Chemical Reactions 1/8 (Logan/Veronica) PG-13
Title: Chemical Reactions 1/8
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan, Mac, Piz
Word Count: 2300
Rating: this part PG-13 for language, suggested sexual situations; eventual R or NC-17
Summary: Remember how Logan said he'd be there for her if she needed anything? Yeah, so does Veronica. Just because they've broken up, it doesn't mean they're over. Also contains an actual case.
Spoilers: through 3.9, Spit & Eggs
Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thomas and co. did the hard work, creating the characters and the world. I'm just fooling around.
A/N: If WIPs that vanish into the ether before they're complete drive you nuts, never fear. I've written most of this one already. I plan to post the entire series before VM comes back from hiatus on the 23rd. So look for a new chapter every few days.
A/N 2: This was written in part for vm_library's January smutathon, though the challenge and smut elements don't show up until later chapters. Thanks go to Toni (who has a terrific novel coming out this year!) for her help brainstorming the action-y bits and to hesper_m and taken_with_you for being fantabulous betas.
Feedback and concrit very very (very) welcome!
Crossposted to vm_library
CHAPTER ONE:
Ex-boyfriends were supposed to grow unkempt beards, wear ugly flannel shirts, and sprout nose hairs. They were supposed to look less attractive over time, not more. And if certain ex-boyfriends had the temerity to show up at afternoon faculty-student mixers, they certainly had no right to smile all slow and sexy and raise their paper cup in an unspoken toast. It just wasn’t fair.
"Veronica?" Mac nudged her elbow. "Where'd you go?" She followed Veronica's eyeline. "Oh."
Veronica gave her a warning glance. "Don't read anything into it. I was just -"
"Giving your ex the eye sex, yeah, I saw."
"I was just surprised to see him here, that's all."
"Yeah, because Logan at a party is a once in a lifetime alert-the-media event."
"What are we doing here, anyway? I don’t even like parties." Veronica chugged her root beer and put her cup down on a bookshelf, resolutely not looking at Logan. "Let's get out of here."
"Finally she sees sense." Mac immediately headed for the front door, but Veronica couldn't help one last look back toward Logan. He was still gazing at her, his expression pensive.
What if she stayed at the party after all? She could so easily put her hand on Mac's shoulder, smile ruefully, say "I have something to do, I'll meet you back at your room," and walk over to Logan. He was standing by the pinball table, wearing a worn, supple leather jacket over his gray-green shirt.
She remembered that shirt, remembered the softness of the fabric against her cheek as she'd curled against his chest on the leather couch in the Neptune Grand, listening to his heartbeat, steady and strong, as his fingers played along the line of her ribcage. Gentle caresses, not meant to be sexual, but the memory of his touch now sent a shiver through her throat and into her abdomen.
Two months without that light prickle of a tender touch. It should be easier by now, shouldn’t it? To run into him at a party like this. To banter standing in line at the food court and then walk away alone. To walk out of her criminology class and not glance over at the bench where he was of course not waiting. To drive past the Neptune Grand and keep her hands steady on the wheel, heading resolutely toward home.
It should all be normal by now, this new definition of her life that no longer included Logan Echolls in a central role. It should be simple, straightforward. Move ever forward, no looking back. That was her style, and it usually worked. When Duncan broke up with her, the fact of it hurt less than the way he did it, as if he could erase all their history like tide washing over marks in the sand. When she had told Logan a year and a half ago that it wasn't working, when he raged and her father pinned him to her living room wall, righteous indignation carried her all the way through the pain and into lovely, anesthetizing denial. Then Duncan left again with sweet kisses and eternal love like flower petals pressed between pages, the memories fading away before she even closed the book. Duncan was closure and completion, moving on without regret. Logan was…
She looked back across the room. He was still gazing at her, his eyes opaque, his mouth quirked in a question mark.
When does regret ease into nostalgia? And what if the answer is never?
But Mac was turning back now, her lips compressed, impatient. Talking to Logan, thinking about Logan, yearning for Logan, it would just have to wait.
Veronica headed for the door.
~~
Veronica was leaving. Without even a hello-goodbye-kiss-me-fuck-me-I-love-hate-can't-get-over-you conversation. For a moment there, it had looked like she was about to come over to him, but she either chickened out or never intended to do more than tease, per usual. Probably didn't even know what she wanted. Probably thought she was just scanning the room and her gaze just happened to settle on him for ten scorching minutes. She'd no doubt already convinced herself it was a fluke, a mistake, a momentary hiccup in the otherwise perfectly controlled mental machinations of one Veronica Mars, emotionally clueless detective extraordinaire.
He kept watching Veronica as she made her way to the door. Watched as that muppet boy, Piz, came up to her, bouncing on his heels. As Piz fell in beside Veronica, he leaned toward her, talking intently. And she was listening to him, dammit. She even made one of her cute scrunched up nose expressions before they disappeared into the crowd and presumably headed outside into the mid-afternoon brightness to continue whatever it was they had now.
Logan gulped his soda. Faculty mixer, no damned alcohol. He craved the burn, the sear in the back of his throat, the way it helped him shut down his brain, stop thinking, stop recycling the same damned images.
As he turned toward the refreshment table for more, he noticed a girl. Tall and lanky with straight blond hair and a refreshingly open smile. She was in his Mass Comm class, he had shared his class notes with her once and she'd teased him about his bad handwriting.
He poured himself half a cup of coke and then slipped a flask from his jacket, pouring a dollop into the cup.
"Care to share?" The blonde - what was her name again? - was right next to him now.
"You don't even know what's in it."
"I'm willing to take my chances." Her voice was warm, her eyes were green, not blue, and she promised momentary succor.
He smiled at her and poured her a jigger of rum.
~~
Some girlfriends like to paint their nails and talk about boys. Some prefer to obsess about cult TV shows while they chow down on pizza. Mac got excited about computer peripherals and cool techno gadgets. This turned a "Will you do me a favor?" plea into a full-on geek-fest.
After a couple of hours planning their night's activities, Veronica hugged Mac goodbye in Hearst's Western Ave parking lot and let her off-leash to go on a foray to Radio Shack, list in hand and eyes alight with anticipation.
As she climbed into her Saturn, Veronica called Cliff. "We're set for tonight."
"Loretta will be thrilled. Get this thing back for her, V. She's calling me every five minutes. I'd turn my phone off but I'm afraid it'll lead to bodily assault in a dark alley. Not that I'd mind that under other circumstances…"
"I don’t want to hear this, Cliff."
"Just get her off my back, V, so she can return to getting on hers."
The foul-mouthed prostitute Loretta Cancun, probably Cliff's longest term client - admittedly a dubious honor - had come into the office this morning in a panic. Apparently she'd, ahem, acquired something off a regular client yesterday when the guy had gone to the bathroom to freshen up. A slender, pocket-sized vial, shimmering gold in the dingy hotel room light. She figured it was some kind of designer drug and slipped the thing in her cleavage before Walter came out of the bathroom. The problem came in later that night, when she got home at dawn to find Walter standing on her doorstep with a baseball bat and a bad attitude.
"He wanted it back, right? Said it was some valuable-ass chemistry shit, research blah blah blah, worth his head if his boss found out it was missing. And he knew it was me who took it. Only the damned thing was gone."
"Maybe some other john felt you up?"
Loretta had given her a scathing look. "I charge for that. And no, I’m not an idiot, I put it in my bag."
"Who else did you, um," Veronica traded glances with Cliff, "spend time with last night?"
Loretta shrugged. "Dunno. I was on the corner of Western and Uni for most of the night, so Hearst students, I guess."
"Do you have any names?"
"What, you think I let them put my fee on their fucking platinum Visa cards? Have them sign my guest book as they unzip? Cold hard cash, baby, no questions, no small talk."
"Descriptions, then."
"A few white boys, one skinny-assed Asian. Bunch of pimply-faced horndogs with too much of daddy's money. They all look alike when they come, guilty and relieved and shit." She waved her hand, dismissing the boys without a thought. "You gonna find this asshole or not? Walter grabbed my Palm Pilot last night and isn't gonna give it back until I give him the chemical shit. That Palm has EVERYTHING on it." Loretta unexpectedly looked like she was about to cry.
Veronica promised to do her best and pushed Cliff and his client out the door. The thought of a hooker wailing over a missing PDA was too much for her to handle.
Now, as she hung up the phone and shifted the car into drive, Veronica smiled ruefully at the memory. Loretta Cancun had been more upset about her Palm Pilot than about the prospect of being beaten senseless by a baseball bat. People's priorities would never fail to amaze her.
Veronica drove home on autopilot, thinking ahead to the events of this evening. This was the part she loved, the stalk-and-capture, every fresh case a brand new puzzle to solve, with that pure "gotcha!" joy at the end. Life should be as simple, as easy to solve.
She spotted the Neptune Grand up ahead, looming dark and tall against the mostly squat Neptune skyline. Was Logan back from the party yet? Was he sitting in his hotel room reading or playing a video game, nursing a beer and munching on a late room service lunch? What would he do if she stopped by? The memory of his wide open gaze at the mixer earlier shot through her like errant electricity, and she found herself driving into the parking garage, an almost irresistible impulse.
This was solvable, the two of them. Maybe the puzzle was more complex, with more jagged pieces to fit together, but damn, it had been two months and being apart wasn't working. He had to feel the same. He did. His intense gaze at the party was proof. A blazing, neon-bright clue. Didn't have to be a detective to figure that one out.
Key card gripped tight in one fist, her other hand fingering Lilly's necklace for good luck, she walked down the hotel hallway and tried not to remember coming here the morning after the alterna-prom. History didn't repeat, not like that. Besides, she'd seen Logan at the mixer earlier. He was stone cold sober. And Kendall was long gone.
No, the only real question was: would he be home? Would he want to see her? Would he welcome her in his arms, fall back into the room, stumbling toward his bed, hands tugging and yanking and uncovering each other? Or would it be polite and careful, sitting on either ends of the couch, uncertain and uncomfortable, wondering how to say "Let's try again, let's get it right this time"?
She slid the key into the slot. When she heard the soft click, she pulled the door open.
And closed it again, quickly. She leaned against the wall in the hallway, trying to breathe.
The image, burned behind her eyelids:
Logan. On his knees in front of the couch. Shirtless, the muscles of his back rippling as he moved his hands up the body of:
A girl, on the couch, topless too. Long blond hair, head tilted back. Gasping in pleasure.
And Logan. Mumbling something as his head settled right at the girl's crotch. Doing, about to do -
Except that in that moment, that flash, that split second wish-she-could-die-now, he turned to look at the door, the girl too, both staring -
At her.
Logan's mouth slightly open, his tongue between his teeth, clearly interrupted from - no, do NOT think about that. Do NOT.
NO. Just. No.
Veronica ran down the hall toward the elevator. Pushed the button, pounded the damned button, willed the door to open so the elevator car might engulf her in its separate aloneness and take her away.
This was NOT happening again.
Damn him. Damn her and her idiot optimism, heated glances across a room did NOT a reconciliation make. Logan was sex on a stick, he wasn't going to stop -
Licking -
Touching -
Caressing -
Stop.
Don't
Think.
Just
Stop.
The sound of a door opening down the hall.
One last look at the elevator, the criminally slow elevator, and she grabbed the stairwell door, yanked it open, and fled down the stairs.
Safe.
Oh, god, the images. His hands, his talented mouth, her head tilted back, moaning, gasping, the thrill, the yearning -
STOP.
( ON TO CHAPTER TWO)
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan, Mac, Piz
Word Count: 2300
Rating: this part PG-13 for language, suggested sexual situations; eventual R or NC-17
Summary: Remember how Logan said he'd be there for her if she needed anything? Yeah, so does Veronica. Just because they've broken up, it doesn't mean they're over. Also contains an actual case.
Spoilers: through 3.9, Spit & Eggs
Disclaimer: Not mine. Rob Thomas and co. did the hard work, creating the characters and the world. I'm just fooling around.
A/N: If WIPs that vanish into the ether before they're complete drive you nuts, never fear. I've written most of this one already. I plan to post the entire series before VM comes back from hiatus on the 23rd. So look for a new chapter every few days.
A/N 2: This was written in part for vm_library's January smutathon, though the challenge and smut elements don't show up until later chapters. Thanks go to Toni (who has a terrific novel coming out this year!) for her help brainstorming the action-y bits and to hesper_m and taken_with_you for being fantabulous betas.
Feedback and concrit very very (very) welcome!
Crossposted to vm_library
CHAPTER ONE:
Ex-boyfriends were supposed to grow unkempt beards, wear ugly flannel shirts, and sprout nose hairs. They were supposed to look less attractive over time, not more. And if certain ex-boyfriends had the temerity to show up at afternoon faculty-student mixers, they certainly had no right to smile all slow and sexy and raise their paper cup in an unspoken toast. It just wasn’t fair.
"Veronica?" Mac nudged her elbow. "Where'd you go?" She followed Veronica's eyeline. "Oh."
Veronica gave her a warning glance. "Don't read anything into it. I was just -"
"Giving your ex the eye sex, yeah, I saw."
"I was just surprised to see him here, that's all."
"Yeah, because Logan at a party is a once in a lifetime alert-the-media event."
"What are we doing here, anyway? I don’t even like parties." Veronica chugged her root beer and put her cup down on a bookshelf, resolutely not looking at Logan. "Let's get out of here."
"Finally she sees sense." Mac immediately headed for the front door, but Veronica couldn't help one last look back toward Logan. He was still gazing at her, his expression pensive.
What if she stayed at the party after all? She could so easily put her hand on Mac's shoulder, smile ruefully, say "I have something to do, I'll meet you back at your room," and walk over to Logan. He was standing by the pinball table, wearing a worn, supple leather jacket over his gray-green shirt.
She remembered that shirt, remembered the softness of the fabric against her cheek as she'd curled against his chest on the leather couch in the Neptune Grand, listening to his heartbeat, steady and strong, as his fingers played along the line of her ribcage. Gentle caresses, not meant to be sexual, but the memory of his touch now sent a shiver through her throat and into her abdomen.
Two months without that light prickle of a tender touch. It should be easier by now, shouldn’t it? To run into him at a party like this. To banter standing in line at the food court and then walk away alone. To walk out of her criminology class and not glance over at the bench where he was of course not waiting. To drive past the Neptune Grand and keep her hands steady on the wheel, heading resolutely toward home.
It should all be normal by now, this new definition of her life that no longer included Logan Echolls in a central role. It should be simple, straightforward. Move ever forward, no looking back. That was her style, and it usually worked. When Duncan broke up with her, the fact of it hurt less than the way he did it, as if he could erase all their history like tide washing over marks in the sand. When she had told Logan a year and a half ago that it wasn't working, when he raged and her father pinned him to her living room wall, righteous indignation carried her all the way through the pain and into lovely, anesthetizing denial. Then Duncan left again with sweet kisses and eternal love like flower petals pressed between pages, the memories fading away before she even closed the book. Duncan was closure and completion, moving on without regret. Logan was…
She looked back across the room. He was still gazing at her, his eyes opaque, his mouth quirked in a question mark.
When does regret ease into nostalgia? And what if the answer is never?
But Mac was turning back now, her lips compressed, impatient. Talking to Logan, thinking about Logan, yearning for Logan, it would just have to wait.
Veronica headed for the door.
~~
Veronica was leaving. Without even a hello-goodbye-kiss-me-fuck-me-I-love-hate-can't-get-over-you conversation. For a moment there, it had looked like she was about to come over to him, but she either chickened out or never intended to do more than tease, per usual. Probably didn't even know what she wanted. Probably thought she was just scanning the room and her gaze just happened to settle on him for ten scorching minutes. She'd no doubt already convinced herself it was a fluke, a mistake, a momentary hiccup in the otherwise perfectly controlled mental machinations of one Veronica Mars, emotionally clueless detective extraordinaire.
He kept watching Veronica as she made her way to the door. Watched as that muppet boy, Piz, came up to her, bouncing on his heels. As Piz fell in beside Veronica, he leaned toward her, talking intently. And she was listening to him, dammit. She even made one of her cute scrunched up nose expressions before they disappeared into the crowd and presumably headed outside into the mid-afternoon brightness to continue whatever it was they had now.
Logan gulped his soda. Faculty mixer, no damned alcohol. He craved the burn, the sear in the back of his throat, the way it helped him shut down his brain, stop thinking, stop recycling the same damned images.
As he turned toward the refreshment table for more, he noticed a girl. Tall and lanky with straight blond hair and a refreshingly open smile. She was in his Mass Comm class, he had shared his class notes with her once and she'd teased him about his bad handwriting.
He poured himself half a cup of coke and then slipped a flask from his jacket, pouring a dollop into the cup.
"Care to share?" The blonde - what was her name again? - was right next to him now.
"You don't even know what's in it."
"I'm willing to take my chances." Her voice was warm, her eyes were green, not blue, and she promised momentary succor.
He smiled at her and poured her a jigger of rum.
~~
Some girlfriends like to paint their nails and talk about boys. Some prefer to obsess about cult TV shows while they chow down on pizza. Mac got excited about computer peripherals and cool techno gadgets. This turned a "Will you do me a favor?" plea into a full-on geek-fest.
After a couple of hours planning their night's activities, Veronica hugged Mac goodbye in Hearst's Western Ave parking lot and let her off-leash to go on a foray to Radio Shack, list in hand and eyes alight with anticipation.
As she climbed into her Saturn, Veronica called Cliff. "We're set for tonight."
"Loretta will be thrilled. Get this thing back for her, V. She's calling me every five minutes. I'd turn my phone off but I'm afraid it'll lead to bodily assault in a dark alley. Not that I'd mind that under other circumstances…"
"I don’t want to hear this, Cliff."
"Just get her off my back, V, so she can return to getting on hers."
The foul-mouthed prostitute Loretta Cancun, probably Cliff's longest term client - admittedly a dubious honor - had come into the office this morning in a panic. Apparently she'd, ahem, acquired something off a regular client yesterday when the guy had gone to the bathroom to freshen up. A slender, pocket-sized vial, shimmering gold in the dingy hotel room light. She figured it was some kind of designer drug and slipped the thing in her cleavage before Walter came out of the bathroom. The problem came in later that night, when she got home at dawn to find Walter standing on her doorstep with a baseball bat and a bad attitude.
"He wanted it back, right? Said it was some valuable-ass chemistry shit, research blah blah blah, worth his head if his boss found out it was missing. And he knew it was me who took it. Only the damned thing was gone."
"Maybe some other john felt you up?"
Loretta had given her a scathing look. "I charge for that. And no, I’m not an idiot, I put it in my bag."
"Who else did you, um," Veronica traded glances with Cliff, "spend time with last night?"
Loretta shrugged. "Dunno. I was on the corner of Western and Uni for most of the night, so Hearst students, I guess."
"Do you have any names?"
"What, you think I let them put my fee on their fucking platinum Visa cards? Have them sign my guest book as they unzip? Cold hard cash, baby, no questions, no small talk."
"Descriptions, then."
"A few white boys, one skinny-assed Asian. Bunch of pimply-faced horndogs with too much of daddy's money. They all look alike when they come, guilty and relieved and shit." She waved her hand, dismissing the boys without a thought. "You gonna find this asshole or not? Walter grabbed my Palm Pilot last night and isn't gonna give it back until I give him the chemical shit. That Palm has EVERYTHING on it." Loretta unexpectedly looked like she was about to cry.
Veronica promised to do her best and pushed Cliff and his client out the door. The thought of a hooker wailing over a missing PDA was too much for her to handle.
Now, as she hung up the phone and shifted the car into drive, Veronica smiled ruefully at the memory. Loretta Cancun had been more upset about her Palm Pilot than about the prospect of being beaten senseless by a baseball bat. People's priorities would never fail to amaze her.
Veronica drove home on autopilot, thinking ahead to the events of this evening. This was the part she loved, the stalk-and-capture, every fresh case a brand new puzzle to solve, with that pure "gotcha!" joy at the end. Life should be as simple, as easy to solve.
She spotted the Neptune Grand up ahead, looming dark and tall against the mostly squat Neptune skyline. Was Logan back from the party yet? Was he sitting in his hotel room reading or playing a video game, nursing a beer and munching on a late room service lunch? What would he do if she stopped by? The memory of his wide open gaze at the mixer earlier shot through her like errant electricity, and she found herself driving into the parking garage, an almost irresistible impulse.
This was solvable, the two of them. Maybe the puzzle was more complex, with more jagged pieces to fit together, but damn, it had been two months and being apart wasn't working. He had to feel the same. He did. His intense gaze at the party was proof. A blazing, neon-bright clue. Didn't have to be a detective to figure that one out.
Key card gripped tight in one fist, her other hand fingering Lilly's necklace for good luck, she walked down the hotel hallway and tried not to remember coming here the morning after the alterna-prom. History didn't repeat, not like that. Besides, she'd seen Logan at the mixer earlier. He was stone cold sober. And Kendall was long gone.
No, the only real question was: would he be home? Would he want to see her? Would he welcome her in his arms, fall back into the room, stumbling toward his bed, hands tugging and yanking and uncovering each other? Or would it be polite and careful, sitting on either ends of the couch, uncertain and uncomfortable, wondering how to say "Let's try again, let's get it right this time"?
She slid the key into the slot. When she heard the soft click, she pulled the door open.
And closed it again, quickly. She leaned against the wall in the hallway, trying to breathe.
The image, burned behind her eyelids:
Logan. On his knees in front of the couch. Shirtless, the muscles of his back rippling as he moved his hands up the body of:
A girl, on the couch, topless too. Long blond hair, head tilted back. Gasping in pleasure.
And Logan. Mumbling something as his head settled right at the girl's crotch. Doing, about to do -
Except that in that moment, that flash, that split second wish-she-could-die-now, he turned to look at the door, the girl too, both staring -
At her.
Logan's mouth slightly open, his tongue between his teeth, clearly interrupted from - no, do NOT think about that. Do NOT.
NO. Just. No.
Veronica ran down the hall toward the elevator. Pushed the button, pounded the damned button, willed the door to open so the elevator car might engulf her in its separate aloneness and take her away.
This was NOT happening again.
Damn him. Damn her and her idiot optimism, heated glances across a room did NOT a reconciliation make. Logan was sex on a stick, he wasn't going to stop -
Licking -
Touching -
Caressing -
Stop.
Don't
Think.
Just
Stop.
The sound of a door opening down the hall.
One last look at the elevator, the criminally slow elevator, and she grabbed the stairwell door, yanked it open, and fled down the stairs.
Safe.
Oh, god, the images. His hands, his talented mouth, her head tilted back, moaning, gasping, the thrill, the yearning -
STOP.
( ON TO CHAPTER TWO)