[fic] any given tuesday
I'm kind of obsessed with the range of incredibly varying dynamics that Veronica and Logan share, and i have this urge to write fic in basically all the timelines; pre-series, early season one, later season one, season two, post season two summer, early season three, late season three, post season three and future-fic. No, really. I already have two post season three fics in the works, so if you want to be spared, now is a good time to hunt me down with a gun. Also, as everyone who's ever read anything I wrote for the Life With Derek fandom knows, I am ridiculous about future fics where one-half of my ship is getting married. I SO want to write Veronica/Logan future-fic where one of them is either engaged or in a serious relationship or something because I like inflicting pain like that. Guys, I'm an awful person. Also, sorry about yet another vm fic. Such is life. Nobody has to read, though, so there is that \o/ Besides this ship is making me write established relationship fic which is insane. And I need to update my Masterlist, because it's like 50 fics behind :s
any given tuesday
veronica mars | veronica; veronica/logan
late season one | pg-13 | 1500 | oneshot
don't be a cautionary tale tomorrow.
[maybe we could learn to get along.]
She forcibly has to make herself stop when she realizes she's cataloging things about him and making a mental folder in her head filled with pieces he sometimes forgets to take back when he kisses her.
Some days, she spreads her hands out and re-learns him, bit by bit. Some days, she spreads her hands out and discovers. Maybe he doesn't realize because he constantly touches her as well, and they don't keep count. This isn't about that.
These are things she learns; he doesn't apologize with words, he doesn't know how. But it exists anyway, in the details, if she's looking hard enough; coffee before she knows she wants it, a discreet steadying hand when Dick Casablancas trips her, a kiss on her forehead, her lost pen found, waiting outside the dentist for an hour, hot chocolate and marshmallows in her favorite cup, knowing she has a favorite cup.
There are times he makes these ridiculously childish gestures, like pouting in earnest, or pulling his sleeves past his hands and she's filled with an aching sadness for the boy she's known since she was twelve, and hadn't really known at all. Broken noses and cigarette burns and a catalogue of half-smiles.
He catches her watching, sometimes, and almost always stops.
"What?" a quick, defensive glance at her expression. She's glad he hasn't learnt to read her just yet.
"Nothing," she says.
And if her kisses are softer around the edges, sweeter than strictly necessary, then that's okay, because that's the one time he doesn't question.
-
[don't be a cautionary tale tomorrow.]
It is an odd understanding that hits her when she drops the bowl of flour she's holding and he catches it with a grin, pleased at his own athleticism: she doesn't know what to do with her hands when he's around and they're not touching.
Every movement feels awkward to her, parts of her body attached without much meaning or thought behind them. She's used to her hands being tangled in his hair and pulling him closer, that gives them something to do; but when they're sitting on the opposite ends of the couch, she feels clumsy, inexpertly assembled.
Unsurprising then, that Logan is good with his hands. She watches his long fingers splayed out against the counter-top, and before she's had time to complete the thought, she can feel the shiver settle down at the base of her spine. She ducks her head away when he catches her looking, and blushes, just a little. He laughs. Bright, flaring.
"What?" teasing, this time.
"Nothing," sharp, in the moment the defence is hers. They are different in everything that matters and similar in their worst traits, she knows. That she pulls him closer anyway is probably setting herself up for the fall.
-
[you have so much to learn yet.]
"Come to bed," he says, once, lounging against her bedroom door, and smirks at her startled expression. "Oh come on, Mars, like you haven't heard it all before. Your knees still bruised from the swim team? Because we can totally-"
He stops then, brimming over with nervous energy suddenly, and she knows he's worried he's said something wrong. That bringing up past holes and salted wounds will end- this- whatever this is. He doesn't want it to end. The knowledge makes her a little dizzy, like she's got a secret. Lilly used to be the one with all the secrets, but now Veronica has Lilly's boyfriend and a secret.
A flippant toss of her head, "with your experience and my reputation, it's going to be difficult to determine who gave whom the STD first, don't you think?"
His mouth quirks up at the corner, but his movements are still shy. And when he kisses her, soft, slow, languid, it's an apology. She whispers her it's okay, against his lips, out loud. Her broken headlights are a crack in the rearview mirror, nothing more; she moved on, somehow.
His touch is uncertain, a little hesitant, it's the first time he's been in her bedroom, and she can feel a strange, heavy tension curl up in her muscles. There is something- normal- in sneaking behind her dad's back, in bringing boys into her room. Something that makes her a little heady, her laugh a little higher.
He didn't mean what he said about taking her to bed, she knows. She didn't say anything at all, but she thinks she might have meant it anyway.
-
[if i was sincere, and whispered my fears.]
The problem with Logan- and there are many- so maybe one of the problems with Logan, is that he remembers who she used to be.
"You don't have to hold my hand, you know" she tells him, laughing, just a little bit. The corridors are empty, but the garish neon yellow of the lockers makes her head ache. "I'm pretty sure I'd still be sticking that 'Out of Order' sign even if you didn't." Even in her own head she's a 'before' and 'after'. Veronica two point oh doesn't need the hand-holding. Veronica two point oh doesn't need anything.
He shoves his hands into his pockets instead, and lowers his gaze to the locker behind her head, "I know."
There is something strange about his clenched jaw. It takes her a moment to remember that he is not. The before or the after. This was who he always was. Lilly's face cupped in his hands and an intense, searching gaze that always made Veronica look away from them, because it was so private. The problem with her- and there are many- so maybe one of the problems with her, is that she forgets, sometimes.
She reaches out and smooths over the unbroken skin. He flinches at the touch, and her head throbs again. He's not used to this. It makes her cramp inside with something dangerously close to being undefinable. She can't read herself around him.
"You can, if you want to," she whispers, slightly awkward, heating up with embarrassment, but when he shifts his gaze to her, and offers her his half-smile, she finds herself smiling back.
-
[your tired song plays on a tired radio.]
She thinks, sometimes, that being with Logan is a little about Lilly. Which is a lie. Being with Logan is a lot about Lilly.
She wraps both her hands around his arm, and then maybe she is Lilly. Golden, and laughing and beautiful. She isn't Veronica. Never was Veronica. There was no Veronica when Lilly was. And maybe there is no Veronica when Lilly isn't.
She is wearing Lilly's dress and Lilly's perfume and Lilly's favorite head-band, when she opens the door for him. He stops short when he sees her, the grip on the door handle turning his knuckles white, eyes unreadable. She waits. He just looks at her, silently. I can do this for you, she thinks.
But later when he's wrapped around her, his mouth at the base of her neck, her pulse pounds with something close to panic. Because this feels real. She feels real. Like she is.
So she turns away: "I can't be Lilly for you."
She's waiting for him to leave, she knows. Waiting for him to tell her that he can't be Duncan for her. Waiting for him to tell her that he isn't searching for Lilly in her. That she can't be Lilly anyway, no one can. Waiting.
"I can't be Lilly for you, you know." he says, instead, tiredly.
She doesn't realize she is shaking till his arms are firm around her waist, and he's pressing her against the table. The planes of her body melt into his, and she is grateful he doesn't ask her to turn around, to look him in the face, because then Lilly will be dead all over again, and she'll be left with just this; the heavy weight of his body on hers. The same weight that belonged to Lilly, that was hers to carry. But she isn't Lilly.
The thought should make her feel guilty, but it is oddly comforting instead.
-
[like you know i am better than the worst thing i ever did.]
She thinks; so this is how it ends. There is water and harsh words and she can't reach out her hands and touch him anymore.
He is not angry over the fact that she turned him in, she knows. This is not about that. He is angry that she turned him in, and she was still the person he trusted enough to call to bail him out.
He can forgive her betrayal, it's what people like him, people like her, expect from everyone. What they're waiting for from the moment they let someone in. He can forgive that. What he can't forgive is his own.
Later, when she realizes she'd been hoping it would be him and he stands at her door all over again, it is not love. She doesn't know if it's forgiveness, but that is what she'll call it anyway, and this won't be the day she falls.