
He pulled back and examined the subtle damp on his fingers with mild confusion.
‘Okay, one tear. He can have one tear, but that’s all he gets.’
She squared her shoulders and prepared for the next round in their intimate game of hurt and blame. He dropped his large hands onto her shoulders and immediately they weren’t square any more. They softened and rounded as a shiver of warmth sped through them from his hands and down her spine. She swayed towards him and she knew she had to stop this.
She wet her lips with a sweep of her tongue, preparing to speak. She parted her moist lips slightly to let her barrage of ugly words pour out. She tilted her head back and a little to the side, and moved closer to him so he couldn’t miss each painful syllable she had for him.
‘Who are you kidding, Veronica?’
She sighed sweetly as his mouth fell on hers and her angry words slipped away with his touch. She felt the heat building between their bodies.
Her hands raked through his soft hair, clutched at his hard shoulders, and pushed under his jacket, burrowing closer to the furnace of his body. She relearned the shape of him, inch by inch, as he pressed the dark wool of her skirt into her with one strong, denim-clad thigh. She moved against him, near-frantic, relishing his warmth and closeness and the feeling of no longer being so alone.
His lips took their time. While her body strained against his, while he pressed her into the cold tile and pushed her vaguely up the wall, while each finger raced madly across flesh too long neglected; he held his mouth to a delicate grace of motion, slow and simple, no tongue, no teeth, just plump lips and fragrant air.
She had missed the taste of him, that combination of delights that was uniquely his.
Mellow earth, spice like cinnamon, smooth sweetness, tart and glorious warmth. Always a hint of liquor, even when he hadn’t touched a drop, so that she grew drunk on him. And over it all was the mint, like a fresh, clean breeze blowing the cobwebs of confusion from her mind, leaving room for only thoughts of peaceful pleasure.
Oh, god, that mint. TicTacs to cover the booze? Toothpaste? She didn’t know were the mint came from, had never asked. And she might never be able to, even now. Especially now.
With a desperate moan, Veronica opened her mouth and pulled Logan’s head closer to hers, deepening the kiss. Their tongues tangled and Logan groaned and, over their panting breaths and rushing blood, they almost didn’t hear the creaking wheels of the rickety serving cart as it came up a side corridor.
Veronica struggled to catch her breath as Logan swiftly surveyed the hall. His gaze settled on the heavy steel door of the walk-in freezer. Before she could think to protest or agree, he had pulled it open with a twist of one hand and tugged her through into the icy dark.
Florescent lights flickered on, washing the three walls, the deep wired-metal shelves, and the small expanse of linoleum floor with a faint blue-tinged light. As the lights stabilized to only the occasional, buzz-heralded flash Veronica found herself staring at Logan’s broad back as he stood facing the door, his hand still resting on the small light-switch at its side.
His head hung low and she could see the rounded curve of the top of his spine between the soft fabric of his coat and the downy brush of his hair. Her pulse pounded and she managed to ignore the frosty air. In fact, she felt slightly hot. Her mouth watered and she swallowed hard, clearing her throat.
At the sound, Logan twirled around and leaned back against the door. He observed her from across four feet of off-white flooring.
“It’s difficult,” he stated abruptly.
Veronica shifted her weight to her left leg and slowly shook her head in confusion.
“What is?”
“Hating you.” His eyes darted away from her and he tittered harshly, “Should be easy, right?” He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to become very interested in the contents of the shelves at her right.
A slow smile spread over Veronica’s face and she took a small step towards him. “So you don’t hate me?”
“Oh, I hate you!” Logan’s words stopped Veronica cold. She dug her nails into her palms to keep from shuddering. Logan continued, waving his hands through the chill, “Sometimes I manage to hate you for as much as thirty seconds at a time!”
He locked eyes with her and pushed away from the door.
“I hate you for not trusting me and thinking I was going to record our little make-out session.”
He stepped forward.
“I hate you for believing that I could hurt Lilly.”
He took another step.
“I hate you for believing me about my break-up letter, and walking right into the arms of my sick bastard of a father, just to get proof to exonerate me.”
Two more steps.
“I hate you for calling Weevil of all people to talk me off of a bridge!”
Three more steps and he would be near enough to touch her.
“I hate you for not letting me move on. For the guilt you make me feel every time I look at you. For being so fucking beautiful that Big Dick daddy-what’s-his-fuck was undressing you with his eyes.”
His breath blew hot across her face as she gazed up at him.
He bent his head and whispered like a capricious conspirator in a bad spy film, full of irony laden gravitas, “Do you know why I burned down the pool house?” He pulled back, watching, as the words curled inside her ear and she gradually realized the question was not rhetorical.
She murmured, “I assumed it was because of Lilly. What your father did…”
Logan chuckled gently and ran his knuckles down her cheek. She leaned helplessly into his caress.
“What my father did…” Logan mused. He shook his head as he lowered it to her eye level. “No, you don’t get it -.”
Veronica shivered. She couldn’t help it any more. Logan looked down at her thin silk shirt and short skirt and cursed under his breath. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her. Its warmth sank into her bones and carried his sandalwood scent to her nostrils. Logan wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly to his chest.
“God, Veronica, I’m so sorry.” At least that’s what she thought she heard him say through the material of his coat, over the beat of his heart, and with one ear pressed to his chest.
Logan kissed the top of her head and she nuzzled her cheek against the warm cotton of his shirt. Logan’s lips found her forehead, and she sighed. When they reached her brow, she tilted her face towards him and began to move her hands up the column of his back. He reverently brushed two delicate kisses on her eyelids as they fluttered closed. Veronica’s hands caressed their way to the front of Logan’s chest. They slithered up his neck and into his velvet-soft hair. The corduroy coat fell in a heap at her ankles as she opened her arms to him.
His lips touched hers and turned hungry. He devoured her mouth and she answered by ravishing his body with her touch. He returned the favor and they became a whirlwind of impassioned motion. Hands were everywhere, tugging at loosening clothing, riding up thighs, molding any bare flesh they could find. Lips followed suit, tracing swirling paths along fleshy hills and valleys.
Veronica gasped in pain as her knees struck the cold, hard floor. She couldn’t remember how she got there. She didn’t remember the pain for more than a second as her world dissolved into a rush of sensation.
Hot lips, cold ground. Gliding hands, smooth metal bars on the bottom of shelves. Lumps of clothing, cotton, corduroy, silk, and lace, covering the chilled linoleum at her back. Sweetly murmured words puffed into the icy air, turned to crystals and sent dancing. Bare flesh on her flesh, strong arms around her arms, lean thighs between her thighs. So beautiful, so wonderful, so warm and real. So right, oh god. Time shattered, the world fell away. Stars, she could see stars, and who knew that the stars could taste like mint?
As Veronica came back to cold reality, Logan still held her close. He was moving his lips on her hair line. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him for the softness of the syllables and the idly slowing rush of her blood. She groaned and pushed at his shoulders as she began to register the pressure of his full weight upon her.
He pulled himself off her, tugged up his boxers and pants and fastened them. He was kneeling between her parted legs and they stared at each other, the only sound the faint buzz of the overhead lights. They waited as their breathing returned to normal. He helped her smooth down her little black skirt. She found his shirt under her shoulder and watched as he pulled it on over his head. His face was growing harder to read.
“Logan,” her voice croaked, and she had to clear it. “Logan, Lilly didn’t -,” she stopped as he stood up abruptly.
“You don’t get it,” he bit out with bitter disappointment. He looked down at her, and she knew he was angry, though she couldn’t say why. He stalked to the door and flung it open without checking what might be on the other side. It seemed he had every intention of leaving, but then he paused. He stood in the doorway, his arms bracing each side of the doorjamb as he looked under one, back at her.
“It was for you. I did it for what that bastard did to you.”
And then he was gone, and the heavy door swung shut with a sticky bang, sealing in the cold.
Veronica shivered on the freezing floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She spotted Logan’s jacket, lying forgotten under one of the shelves and she grabbed it to her and wrapped it tight around her shoulders. It was quickly loosing the warmth of his body, but she embraced it anyways. His earthy scent arose much too faintly and she felt hot pin-pricks of desolation press against the back of her eyes.
She breathed deeply, while her eyes darted wildly, searching for some escape from the deep distress of her emotions. They lit upon a one gallon container of ice cream resting on the shelf across from her, and then flickered up to a tray of flatware. She grabbed one cold spoon, griping the chilled metal until its edge bit into the flesh of her palm. She split the seal on the ice cream container, and pealed back the lid.
It was mint chocolate chip.
She ate it anyways.
And she tried to tell herself the taste of salt was normal.
Awards:
From loveathons.
Thanks for reading.
Author: Truemyth
Pairing / Character: Veronica / Logan
Rating: R (language and sexual situations)
Word Count: 5,032
Summary: “Veronica Mars was an advocate for the comforting powers of ice cream. She had certainly put it to the test in these early summer months.”
Spoilers / Warnings: All of Season 1. Angst.
Author’s Note: Written for the loveathons’s Ice Cream challenge and x-posted there. Also x-posted HERE at veronicamarsfic. Beta’d by the fabulous sophia_bee. Constructive criticism is faboo! It should be obvious after reading this that I don't mind the pain so much, so be as brutal as you want to be.
It is a well known fact that nothing can comfort a girl’s broken heart quite like ice cream. It is delicious and decadent, smooth and sinful. It is sweet while the world is bitter, and its chill can slide down a tongue and freeze the hurt deep inside. For a time.
Veronica Mars was an advocate for the comforting powers of ice cream. She had certainly put it to the test in these early summer months.
Creamy Chocolate, virgin Vanilla, ironically humorous Rocky Road, innocent Strawberry, exotic Passionfruit, energizing Coffee, traditional Pralines ‘n’ Cream. Not mint. Never mint.
The flavors had paraded through her mouth and for a time she could forget to think about the things that made her sad.
_\|/_
“I was hoping it would be you.” She had sweetly smiled at Duncan and invited him inside.
They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Veronica slowly began to speak. It was like a dam of denial and silence had burst and the misconceptions and pain of the past two years were finally allowed to run their course. They talked about so many things; Lilly, Aaron, and Celeste’s lies. A faint peace, like a whisper from her recent dream, overcame her as the rush of words slowed to a tranquil stream, like a quiet lily pond on which she could float at rest.
He had hugged her while saying goodbye, and then ducked his head to kiss her gently. She let him, lost in memories. He tasted like a fine, mellow dust in her mouth, soft and harmless and yet wholly vile. He tasted like yesterdays. It was wrong, so wrong. And Veronica suddenly realized what Lilly had been saying with her final silent smile.
She searched Duncan’s expectant face and felt her heart break in sympathy for the pain she was about to cause him. How could she explain to him the changes that time had wrought? He was no longer her perfect love. He never talked about the hard things until she brought them to the surface. And she wasn’t the girl she had been. She was literally tried by fire and proofed against the elements.
In the end, she spoke the hard words, as warmly as she could, but firmly and completely to leave no doubt. And she had watched him crumble before her as she stood fast. He had been so sad, disappointed in her and himself, as he stumbled out the dark rectangle of her front door and into the fog-shrouded night.
_\|/_
She ate ice cream in many shapes now.
Perfect balls on the ends of sugar cones, rectangular Dove bars on a stick in the hot sun, homemade sundaes in small round bowls, in sandwiches smashed between thin, square layers of chocolate cookie, in insignificant blobs from a dainty glass goblet at her favorite restaurant. The last always garnished with mint. She never ate the mint.
It was always the same; it didn’t matter when it happened. She may have awoken from a nightmare of fire and darkness. She may have heard a news report on the trial a few seconds before her dad quickly clicked off the television. She may have seen the flash of a bright yellow car disappearing around a corner. It was always the same; her face would grow hot and she would feel tears pressing at the back of eyes. It didn’t matter, because she knew how to keep the tears from falling. She would find her cold comfort in each spoonful of delight and she could forget again, for a time, about the things that made her despair.
_\|/_
Veronica walked tall and proud down the corridor of reporters and cameramen held at bay by strips of orange plastic tape and straight into the courthouse. She kept her mind clear and focused and knew Lilly was happy; that her killer would pay. She took her seat in the front row and thought ‘it has all been worth it.’
Logan entered, flanked by handlers in dark gray suits. He lurched a bit, but his head was high and his eyes were alert. It was the first time she’d been allowed to see him and she jumped up, stood at the aisle, waiting to exchange even a momentary glance of understanding.
His dark eyes burned right through her, as if she was as insignificant as his g-men or the court reporters. Veronica was left reeling from her apparent invisibility as he took a seat across the aisle and sat staring straight ahead. She couldn’t take her eyes from him, during the entire arraignment hearing. And yet he never looked at her.
Veronica had never seen Logan so non-reactionary. Even in their days of grand antagonism, he would go out of the way to confront her, picking at her insecurities as only he could, until she ran away or acted out. It had taken forever to discover the secret to truly pissing him off. Do nothing. Logan, as nature, abhorred a vacuum. He was constant motion, action and reaction, and always had been.
This Logan was so cold, removed from her and from everyone around him. She had known there would be issues that they would need to overcome, but now she was left to wonder if she was the only one who wanted to try. And she truly began to feel alone.
_\|/_
She rarely ate ice cream by itself after the arraignment. She made sure it had something extra, something to keep it company on its journey of consolation.
If it was chocolate coated, it had to have nuts. If it was a simple bowl, she had to have two flavors. M&M’s, Marshmallows, Carmel Cream, Hot Fudge, Maraschino Cherries, Chocolate Syrup, Fresh Fruit, Cookie Crumbs. Never anything with mint.
The ice cream gave her courage. With her insides numb, she could think about the future instead of dwelling on the past. She was free to act, when she could forget about the things that held her paralyzed with regret.
_\|/_
She followed the shredded pieces of yellow police tape down the patio steps and stood on the threshold of the pool house bedroom. She flinched at the wreckage Logan had already wrought and gasped as he calmly brought his sledgehammer down on the set of shelves to the right of a sparking mess of electronic, all that was left of Aaron Echolls’ little ‘home studio.’
Logan had turned at her gasp, the blue light from the pool rippling over his bare and sweating chest.
“Sorry, Ronnie,” his voice dripped with venom. Veronica flinched at his use of the nickname he’d given her even though she’d never asked for it. It brought back all the anger, the coldly placed insults over the last year and a half. Logan watched her face, his eyes glowing with dark satisfaction at her grimace, then continued his tirade.
“I cleared it with Lamb. I can do whatever I want with this place, now that they’ve got their evidence.” He casually picked up a bejeweled egg from the corner and smashed it at his feet with a little hop and a strange, mirthless giggle. “You’ll have to find another reason to turn me in, because this one won’t fly.”
It took a moment for Veronica to gather her wits as her eyes traced the wreckage of shattered wood and plaster on the pool house floor. When she looked up and began to speak, she found Logan had used that moment to cross the room. He was standing in front of her and his bitter look froze the words in her throat.
“Is this the good part now? The apology?” His voice shifted to a higher register, his face twisted into an ugly snarl, as he mimicked, “’Oh, I’m so sorry Logan! If I had only known it was your perverted fuck of a father who’d bashed in Lilly’s skull, I would have never run out on you.’” He snorted, “Please!” He threw his hands in the air in a gesture of horrified indignation. “Spare me!”
Veronica had narrowed her eyes. ‘He must be drunk,’ she’d thought.
Then Logan’s face had taken on a disturbingly innocent cast and he’d moved his head closer to hers.
“Or maybe that’s not it at all. Did you miss me? Is that why you’re here?” His lips hovered a breath from hers as he whispered words of poison across her mouth.
“Did you want the final fuck in the bed of the movie star before I set it on fire?” Then he was kissing her hard, grinding his teeth into her mouth, and she pulled back fast and slapped him just as hard across the face.
“Go to hell, Logan,” she hissed as she turned to escape that pool house for a second time.
His voice was like a chill on the night wind, “Already there, pumpkin.” There was a smash behind her. Then another. He set an exact rhythm to his devastation.
Her mind clicked and catalogued in time to his destructive beat. She realized what she’d tasted on his clean breath.
*BASH*
And what she hadn’t tasted.
*SMASH*
And what it meant.
*CRASH*
He had been stone-cold sober.
_\|/_
Veronica was starting to get a little sick of ice cream. But you stick with what you know until you find something better. And you keep moving; keep doing; that’s what made her a survivor. Veronica Mars was nothing if she wasn’t a survivor.
She and her father had decided, on the same day, not long after school let out, that she needed a new job. She loved spending time with him, but the PI work was killing her. She didn’t have the same drive for it now that she’d solved Lilly’s case. The hours spent watching couples grope at the Camelot, thinking of the stench of betrayal left behind, the cheating and the lying; it all left a bitter taste in her mouth. The normality of retail or food service called to her like a garbled sirens’ song of peace, tranquility, and blissful banality.
She got a job at Ricos, a hip little restaurant and café that served only deserts and pastries. Carrie Bishop, of all people, had recommended her to the management. It paid fifty cents above minimum wage and the majority of the work was at night, but it had its perks. One was that they made all of their gourmet ice cream on-site, in the labyrinthine back rooms. That there was an employee discount had moved this job straight to the top of her list.
She came off a break one Saturday night, re-tying a lacy bow behind her back and straightening the small white apron they were made to wear. She flipped her order pad to a clean sheet with a small sigh and moved briskly from the break room, past the bar, and towards a group of men sitting at her first table. She was less than three feet away when she looked up and found Logan Echolls glaring at her from his perch on the two hind legs of his leaning chair.
She snapped her gaze away from him before she was lost in his intense, dark stare. Unfortunately, she then found herself looking into the washed-out blue of Dick Casablancas’ eyes.
“Well, well! Veronica Mars! Finally find your true calling?” Dick sneered as he rubbed his hands together and opened his mouth to let another insult fly.
“Cram it, Dicky,” snapped a balding blonde man with a florid face, who was sitting to Dick’s right. He smiled winningly at Veronica as he continued to chastise her tormentor, “This young lady has done nothing to merit any of your lip.” He turned his full concentration towards Veronica and she felt his gaze crawl over her.
“Your name’s Veronica then? I’m Richard Casablancas, but, since you seem to know the boys, please call me Dick. All my friends do.” His face was nearly split by his blinding white smile as he finished with a nod to his son, “that is Big Dick, of course.” He actually winked.
The front legs of Logan’s chair slammed to the floor, but Veronica seemed to be the only one who noticed. Dick - that is Dicky - had folded his arms and was staring peevishly at a menu. ‘Big Dick’ continued to smile gamely at Veronica. A small movement across the table drew her attention to Cassidy as he squirmed uncomfortably and darted apologetic and appalled looks between Veronica and his father.
Veronica had heard that Logan was now living with the Casablancas family. He’d been placed there by the courts when they ruled Trina Echolls an unfit guardian. It wasn’t a surprising decision considering nearly half the pool house had gone up in the blaze he’d set. He’d been very methodical about it, using piles of broken furniture and liberal splashes of gasoline, setting a series of small fires in calculated locations. The bedroom had been a charred hole by the time the fire trucks had roared up the drive. Not a small feat given the response time in the 90909 zip code.
And now he was focusing all his considerable concentration on her.
‘Isn’t this perfect.’ Veronica sighed. She looked anywhere but at Logan as she summoned both her week’s worth of experience at waitressing and her life’s worth experience at handling jackasses.
She inquired perkily, “What can I get for you gentlemen this evening?”
Dick mumbled his order sullenly. Cassidy stuttered out his selection. Big Dick ran through two or three items, asking her to describe them and moaning his pleasure at her practiced spiel. He finally settled on a slice of chocolate mousse cake.
Silence drifted over the table like a smothering blanket of chilled silk as each pair of eyes slowly made their way, in turn, to look at Logan, who sat with his fingers slowly drumming on the closed menu in front of him. He didn’t speak until Veronica met his gaze fully, raised a pale brow, and opened her mouth. He stopped her words before they could trip from her tongue with an answering raise of his own brows.
He templed his fingers under his chin and chirped, “Well now -“ he made a production of squinting at her plastic name-tag “- Ver-on-i-ca, what would you suggest, hmm? What is your favorite desert?”
The three Casablancas men swung their heads towards Veronica, following the volley of words, even if they didn’t fully understand the meaning behind them. Like spectators at the coliseum, they scented bloody possibilities hanging in the air.
Veronica hardened her jaw and squeezed the ball-point Bic behind her back. She could play this game as well as he. She smiled with the brightness of a Death Valley sun and recited her favorite deserts with a detached and careless enthusiasm; warm chocolate lava cake with fresh raspberries, hot apple strudel drenched in caramel sauce, fresh-baked rhubarb pie with crystallized ginger… and here Logan held up a hand, damning her rush of saccharine words.
“It’s funny, you know?” he questioned the still and expectant air.
“What is?” Veronica demanded, her voice sharp and bright.
Logan’s eyes flitted around the room as he speculated.
“Oh, I just would have thought you would appreciate your desserts a bit more…”
His eyes found hers as he fired home his barb.
“- Cold.”
God knows it was a stupid insult. Hardly worth his wit, and he knew it too, because he wasn’t smirking the way he always had when he got off a good one at her expense. And yet the small, icy dart stuck like a sliver in Veronica’s breast, and her suddenly shaky breath couldn’t dislodge it. She felt her body heat rise, trying to melt Logan’s chilling malice, and she knew a red flush was climbing up her throat, her cheeks. Her eyes began to burn and she couldn’t take it.
So she did what she always did with this boy. She turned. She moved away, feet pacing faster and faster, until she was running as she threw her order pad and pen on the bar and plunged through the staff door.
The night manager had moved to confront her for dereliction of post, but she stopped after one look at Veronica’s face. ‘I must look really terrible.’ And the sick humor of that almost halted her flight until she looked back through the swinging door and saw Logan was standing at his table and beginning to head after her.
She dashed through the corridors, past the break room, the kitchen, random storage lockers; right, left, left again. She found herself in a dark and quite corner at the end of a narrow hallway, one side stacked high with boxes. She labored to settle her breathing with concentration and force of will, but that never really worked. It just served to heap embarrassment and self-disgust on top of the original hurt.
Her wits whirled and she felt as if the floor moved with them. She pressed her hands against the cold ceramic tiles of the wall in front of her. Their impersonal chill calmed her emotions the way her conscious thoughts could not. Her nails dug at the old grout and the slight pain helped to clear her head too. Her lashes stuck damply when she blinked, but her cheeks were dry, and so they would remain.
She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t let him make her cry for him. She hadn’t yet, the whole summer long, and she wouldn’t start now.
She heard a shuffled step behind her, someone stopping at the nearest intersection. She knew who it was and her spine went as stiff as a rod of cold iron as she forced herself to pull away from the wall and stand on her own two feet. The footsteps sounded closer and closer as he came down the hallway towards her and she felt them hit the ground in time with the pulse at her throat. He paused close behind her. She lifted her head to the practiced angle that would allow her to look into his eyes and spun around.
Logan was closer than she thought. Her shoulder brushed his corduroy jacket as she turned and she found herself staring defiantly at his Adam’s apple. She corrected quickly, bending her neck to a near painful position, and she found herself unsettled again by what she saw in his eyes. Oh, there was still anger, hate, distaste, and chill, unimpassioned spite on his face, but his eyes… in their warm - oh hell, how could they still be warm? - chocolaty depths she saw something she could only call concern, compassion and possibly…
Before she could identify that third, hazy emotion, he was moving, his hand reaching towards her face, and she, consumed by her examination of his eyes, did not react as he so carefully, so gently - and god, that was painful - touched two fingers to the corner of her eye.
He pulled back and examined the subtle damp on his fingers with mild confusion.
‘Okay, one tear. He can have one tear, but that’s all he gets.’
She squared her shoulders and prepared for the next round in their intimate game of hurt and blame. He dropped his large hands onto her shoulders and immediately they weren’t square any more. They softened and rounded as a shiver of warmth sped through them from his hands and down her spine. She swayed towards him and she knew she had to stop this.
She wet her lips with a sweep of her tongue, preparing to speak. She parted her moist lips slightly to let her barrage of ugly words pour out. She tilted her head back and a little to the side, and moved closer to him so he couldn’t miss each painful syllable she had for him.
‘Who are you kidding, Veronica?’
She sighed sweetly as his mouth fell on hers and her angry words slipped away with his touch. She felt the heat building between their bodies.
Her hands raked through his soft hair, clutched at his hard shoulders, and pushed under his jacket, burrowing closer to the furnace of his body. She relearned the shape of him, inch by inch, as he pressed the dark wool of her skirt into her with one strong, denim-clad thigh. She moved against him, near-frantic, relishing his warmth and closeness and the feeling of no longer being so alone.
His lips took their time. While her body strained against his, while he pressed her into the cold tile and pushed her vaguely up the wall, while each finger raced madly across flesh too long neglected; he held his mouth to a delicate grace of motion, slow and simple, no tongue, no teeth, just plump lips and fragrant air.
She had missed the taste of him, that combination of delights that was uniquely his.
Mellow earth, spice like cinnamon, smooth sweetness, tart and glorious warmth. Always a hint of liquor, even when he hadn’t touched a drop, so that she grew drunk on him. And over it all was the mint, like a fresh, clean breeze blowing the cobwebs of confusion from her mind, leaving room for only thoughts of peaceful pleasure.
Oh, god, that mint. TicTacs to cover the booze? Toothpaste? She didn’t know were the mint came from, had never asked. And she might never be able to, even now. Especially now.
With a desperate moan, Veronica opened her mouth and pulled Logan’s head closer to hers, deepening the kiss. Their tongues tangled and Logan groaned and, over their panting breaths and rushing blood, they almost didn’t hear the creaking wheels of the rickety serving cart as it came up a side corridor.
Veronica struggled to catch her breath as Logan swiftly surveyed the hall. His gaze settled on the heavy steel door of the walk-in freezer. Before she could think to protest or agree, he had pulled it open with a twist of one hand and tugged her through into the icy dark.
Florescent lights flickered on, washing the three walls, the deep wired-metal shelves, and the small expanse of linoleum floor with a faint blue-tinged light. As the lights stabilized to only the occasional, buzz-heralded flash Veronica found herself staring at Logan’s broad back as he stood facing the door, his hand still resting on the small light-switch at its side.
His head hung low and she could see the rounded curve of the top of his spine between the soft fabric of his coat and the downy brush of his hair. Her pulse pounded and she managed to ignore the frosty air. In fact, she felt slightly hot. Her mouth watered and she swallowed hard, clearing her throat.
At the sound, Logan twirled around and leaned back against the door. He observed her from across four feet of off-white flooring.
“It’s difficult,” he stated abruptly.
Veronica shifted her weight to her left leg and slowly shook her head in confusion.
“What is?”
“Hating you.” His eyes darted away from her and he tittered harshly, “Should be easy, right?” He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to become very interested in the contents of the shelves at her right.
A slow smile spread over Veronica’s face and she took a small step towards him. “So you don’t hate me?”
“Oh, I hate you!” Logan’s words stopped Veronica cold. She dug her nails into her palms to keep from shuddering. Logan continued, waving his hands through the chill, “Sometimes I manage to hate you for as much as thirty seconds at a time!”
He locked eyes with her and pushed away from the door.
“I hate you for not trusting me and thinking I was going to record our little make-out session.”
He stepped forward.
“I hate you for believing that I could hurt Lilly.”
He took another step.
“I hate you for believing me about my break-up letter, and walking right into the arms of my sick bastard of a father, just to get proof to exonerate me.”
Two more steps.
“I hate you for calling Weevil of all people to talk me off of a bridge!”
Three more steps and he would be near enough to touch her.
“I hate you for not letting me move on. For the guilt you make me feel every time I look at you. For being so fucking beautiful that Big Dick daddy-what’s-his-fuck was undressing you with his eyes.”
His breath blew hot across her face as she gazed up at him.
He bent his head and whispered like a capricious conspirator in a bad spy film, full of irony laden gravitas, “Do you know why I burned down the pool house?” He pulled back, watching, as the words curled inside her ear and she gradually realized the question was not rhetorical.
She murmured, “I assumed it was because of Lilly. What your father did…”
Logan chuckled gently and ran his knuckles down her cheek. She leaned helplessly into his caress.
“What my father did…” Logan mused. He shook his head as he lowered it to her eye level. “No, you don’t get it -.”
Veronica shivered. She couldn’t help it any more. Logan looked down at her thin silk shirt and short skirt and cursed under his breath. He took off his coat and wrapped it around her. Its warmth sank into her bones and carried his sandalwood scent to her nostrils. Logan wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly to his chest.
“God, Veronica, I’m so sorry.” At least that’s what she thought she heard him say through the material of his coat, over the beat of his heart, and with one ear pressed to his chest.
Logan kissed the top of her head and she nuzzled her cheek against the warm cotton of his shirt. Logan’s lips found her forehead, and she sighed. When they reached her brow, she tilted her face towards him and began to move her hands up the column of his back. He reverently brushed two delicate kisses on her eyelids as they fluttered closed. Veronica’s hands caressed their way to the front of Logan’s chest. They slithered up his neck and into his velvet-soft hair. The corduroy coat fell in a heap at her ankles as she opened her arms to him.
His lips touched hers and turned hungry. He devoured her mouth and she answered by ravishing his body with her touch. He returned the favor and they became a whirlwind of impassioned motion. Hands were everywhere, tugging at loosening clothing, riding up thighs, molding any bare flesh they could find. Lips followed suit, tracing swirling paths along fleshy hills and valleys.
Veronica gasped in pain as her knees struck the cold, hard floor. She couldn’t remember how she got there. She didn’t remember the pain for more than a second as her world dissolved into a rush of sensation.
Hot lips, cold ground. Gliding hands, smooth metal bars on the bottom of shelves. Lumps of clothing, cotton, corduroy, silk, and lace, covering the chilled linoleum at her back. Sweetly murmured words puffed into the icy air, turned to crystals and sent dancing. Bare flesh on her flesh, strong arms around her arms, lean thighs between her thighs. So beautiful, so wonderful, so warm and real. So right, oh god. Time shattered, the world fell away. Stars, she could see stars, and who knew that the stars could taste like mint?
As Veronica came back to cold reality, Logan still held her close. He was moving his lips on her hair line. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him for the softness of the syllables and the idly slowing rush of her blood. She groaned and pushed at his shoulders as she began to register the pressure of his full weight upon her.
He pulled himself off her, tugged up his boxers and pants and fastened them. He was kneeling between her parted legs and they stared at each other, the only sound the faint buzz of the overhead lights. They waited as their breathing returned to normal. He helped her smooth down her little black skirt. She found his shirt under her shoulder and watched as he pulled it on over his head. His face was growing harder to read.
“Logan,” her voice croaked, and she had to clear it. “Logan, Lilly didn’t -,” she stopped as he stood up abruptly.
“You don’t get it,” he bit out with bitter disappointment. He looked down at her, and she knew he was angry, though she couldn’t say why. He stalked to the door and flung it open without checking what might be on the other side. It seemed he had every intention of leaving, but then he paused. He stood in the doorway, his arms bracing each side of the doorjamb as he looked under one, back at her.
“It was for you. I did it for what that bastard did to you.”
And then he was gone, and the heavy door swung shut with a sticky bang, sealing in the cold.
Veronica shivered on the freezing floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She spotted Logan’s jacket, lying forgotten under one of the shelves and she grabbed it to her and wrapped it tight around her shoulders. It was quickly loosing the warmth of his body, but she embraced it anyways. His earthy scent arose much too faintly and she felt hot pin-pricks of desolation press against the back of her eyes.
She breathed deeply, while her eyes darted wildly, searching for some escape from the deep distress of her emotions. They lit upon a one gallon container of ice cream resting on the shelf across from her, and then flickered up to a tray of flatware. She grabbed one cold spoon, griping the chilled metal until its edge bit into the flesh of her palm. She split the seal on the ice cream container, and pealed back the lid.
It was mint chocolate chip.
She ate it anyways.
And she tried to tell herself the taste of salt was normal.
Awards:
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Thanks for reading.