Fic: Choose Life. (Veronica, Logan) R
Title: Choose Life.
Author: boyfriendincoma
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan
Word Count: 4,021
Rating: R
Summary: The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.
Spoilers/Warnings: pre-Pilot AU, spoilers for all of Season One.
Notes: The title and all its related entities belong to the creators of Trainspotting.
Most grateful thanks to eolivet and sexycereal for being so generous and patient beta-readers and ficbyzee for her offer to beta.
Choose Life.
Choose your friends.
She finds him in the atypically deserted school's parking lot, leaning against his obnoxiously yellow car, drunk. It's lunch break and she should go back to school - finish her solitary meal that's only livened up by the occasional spitball, then walk the long hallway of whispering and unfriendly stares to AP History. She should fish her history book out of the toilet and scrub off the 'slut' from her locker.
But she isn't strong enough - she is only sixteen and has never felt so alone in her life before. Lilly hasn't talked to her since she came back to school on Monday and it took her only six hours to find out why.
She went to Logan's party to show that Duncan dumping her hadn't affected her at all. It was a mistake. With Lilly being 'sick' and Duncan leaving as soon as he spotted her, she had started to go through the liquor in alphabetic order. From 'G as in gin' onwards everything was a blur. She woke up on the Echolls' family couch surrounded by bottles of rum, scotch and tequila (maybe she really has inherited more from her mother than she wants to admit) and a hangover from hell. Her dad grounded her for life when she came home and took away her cell phone and her computer. When she came to school backs turned wherever she went. Whispering and laughter accompanied her walks down the hallway, the lunch table she sat down at emptied immediately, Madison muttered "slut" when she crossed her path.
A stint in the bathroom that was supposed to be more comfortable than the stares in the courtyard, prompted Carrie Bishop to inadvertently enlighten her on the nature of her crime. Apparently somewhere between the gin and tequila Yolanda Hamilton, Lilly's newest best friend, had seen Veronica kissing Lilly's off-and-on (but-now-so-very-off) boyfriend, Logan Echolls. Or, as Carrie's friend loudly speculated, making out. Somewhere on the far side off the campus, the kiss had probably degenerated into an orgy already.
According to Carrie, it was a kiss and while Veronica cannot really believe that she could possibly be drunk enough to kiss Lilly's boyfriend, she doesn't remember enough of the night to tell Lilly that she didn't. How can you apologize for something you don't remember happening?
Logan doesn't get any spitballs thrown his way. (Although Lilly handed him his ass on a silver platter and Duncan appears visibly upset on his sister's behalf.) On Tuesday he's already back to his obnoxious self, surrounded by the usual bunch of sycophants, so Veronica is surprised to see him alone in the parking lot on Friday, getting drunk all on his own.
She thinks about which car she should hide behind for a second too long, because just when she has finally decided on Casey's SUV, he spots her.
"Hey, Veronica," he calls out. "Was it at least any good for you?"
She reluctantly comes closer - and God, he smells like a walking advertisement for AA - before she answers him timidly. "I don't know." Then she tries to channel her inner Lilly: "The liquor was more memorable than whatever you did."
"So you don't remember it either," he says, studying the concrete like a science. "Wow. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
It doesn't make Veronica wonder, but she doesn't say that. He looks at her for the first time this week without a sneer on his face. That makes her wonder, but she doesn't say that either.
"You've got something in your hair," he points out.
She runs her hands through her hair, trying to get it out, but doesn't succeed.
"Let me do it." He pulls at a strand of her long blond hair, removing a spitball, then goes back studying the concrete. "I'm sorry. You know... Lilly can be such a bitch if she wants to."
She tries to smile at him, since he's really the first person in a week that doesn't treat her like a leper, but then she remembers that without him she wouldn't have been in this situation to begin with. And that he doesn't need to pick his school books out of a toilet. So, instead of smiling she asks him what drives him to drinking in the school's parking to begin with.
"The same thing as you," he answers.
"So your friends are composing a song for you but can't seem to find a synonym for 'whore' that rhymes with your name?"
He grimaces as if in pain. "Lilly dumped me. And Duncan isn't talking to me." He looks her in the eyes shortly, before dropping his gaze again. "I guess you win."
He shuffles his feet around. "Wanna skip school?"
She contemplates his offer, skipping school probably means fast food on Dog Beach, a driver under influence and having to listen to angry boy music the whole time. Attending class means having to fish that history book out of the toilet. "Okay," she says. "But I'm driving."
They end up at her house (her mother is gone to god-only-knows-where, her father is at work) because Logan's flask is empty, his dad is home and her mother always has one bottle of vodka in the closet with the cleaning utensils. He sits down on the couch, opens the bottle with the ease of an experienced drinker and offers her the first sip. She stares at the bottle, wondering shortly if continuing where she left off on Sunday morning is a good idea, but takes a large gulp anyway. The vodka burns a hole in her stomach, unsettling her enough to sit down on the couch next to Logan. She gives him the bottle and he takes it silently.
The bottle circles a few times and Veronica contemplates the various ways to win Lilly back. She suspects that Logan does the same - only his plans are probably a bit more X-rated than hers.
"She's going to take you back, you'll see."
His head snaps up, he looks at her - like he can't believe that she is still here with him or he is here at all, Veronica doesn't know, not really.
"She always takes you back," she continues. "Just wait a few more days, grovel and she'll forgive you." Another dainty sip of her mother's vodka. "She always does."
He stares at her, uncharacteristically silent, then takes the bottle from her and laughs bitterly. "You're so fucking naive." He downs enough of the vodka to make her dizzy from just looking at him. "Not this time." He doesn't explain.
She grabs the bottle from his greedy hands and settles more comfortably next to him. "I'm not naive," she says after a moment.
He laughs more good-naturedly. "You are hard-boiled and jaded. Like everyone reading Lucky." He spits the magazine's name like it's a four-letter word and this time she laughs with him.
"You haven't seen the fashion editorial on orange being the new black. It scarred me forever."
The vodka slowly burns through her system; the room is slightly askew at its angles and she lays her head on Logan's shoulder searching for an anchor amidst the chaos - which in itself is a clear sign that she must be really drunk now, since if she had all of her senses together she would remember that Logan is chaos personified. She closes her eyes and wills Logan's boy smell to be Duncan's, but the vodka fumes spell Logan's name clearer than ever. She briefly wonder if Logan pretends to be with Lilly when he lays his head atop hers and smells her hair, but then decides that she doesn't care.
This time she remembers. It's terribly awkward, even with the alcohol tempering her perception. Cuddling on the couch turns into fumbling touches and the kisses peppering her hair move lower - to her forehead, her left temple, her right cheek, her mouth, her neck, her breasts and lower, lower, still.
Her shirt ends up on the floor and so does her underwear. She thinks about the smear on her locker and wonders if it's true after all, if they had all known something she hadn't, but the room is still spinning and she can't hold onto the thought, only to Logan's hands and tongue drawing patterns of a language that she doesn't understand all over her skin.
It's surprising to learn that sex isn't a montage of candle-lit bodies and mood music, that it is messy, uncomfortable and disappointingly anticlimactic. She falls asleep to his sweat cooling off her body, his labored breath in her ear, and wakes up on her parents' couch naked, sticky and sore (It seems like she pulled a few muscles she never thought she had.) with Logan still cuddling up to her.
She never thought he was the cuddling type, but she never thought about whether he was the cuddling or the 'hit and run' type before. He is Lilly's boyfriend after all. And with that thought sobriety and panic set in. She had sex with Lilly's boyfriend. With Lilly's boyfriend. Sex. With Lilly's boyfriend. Lilly, who will never forgive her this, not in a million years.
She sits up abruptly, like she's awakening from a nightmare - Doesn't she just wish? - picking her clothes up from the floor quickly and mumbling something about it being four o'clock and that she's too, too late for her pep squad meeting and that she has to go. She doesn't look at Logan at all, just runs out of the house to somewhere.... Somewhere... where Lilly will never know.
A few hours later she looks into her friend's eyes, blood matting her hair, the pool's light drawing patterns on her dead limbs. None of them spell forgiveness.
Choose a job.
He chooses not to remember the first time it happened. It's one thing to tell the sheriff that he had sex with his sixteen-year old daughter while his girlfriend got her head bashed in; it's another to actually remember it.
He does remember the second time. Veronica at Lilly's funeral, her eyes bloodshot, her hair chopped off, looking pale and sickly. They fuck in Lilly's room, on Lilly's bed, on the sheets that still smell like Lilly (and for a precious second he can pretend that she is still with him), while Neptune's elite eats finger sandwiches and exchanges pleasantries.
Of course that is before Veronica's father accuses Jake Kane of murdering his own daughter, finds himself voted out of office and suddenly the juicy details of Logan's alibi become public knowledge, which both for him and Veronica marks the end of engraved invitations to Kane family brunches. Duncan never looks him in the eyes again (never looks anyone in the eyes again, just stares blindly ahead), but thankfully his father's name still carries enough weight to cause everyone else amnesia about his own involvement in the act.
Veronica's doesn't. And the regularly appearing finger-shaped bruises on her thighs, the badly disguised hickeys on her neck, angry bites on her shoulders don't help her case either. Someone (Kimmie, Kelly, Carrie, Shelly?) finally figures out that "Women are from Venus, sluts are from Mars" and Neptune High has a new (unofficial) school motto. Not that he cares, really.
They never talk with each other in school. They don't look at each other, they don't exist for each other. He never removes a spitball from her hair again and after a while there is no need to, since no one dares to throw them at new, hardened Veronica anyway, lest they become the victims of random locker searches, malfunctioning car engines, jealous boyfriends or Veronica's sharp tongue.
He really doesn't know why he keeps coming back to her. (Why she keeps coming back.) He could do so much better than ratty-haired, sharp-tongued, fallen-off-the-social-ladder Veronica Mars if he wanted someone to screw in closets and other questionable locations.
Like the reception desk of Mars Investigations after office hours.
But there is something about digging his fingertips into her hips, feeling the bones underneath her flesh, watching her writhe naked above him, wondering how many marks he has to leave today to hear how Neptune High's gossip turns them into an orgy with the swim team tomorrow. There is something about the sharp and fluid motions of her body, about her "Shut up." (He does.) combined with the cold disdain in her eyes, about the buzz that fills his ears, about the closed but not locked door, about the crashing of the telephone to the floor, about the taste and smell of dusty files and illicit betrayal in the air, about the answering machine replaying its old messages while he fucks her so hard that his brains should start leaking out of his ears soon.
Beep.
"Hi, V. This is Cliff. Could you call me back about the Seventh Veil case?"
She opens her mouth slightly, gasping.
Beep.
"Keith, Tom DiCintio here. Call me back, okay?"
His grip on her hips tightens; she digs her nails into the top of his thighs in retaliation.
Beep.
"Uhm, this is Elaine Murphy. I'd like to uhm, know how the case is going. Uhm, it's urgent. My number is 555-1953. Please, don't call after five. Thanks."
The room shrinks to the two of them; the sensations - her hot body, the cold, hard desk, her gasps, his moans - drown out everything else.
Beep.
"Mr. Mars, this is Inga. I... I have the speeding ticket you were asking for. I will bring it over tomorrow. Until then. Bye."
Beep.
And then it's over. She's still catching her breath and for a second she's so alive, as alive as he feels right now, not the ghost of a girl long past and it's exhilarating and dizzying and over far too soon. She gets off the desk; she doesn't look at him. There is a scratch over her left breast - it's going to show tomorrow. He dresses quickly and without so much as a backward glance he leaves, smiling.
Choose a family.
"I'm sorry," she says apologetically.
"I shouldn't have lied," she says. Her husband joins her on the bed, his hand entwining with hers, he is supportive and smiling, they are Romeo and Juliet - the 21st Century version, happy ending optional.
"If I had known..." she starts and Veronica refuses to listen. Somewhere in Neptune a butterfly flapped its wings, a girl lied and another died. Does it matter? There is a knock on the door, Veronica excuses herself and shuts the computer down.
Logan stands in front of her door, huddled in his jacket. Veronica hasn't seen him since the day Lynn Echolls chose to jump off the Coronado Bridge.
"What are you doing here?" she asks half-defensively, half-concerned.
"Nowhere else to go, really."
It's strange and strangely endearing to hear him saying that, to see him without his little self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Come in." She grabs his arm and drags him through the open door onto the couch, suddenly glad that her dad left her alone tonight to follow a hint on the whereabouts of his elusive entertainment lawyer.
"What's wrong?" she asks softly, touching his shoulder with her fingertips, a butterfly's touch.
He doesn't look at her, doesn't acknowledge her existence, like he didn't hear her question, felt her touch, but answers nevertheless: "They found my mother's body today."
Veronica wants to say that she's sorry, but she remembers Yolanda and the futility of the phrase. There is not enough 'sorry' in the world to make anything right again. Her grip on his shoulder tightens; his hands clench into fists, his knuckles turn white. She feels the impulse to tell him a compassionate lie - that this, too, will pass, but she isn't that kind of girl anymore. Instead her other hand softly touches his cheek and gently turns his face towards her. He still doesn't look at her.
She closes her eyes and leans in to kiss him, her hand slides down his neck, his shoulder and suddenly he kisses her back, with the thirst of an alcoholic on the onset of a new prohibition. His tongue dips into her mouth, his hands encircle her waist, ease themselves up her back, pull off her shirt, her bra, roam her body up and down in what seems like a hundred familiar gestures. Only they are different today, hesitant instead of determined, desperate instead of self-assured, novel instead of routine.
She doesn't know what makes them different until his weight presses her down and his face wets the side of her neck. It's not like always (and a huge part of her resents that there is an 'always' to begin with) - although Lilly is still dead and she is still all alone - and she tries to figure out what beyond the sobs into her shoulder blade is different. Her hands carefully circle on his back - and this is hands down the worst sex ever - while Yolanda's words, lies, echo in her mind. His weight is uncomfortably heavy on her breasts as she inexpertly tries to calm him; she whispers nonsensical calming noises and endearments in his ear, holding him close.
He, too, soon gives up the pretense of passion and nestles next to, into her, his head on her breasts, while her fingertips play with his hair. Her sweet nothings turn into stories of the time, once upon a time, when the four of them were happy and golden - about Lilly's sense of mischief and Duncan's gentle and eager acquiescence. About a Veronica who was happy and naive, about a Logan who was never broken.
She senses the lies before she tells them, but she can't help herself. If she believes strongly enough that it was Lilly's death that broke them, it might become the truth. And yet as she is holding onto the lies, she feels a new betrayal - not hers, not Logan's - but Lilly's.
Lilly was supposed to love them. To trust them. Lilly should have known better. Lilly should have protected her, trusted her, not smeared 'slut' on her locker for a crime she didn't commit. Lilly should have come to the party. Lilly shouldn't have taken Duncan's side. Lilly shouldn't have died.
"I hate her," she says abruptly amidst one of her tales. "We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself."
For a second his grasp on her tightens, then it loosens and she resumes stroking his hair.
"She betrayed us first," she says. It's the last thing she says before they both fall asleep.
Choose your future.
It's a bright morning in spring when Logan finds a copy of the San Diego Dispatch abandoned on the breakfast table. He doesn't know what draws him more into reading it, the picture of Lilly Kane on the front page or the news that the man who is on death row for murdering her is innocent. It could be the frequent references to Veronica's father as the last upstanding citizen of Neptune. Or perhaps it's door number three - that Lilly was still alive when Veronica ran out of her house to make it to the pep squad meeting that day. He tries to remember the last time he'd seen her hanging out with the pep squad, but all he can think of is Veronica's "I hate her."
He avoids Veronica in journalism class that day - same as always - and pretends to listen raptly to Ms. Stafford's instructions on how to cover a bake sale with the right amount of Pirate Pride. A snide comment from the peanut gallery reminds the substitute teacher that this isn't a pep squad meeting, prompting Logan to look up and steal a quick look in Veronica's direction. Her gaze meets his and quickly drops to her work. The class goes on (Pirate Pride and blue ribbons according to his notes), but she doesn't look up anymore. He stays after class, waits till everyone but Ms Stafford is gone and bombards her with an elaborate tale about his girlfriend needing the pep squad credit for her graduation requirements and is apologetically informed that Veronica Mars cannot be awarded any PE credit for the past school year, since she dropped out of pep squad in late September 2003 due to problems with other members of the squad and that it's one-and-a half years too late to be asking for the credit anyway. He absentmindedly thanks her (She betrayed us first.) and asks her not to tell Veronica that he asked. (We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself.)
He spends the next few hours in a daze (I hate her.) and doesn't wake up until he joins Veronica at her customarily solitary lunch table. She looks up from her cafeteria slop and gapes at him for a second until she composes herself. She gives him an inscrutable look that turns into an unspoken question just as fast as her surprise turned into feigned calm. (We didn't do anything.)
He gives her an equally questioning look (What did you do?), then gives the stuff that only a sadist would dare to call food a long look. (What did you do, Veronica?)
"We have to talk," he says, trying to keep his voice calm and even. (I hate her.)
She raises her eyebrows; they both know that they never talk. "Then talk," she says.
"Not here." They've drawn a fair amount of attention already - every other second someone will have to do something really important that requires standing beside their table, eavesdropping.
"I have to go to History," she replies, not showing much interest in doing any talking.
He gives her a hard look. She sighs and gets up. "Meet me in the girls' bathroom after the final bell. Ignore the 'out of order' sign." She leaves him with her lunch and the pointed stares of pretty much everyone who witnessed their encounter. (We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself.)
She's already waiting for him in the bathroom when he comes in.
"No one's here," she says. "Talk."
What did you do, Veronica?
Where did you go afterwards, Veronica?
What did you do, Veronica?
What did Lilly do to you, Veronica?
What did you do to her?
But the words won't come out of his mouth. He stares at her silently, takes in her small and fragile figure, her blonde hair that has been growing longer in the past few months, the fidgeting of her hands, the question in her eyes and doesn't... and doesn't... and doesn't ask.
What did you do?
The question moves up from his throat, reverberates against the roof of his mouth, wants to escape from his lips, but he cannot... he cannot.... He squashes it with the feeling of her cherry cola lips against his, lets her tongue swallow it silently. He pushes her into one of the stalls and methodically begins to destroy every single question in his mind with the feel of her hips grinding against his, her lips, her body against his tongue, against his hands, against him.
Why did you lie to me?
Where were you?
What did you do to her?
He pulls off her shirt, her bra, he drowns in her, drowns out the questions.
Why do you hate her?
How much did you hate her?
What did she do to you?
What did you do to her?
He mashes his lips against hers, his teeth clenched hard to stop the questions from escaping. His hands grab her arms hard, holding on, never letting go.
What happened?
She is insubstantial, like a ghost and he can't let her go, too. As he comes (Did you kill her?), he sees Lilly for a second (for an eternity) before letting go.
He lays his head against Veronica's shoulder and for a moment all the questions are silenced. He kisses her; he grasps her hand - carefully entwines his fingers with hers; he strokes her hair - softly, like it could break under his touch; he helps her dress; he cracks a joke about the bathroom's color scheme matching her underwear; she laughs; they leave the bathroom together, his hand still entwined with hers.
She betrayed us first.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asks gently, as if she is treading new and unfamiliar territory.
Did you kill her?
"Nothing, really." He smiles.
Choose looking ahead, the day you die.
Author: boyfriendincoma
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan
Word Count: 4,021
Rating: R
Summary: The ready availability of suicide, like sex and alcohol, is one of life's basic consolations.
Spoilers/Warnings: pre-Pilot AU, spoilers for all of Season One.
Notes: The title and all its related entities belong to the creators of Trainspotting.
Most grateful thanks to eolivet and sexycereal for being so generous and patient beta-readers and ficbyzee for her offer to beta.
Choose Life.
Choose your friends.
She finds him in the atypically deserted school's parking lot, leaning against his obnoxiously yellow car, drunk. It's lunch break and she should go back to school - finish her solitary meal that's only livened up by the occasional spitball, then walk the long hallway of whispering and unfriendly stares to AP History. She should fish her history book out of the toilet and scrub off the 'slut' from her locker.
But she isn't strong enough - she is only sixteen and has never felt so alone in her life before. Lilly hasn't talked to her since she came back to school on Monday and it took her only six hours to find out why.
She went to Logan's party to show that Duncan dumping her hadn't affected her at all. It was a mistake. With Lilly being 'sick' and Duncan leaving as soon as he spotted her, she had started to go through the liquor in alphabetic order. From 'G as in gin' onwards everything was a blur. She woke up on the Echolls' family couch surrounded by bottles of rum, scotch and tequila (maybe she really has inherited more from her mother than she wants to admit) and a hangover from hell. Her dad grounded her for life when she came home and took away her cell phone and her computer. When she came to school backs turned wherever she went. Whispering and laughter accompanied her walks down the hallway, the lunch table she sat down at emptied immediately, Madison muttered "slut" when she crossed her path.
A stint in the bathroom that was supposed to be more comfortable than the stares in the courtyard, prompted Carrie Bishop to inadvertently enlighten her on the nature of her crime. Apparently somewhere between the gin and tequila Yolanda Hamilton, Lilly's newest best friend, had seen Veronica kissing Lilly's off-and-on (but-now-so-very-off) boyfriend, Logan Echolls. Or, as Carrie's friend loudly speculated, making out. Somewhere on the far side off the campus, the kiss had probably degenerated into an orgy already.
According to Carrie, it was a kiss and while Veronica cannot really believe that she could possibly be drunk enough to kiss Lilly's boyfriend, she doesn't remember enough of the night to tell Lilly that she didn't. How can you apologize for something you don't remember happening?
Logan doesn't get any spitballs thrown his way. (Although Lilly handed him his ass on a silver platter and Duncan appears visibly upset on his sister's behalf.) On Tuesday he's already back to his obnoxious self, surrounded by the usual bunch of sycophants, so Veronica is surprised to see him alone in the parking lot on Friday, getting drunk all on his own.
She thinks about which car she should hide behind for a second too long, because just when she has finally decided on Casey's SUV, he spots her.
"Hey, Veronica," he calls out. "Was it at least any good for you?"
She reluctantly comes closer - and God, he smells like a walking advertisement for AA - before she answers him timidly. "I don't know." Then she tries to channel her inner Lilly: "The liquor was more memorable than whatever you did."
"So you don't remember it either," he says, studying the concrete like a science. "Wow. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
It doesn't make Veronica wonder, but she doesn't say that. He looks at her for the first time this week without a sneer on his face. That makes her wonder, but she doesn't say that either.
"You've got something in your hair," he points out.
She runs her hands through her hair, trying to get it out, but doesn't succeed.
"Let me do it." He pulls at a strand of her long blond hair, removing a spitball, then goes back studying the concrete. "I'm sorry. You know... Lilly can be such a bitch if she wants to."
She tries to smile at him, since he's really the first person in a week that doesn't treat her like a leper, but then she remembers that without him she wouldn't have been in this situation to begin with. And that he doesn't need to pick his school books out of a toilet. So, instead of smiling she asks him what drives him to drinking in the school's parking to begin with.
"The same thing as you," he answers.
"So your friends are composing a song for you but can't seem to find a synonym for 'whore' that rhymes with your name?"
He grimaces as if in pain. "Lilly dumped me. And Duncan isn't talking to me." He looks her in the eyes shortly, before dropping his gaze again. "I guess you win."
He shuffles his feet around. "Wanna skip school?"
She contemplates his offer, skipping school probably means fast food on Dog Beach, a driver under influence and having to listen to angry boy music the whole time. Attending class means having to fish that history book out of the toilet. "Okay," she says. "But I'm driving."
They end up at her house (her mother is gone to god-only-knows-where, her father is at work) because Logan's flask is empty, his dad is home and her mother always has one bottle of vodka in the closet with the cleaning utensils. He sits down on the couch, opens the bottle with the ease of an experienced drinker and offers her the first sip. She stares at the bottle, wondering shortly if continuing where she left off on Sunday morning is a good idea, but takes a large gulp anyway. The vodka burns a hole in her stomach, unsettling her enough to sit down on the couch next to Logan. She gives him the bottle and he takes it silently.
The bottle circles a few times and Veronica contemplates the various ways to win Lilly back. She suspects that Logan does the same - only his plans are probably a bit more X-rated than hers.
"She's going to take you back, you'll see."
His head snaps up, he looks at her - like he can't believe that she is still here with him or he is here at all, Veronica doesn't know, not really.
"She always takes you back," she continues. "Just wait a few more days, grovel and she'll forgive you." Another dainty sip of her mother's vodka. "She always does."
He stares at her, uncharacteristically silent, then takes the bottle from her and laughs bitterly. "You're so fucking naive." He downs enough of the vodka to make her dizzy from just looking at him. "Not this time." He doesn't explain.
She grabs the bottle from his greedy hands and settles more comfortably next to him. "I'm not naive," she says after a moment.
He laughs more good-naturedly. "You are hard-boiled and jaded. Like everyone reading Lucky." He spits the magazine's name like it's a four-letter word and this time she laughs with him.
"You haven't seen the fashion editorial on orange being the new black. It scarred me forever."
The vodka slowly burns through her system; the room is slightly askew at its angles and she lays her head on Logan's shoulder searching for an anchor amidst the chaos - which in itself is a clear sign that she must be really drunk now, since if she had all of her senses together she would remember that Logan is chaos personified. She closes her eyes and wills Logan's boy smell to be Duncan's, but the vodka fumes spell Logan's name clearer than ever. She briefly wonder if Logan pretends to be with Lilly when he lays his head atop hers and smells her hair, but then decides that she doesn't care.
This time she remembers. It's terribly awkward, even with the alcohol tempering her perception. Cuddling on the couch turns into fumbling touches and the kisses peppering her hair move lower - to her forehead, her left temple, her right cheek, her mouth, her neck, her breasts and lower, lower, still.
Her shirt ends up on the floor and so does her underwear. She thinks about the smear on her locker and wonders if it's true after all, if they had all known something she hadn't, but the room is still spinning and she can't hold onto the thought, only to Logan's hands and tongue drawing patterns of a language that she doesn't understand all over her skin.
It's surprising to learn that sex isn't a montage of candle-lit bodies and mood music, that it is messy, uncomfortable and disappointingly anticlimactic. She falls asleep to his sweat cooling off her body, his labored breath in her ear, and wakes up on her parents' couch naked, sticky and sore (It seems like she pulled a few muscles she never thought she had.) with Logan still cuddling up to her.
She never thought he was the cuddling type, but she never thought about whether he was the cuddling or the 'hit and run' type before. He is Lilly's boyfriend after all. And with that thought sobriety and panic set in. She had sex with Lilly's boyfriend. With Lilly's boyfriend. Sex. With Lilly's boyfriend. Lilly, who will never forgive her this, not in a million years.
She sits up abruptly, like she's awakening from a nightmare - Doesn't she just wish? - picking her clothes up from the floor quickly and mumbling something about it being four o'clock and that she's too, too late for her pep squad meeting and that she has to go. She doesn't look at Logan at all, just runs out of the house to somewhere.... Somewhere... where Lilly will never know.
A few hours later she looks into her friend's eyes, blood matting her hair, the pool's light drawing patterns on her dead limbs. None of them spell forgiveness.
Choose a job.
He chooses not to remember the first time it happened. It's one thing to tell the sheriff that he had sex with his sixteen-year old daughter while his girlfriend got her head bashed in; it's another to actually remember it.
He does remember the second time. Veronica at Lilly's funeral, her eyes bloodshot, her hair chopped off, looking pale and sickly. They fuck in Lilly's room, on Lilly's bed, on the sheets that still smell like Lilly (and for a precious second he can pretend that she is still with him), while Neptune's elite eats finger sandwiches and exchanges pleasantries.
Of course that is before Veronica's father accuses Jake Kane of murdering his own daughter, finds himself voted out of office and suddenly the juicy details of Logan's alibi become public knowledge, which both for him and Veronica marks the end of engraved invitations to Kane family brunches. Duncan never looks him in the eyes again (never looks anyone in the eyes again, just stares blindly ahead), but thankfully his father's name still carries enough weight to cause everyone else amnesia about his own involvement in the act.
Veronica's doesn't. And the regularly appearing finger-shaped bruises on her thighs, the badly disguised hickeys on her neck, angry bites on her shoulders don't help her case either. Someone (Kimmie, Kelly, Carrie, Shelly?) finally figures out that "Women are from Venus, sluts are from Mars" and Neptune High has a new (unofficial) school motto. Not that he cares, really.
They never talk with each other in school. They don't look at each other, they don't exist for each other. He never removes a spitball from her hair again and after a while there is no need to, since no one dares to throw them at new, hardened Veronica anyway, lest they become the victims of random locker searches, malfunctioning car engines, jealous boyfriends or Veronica's sharp tongue.
He really doesn't know why he keeps coming back to her. (Why she keeps coming back.) He could do so much better than ratty-haired, sharp-tongued, fallen-off-the-social-ladder Veronica Mars if he wanted someone to screw in closets and other questionable locations.
Like the reception desk of Mars Investigations after office hours.
But there is something about digging his fingertips into her hips, feeling the bones underneath her flesh, watching her writhe naked above him, wondering how many marks he has to leave today to hear how Neptune High's gossip turns them into an orgy with the swim team tomorrow. There is something about the sharp and fluid motions of her body, about her "Shut up." (He does.) combined with the cold disdain in her eyes, about the buzz that fills his ears, about the closed but not locked door, about the crashing of the telephone to the floor, about the taste and smell of dusty files and illicit betrayal in the air, about the answering machine replaying its old messages while he fucks her so hard that his brains should start leaking out of his ears soon.
Beep.
"Hi, V. This is Cliff. Could you call me back about the Seventh Veil case?"
She opens her mouth slightly, gasping.
Beep.
"Keith, Tom DiCintio here. Call me back, okay?"
His grip on her hips tightens; she digs her nails into the top of his thighs in retaliation.
Beep.
"Uhm, this is Elaine Murphy. I'd like to uhm, know how the case is going. Uhm, it's urgent. My number is 555-1953. Please, don't call after five. Thanks."
The room shrinks to the two of them; the sensations - her hot body, the cold, hard desk, her gasps, his moans - drown out everything else.
Beep.
"Mr. Mars, this is Inga. I... I have the speeding ticket you were asking for. I will bring it over tomorrow. Until then. Bye."
Beep.
And then it's over. She's still catching her breath and for a second she's so alive, as alive as he feels right now, not the ghost of a girl long past and it's exhilarating and dizzying and over far too soon. She gets off the desk; she doesn't look at him. There is a scratch over her left breast - it's going to show tomorrow. He dresses quickly and without so much as a backward glance he leaves, smiling.
Choose a family.
"I'm sorry," she says apologetically.
"I shouldn't have lied," she says. Her husband joins her on the bed, his hand entwining with hers, he is supportive and smiling, they are Romeo and Juliet - the 21st Century version, happy ending optional.
"If I had known..." she starts and Veronica refuses to listen. Somewhere in Neptune a butterfly flapped its wings, a girl lied and another died. Does it matter? There is a knock on the door, Veronica excuses herself and shuts the computer down.
Logan stands in front of her door, huddled in his jacket. Veronica hasn't seen him since the day Lynn Echolls chose to jump off the Coronado Bridge.
"What are you doing here?" she asks half-defensively, half-concerned.
"Nowhere else to go, really."
It's strange and strangely endearing to hear him saying that, to see him without his little self-satisfied smirk on his face. "Come in." She grabs his arm and drags him through the open door onto the couch, suddenly glad that her dad left her alone tonight to follow a hint on the whereabouts of his elusive entertainment lawyer.
"What's wrong?" she asks softly, touching his shoulder with her fingertips, a butterfly's touch.
He doesn't look at her, doesn't acknowledge her existence, like he didn't hear her question, felt her touch, but answers nevertheless: "They found my mother's body today."
Veronica wants to say that she's sorry, but she remembers Yolanda and the futility of the phrase. There is not enough 'sorry' in the world to make anything right again. Her grip on his shoulder tightens; his hands clench into fists, his knuckles turn white. She feels the impulse to tell him a compassionate lie - that this, too, will pass, but she isn't that kind of girl anymore. Instead her other hand softly touches his cheek and gently turns his face towards her. He still doesn't look at her.
She closes her eyes and leans in to kiss him, her hand slides down his neck, his shoulder and suddenly he kisses her back, with the thirst of an alcoholic on the onset of a new prohibition. His tongue dips into her mouth, his hands encircle her waist, ease themselves up her back, pull off her shirt, her bra, roam her body up and down in what seems like a hundred familiar gestures. Only they are different today, hesitant instead of determined, desperate instead of self-assured, novel instead of routine.
She doesn't know what makes them different until his weight presses her down and his face wets the side of her neck. It's not like always (and a huge part of her resents that there is an 'always' to begin with) - although Lilly is still dead and she is still all alone - and she tries to figure out what beyond the sobs into her shoulder blade is different. Her hands carefully circle on his back - and this is hands down the worst sex ever - while Yolanda's words, lies, echo in her mind. His weight is uncomfortably heavy on her breasts as she inexpertly tries to calm him; she whispers nonsensical calming noises and endearments in his ear, holding him close.
He, too, soon gives up the pretense of passion and nestles next to, into her, his head on her breasts, while her fingertips play with his hair. Her sweet nothings turn into stories of the time, once upon a time, when the four of them were happy and golden - about Lilly's sense of mischief and Duncan's gentle and eager acquiescence. About a Veronica who was happy and naive, about a Logan who was never broken.
She senses the lies before she tells them, but she can't help herself. If she believes strongly enough that it was Lilly's death that broke them, it might become the truth. And yet as she is holding onto the lies, she feels a new betrayal - not hers, not Logan's - but Lilly's.
Lilly was supposed to love them. To trust them. Lilly should have known better. Lilly should have protected her, trusted her, not smeared 'slut' on her locker for a crime she didn't commit. Lilly should have come to the party. Lilly shouldn't have taken Duncan's side. Lilly shouldn't have died.
"I hate her," she says abruptly amidst one of her tales. "We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself."
For a second his grasp on her tightens, then it loosens and she resumes stroking his hair.
"She betrayed us first," she says. It's the last thing she says before they both fall asleep.
Choose your future.
It's a bright morning in spring when Logan finds a copy of the San Diego Dispatch abandoned on the breakfast table. He doesn't know what draws him more into reading it, the picture of Lilly Kane on the front page or the news that the man who is on death row for murdering her is innocent. It could be the frequent references to Veronica's father as the last upstanding citizen of Neptune. Or perhaps it's door number three - that Lilly was still alive when Veronica ran out of her house to make it to the pep squad meeting that day. He tries to remember the last time he'd seen her hanging out with the pep squad, but all he can think of is Veronica's "I hate her."
He avoids Veronica in journalism class that day - same as always - and pretends to listen raptly to Ms. Stafford's instructions on how to cover a bake sale with the right amount of Pirate Pride. A snide comment from the peanut gallery reminds the substitute teacher that this isn't a pep squad meeting, prompting Logan to look up and steal a quick look in Veronica's direction. Her gaze meets his and quickly drops to her work. The class goes on (Pirate Pride and blue ribbons according to his notes), but she doesn't look up anymore. He stays after class, waits till everyone but Ms Stafford is gone and bombards her with an elaborate tale about his girlfriend needing the pep squad credit for her graduation requirements and is apologetically informed that Veronica Mars cannot be awarded any PE credit for the past school year, since she dropped out of pep squad in late September 2003 due to problems with other members of the squad and that it's one-and-a half years too late to be asking for the credit anyway. He absentmindedly thanks her (She betrayed us first.) and asks her not to tell Veronica that he asked. (We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself.)
He spends the next few hours in a daze (I hate her.) and doesn't wake up until he joins Veronica at her customarily solitary lunch table. She looks up from her cafeteria slop and gapes at him for a second until she composes herself. She gives him an inscrutable look that turns into an unspoken question just as fast as her surprise turned into feigned calm. (We didn't do anything.)
He gives her an equally questioning look (What did you do?), then gives the stuff that only a sadist would dare to call food a long look. (What did you do, Veronica?)
"We have to talk," he says, trying to keep his voice calm and even. (I hate her.)
She raises her eyebrows; they both know that they never talk. "Then talk," she says.
"Not here." They've drawn a fair amount of attention already - every other second someone will have to do something really important that requires standing beside their table, eavesdropping.
"I have to go to History," she replies, not showing much interest in doing any talking.
He gives her a hard look. She sighs and gets up. "Meet me in the girls' bathroom after the final bell. Ignore the 'out of order' sign." She leaves him with her lunch and the pointed stares of pretty much everyone who witnessed their encounter. (We didn't do anything she hadn't done herself.)
She's already waiting for him in the bathroom when he comes in.
"No one's here," she says. "Talk."
What did you do, Veronica?
Where did you go afterwards, Veronica?
What did you do, Veronica?
What did Lilly do to you, Veronica?
What did you do to her?
But the words won't come out of his mouth. He stares at her silently, takes in her small and fragile figure, her blonde hair that has been growing longer in the past few months, the fidgeting of her hands, the question in her eyes and doesn't... and doesn't... and doesn't ask.
What did you do?
The question moves up from his throat, reverberates against the roof of his mouth, wants to escape from his lips, but he cannot... he cannot.... He squashes it with the feeling of her cherry cola lips against his, lets her tongue swallow it silently. He pushes her into one of the stalls and methodically begins to destroy every single question in his mind with the feel of her hips grinding against his, her lips, her body against his tongue, against his hands, against him.
Why did you lie to me?
Where were you?
What did you do to her?
He pulls off her shirt, her bra, he drowns in her, drowns out the questions.
Why do you hate her?
How much did you hate her?
What did she do to you?
What did you do to her?
He mashes his lips against hers, his teeth clenched hard to stop the questions from escaping. His hands grab her arms hard, holding on, never letting go.
What happened?
She is insubstantial, like a ghost and he can't let her go, too. As he comes (Did you kill her?), he sees Lilly for a second (for an eternity) before letting go.
He lays his head against Veronica's shoulder and for a moment all the questions are silenced. He kisses her; he grasps her hand - carefully entwines his fingers with hers; he strokes her hair - softly, like it could break under his touch; he helps her dress; he cracks a joke about the bathroom's color scheme matching her underwear; she laughs; they leave the bathroom together, his hand still entwined with hers.
She betrayed us first.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asks gently, as if she is treading new and unfamiliar territory.
Did you kill her?
"Nothing, really." He smiles.
Choose looking ahead, the day you die.