Veronica Mars Fic: A Strange New Story Every Time [Logan/Veronica, NC-17, 1/2]
Okay, Inception fandom, there's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come right out and say it: I sat down to write the latest installment of the domestic!verse, and I wrote 19,000 words of Veronica Mars fic instead. I'M SORRY, YOU GUYS. I SWEAR I WON'T DO IT AGAIN.
This story has been a number of things for me, not the least of which being a cure for my writer's block. It's also (*gasp*) het, and my SINCERE apologies to everyone who follows me on Twitter for momentary lapse in sanity while writing the porn scene; I was nervous. I'm still nervous, actually, if only because it feels like it's been ages since I wrote a story this long. I had a blast doing it, though, it was a ridiculously good time, and I hope you guys enjoy it despite it not being the fic I promised would be next.
Title: A Strange New Story Every Time
Pairing: Logan/Veronica
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 19,295
Summary: Ten years clean of Neptune living, Logan's past finds him in an all-night grocery store.
Author's Note: To angelgazing, who doesn't even ship this pairing, and elrhiarhodan, who has NEVER EVEN WATCHED THE SHOW: thank you. Thank you for reading this and putting up with my endless whining and stressing about it, and thank you for reassuring me that I wasn't going crazy, and thank you for not killing me because I was driving you crazy. THANK YOU. Additionally, the title of this story is pulled from a gorgeous poem by J.W Miller, which was originally shown to me by the most excellent jibrailis.
One of these days, Logan is going to have to start grocery shopping at normal human hours.
He recognizes, logically, that he has his reasons for being in the Food Emporium at 11:30 on a Wednesday night. Reasons like his demanding job; reasons like nosy paparazzi who still manage to find him some days. He's not even alone in his habits--half of the city seems to be in here with him, god bless New York. He suspects that at least a few of his fellow shoppers have fallen victim to his most pressing problem: an inability to notice that his entire apartment is empty of edible food until it's too late to be reasonable about it.
He's going to have to work on that, though. He feels kind of creepy seeking out olive oil after dark, however innocent his intentions may be.
Creepy or not, he can't help but glance to his left as he choses between brands. There's a short blonde woman with her back to him reaching for a raspberry vinaigrette on the top shelf; amused, he watches her grab a nearby bottle of ranch and try to knock the thing down. Never one to turn his back on a blonde in need, he laughs and crosses to her, grabbing the bottle himself.
"This seemed easier," he says, dropping it in her cart.
"Thanks," she replies, distracted, and even before she's turned around Logan knows it's her--there are some voices you never forget, no matter how many years it's been. It's still a punch to the gut when he meets her eyes, wide and surprised under the flickering florescent lights.
"Veronica Mars," he says, recovering himself by adopting a terrible southern accent, "as I live and breathe."
Her mouth works soundlessly for a second, and Logan flashes wildly on the thought that she's going to punch him in the face. Which--it's not like she's ever actually done that, not like he's ever been particularly frightened of her physically…but. But there's a difference, he recognizes hazily, between Veronica Mars and The Legend of Veronica Mars, and he's spent rather less time with the former than the latter in recent years.
But then she smiles at him, bright and false to cover her own surprise, and lilts, "Logan Echolls, I do declare."
"It's Logan Lester, now," he says, because he might as well. It's not like she doesn't already know. "It just got too hard to have a mild-mannered alter ego with such an infamous name."
"Well," Veronica says, her smile mutating into something more real, more playful, "if we're going to play that game, it's Special Agent Mars."
"I didn't do it," he says at once, putting up his hands in mock-surrender. "And if this is a sting, I've gotta say, I'm impressed with the foresight. It takes a talented agent to time me down to the last of my food supply."
"All part of the job description," she quips, and they both laugh, a little stilted.
There is an awkward moment; Veronica glances down into her cart and Logan runs a hand through his hair, unsure of where to go from here. On the one hand, it is ridiculously, almost painfully good to see her, but on the other hand--well. There aren't exactly social guidelines for what to do when you run into the once-love-of-your-life in the salad dressing section of the Food Emporium. "Do you feel like re-starting our semi-tragic love affair," seems over the top; "So, remember that time my dad murdered your best friend," seems more than a little unnecessary.
Briefly, Logan considers "Seeing you in a pantsuit has rekindled a number of basically depraved sexual fantasies for me," but decides better of it.
"So," she says eventually, biting the corner of her lip, "what are you up to these days?"
He's pretty fucking sure she knows the answer to that--regardless of how much time has passed, he can't really envision a Veronica Mars who doesn't keep tabs on him in some capacity. It's a lob of a question, though, easy enough to answer despite the wave of surrealism threatening to engulf him, and he takes it gratefully enough.
"I'm a reporter," he says. "By day, at least. Maybe you've seen my byline?"
"I never really believed it was you," she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "I seem to recall you being less than fond of the press. Is this some kind of if 'you can't beat then, join them' thing?"
"Well, I considered becoming an international man of mystery, but the waiting list for the academy was intense that year," he sighs. "And newspaper was always my favorite class in high school, it's not like I don't come by it honestly."
"And here I thought you just liked the free hall passes and the chance to stare at my ass," she teases. "I'm sorry, but I just can't picture you as part of the paparazzi."
He shudders, putting a dramatic hand to his forehead. "You wound me, Veronica. I'll have you know I report only the hardest of news."
"I bet," she snorts. And, god help him, in some ways it's just like high school--he can't help but push her that extra inch, can't control himself at all.
"The newspaper business is a noble choice for those of us born to wealth and class," he informs her sternly. "There have been Kennedys in my line of work."
She's laughing now, her shoulders shaking with it. He probably shouldn't be so proud of himself. "God, did I miss you becoming a Kennedy? I guess I do need to keep up with the news."
"The Echollses have a number of similarities with the Kennedys," he says, mostly kidding. "A tendency to die young, for one."
"And I see time has yet to dull your morbid streak," she returns. She's still smiling, and he remembers too well a time when she would have cut into him for going down that road--but then again, he remembers a time when going down that road was more than he could handle. "Good to know some things never change."
"I'll say," he responds, leering at her a little. She meets him stare for stare and he backs down, grinning at her properly. "You look exactly as terrifying as I remember you."
"Not more terrifying?" she asks, tilting her head and pouting. "You know, there's a whole class on scowling at Quantico. I got full marks."
"You mean they didn't let you teach it?" he demands. "That's an outrage, I'll have to do an exposé."
She's laughing again, bright and uninhibited, and he takes the chance to look her over while her guard is down. Her hair's longer, pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her face has lost some of the roundness that always made her look deceptively innocent. She looks more pulled together, happier, and somehow less…dogged, less intense than she once did.
Logan figures he's probably the only person in the world to find his ex less intimidating after she's been licensed to kill, but then, he's always been an unusual guy.
He's opening his mouth to say something to that effect, actually, when a woman with an overfull cart approaches them. "I'm walking here," she snaps, bitchy to the hilt, and they step back to opposite sides of the aisle to let her through. It breaks the spell somehow, and Logan realizes he can't exactly stand in the middle of the grocery store forever, chatting up his past.
Veronica must realize the same thing, because she laughs again--awkwardly, this time--and says, "Uh, right. So, I, um--"
"Do you want to get a drink?" Logan asks, before he can think about it. He isn't sure how that thought made it out of his mouth without give his brain so much as a passing wave, but he doesn't regret it. It's probably stupid, but he's not--he doesn't particularly want this encounter to end.
Then Veronica winces, and he rethinks the whole not regretting it thing.
"Oh, Logan," she says, "I'd love to, but I--"
"Never mind," he says quickly, taking a step back. "I don't--I mean, obviously you've got--we've both got groceries, and--"
"No," she says, "no, I mean, honestly, I'd love to, but I haven't been home all day and Eddie's probably tearing up the apartment again--"
Logan smirks before he can help himself. "And here I remember you objecting to overly-jealous boyfriends."
She blinks at him for a second, stopped in her tracks, and then she--well, it's not quite a blush, but it's not quite anything else. She closes her eyes, embarrassed, for half a second.
"God," she breathes, laughing on it a little, "ah, no. I, sorry, Eddie's--Edgar--he's my dog. He's only a year old, he gets a little lonely when I'm not at home, and since we just--you know, I only moved here a few weeks ago, he's not used to--um. I'm not actually, uh. I'm not dating anyone."
"Oh," says Logan. It's not his best recovery ever.
"You could come to my place," Veronica says suddenly, and then makes a face that leads Logan to the conclusion that she's having some impulse control problems of her own. "I mean, you don't--I'm not like--oh, fuck. I just, I really would like to have a drink, catch up, but I seriously think Eddie'll tear the couch to pieces if I'm not back soon, and I--"
"Sure," Logan says. "That sounds--yeah. That sounds good."
"Okay," Veronica says. She smiles at him, a strange mixture of confident and awkward as all hell, and Logan's stomach does a complicated flip-flopping kind of dance. "So should I just--meet you at checkout, then?"
"That's probably for the best," Logan agrees, glancing into his cart. "I doubt you'll still want to associate with me when you realize I subsist largely on Hungry-Man and applesauce."
"Too late," she tells him cheerfully, and heads off for aisles unknown.
If Logan spends five whole minutes standing stock-still next to the balsamic, wondering if she'll end up reading into his olive oil purchase--well. It's not like he has to tell anyone about it.
--
"I'm sorry about the smell in here," Veronica says, wincing as he follows her down the hallway to her apartment. "I swear it's not normally like this, the super said it's some kind of--"
"Veronica," Logan says, cutting her off, "this is an apartment complex in New York City. I'd be freaked out if the hallway didn't smell."
"Did you just pass up the opportunity to make a 'so this is how the other half lives' joke?" she asks, turning her head just enough to give him a suspicious glance. "Are you sure you're Logan Echolls?"
"I'm sure I'm not, actually," he throws back. He means it lightly, but she pulls a face, and he feels like an incomparable ass at once.
"Right," she says, sounding uncomfortable. "Sorry, that's going to be hard to get used to."
"Yeah, I know how that is," he jokes, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. "Some days I look in the mirror and I hardly know myself."
She throws a grin back at him and stops in front of one of the doors, juggling her bags as she reaches for her keys. Unthinkingly, Logan steps forward to take one of them from her, putting his hand on her back to steady himself; the touch is fleeting but not without aftereffects, and he pulls away quickly. She's still grinning, though, as she puts the key in the lock, and he thinks suddenly that it's nice, to see her relaxed. Most of his memories of her are tied up in complicated emotions or tragedy; the idea of making new ones appeals.
Of course, there's a fairly large chunk of memories that are devoid of complication and tragedy, but those also tend to be devoid of clothing. He's not sure if this is headed that direction. He's not sure he wants it to.
"Look," she says as she turns the key, "don't let Eddie freak you out, okay? He's still young and he's kind of…territorial, but he's well-trained, he won't attack unless I tell him to."
She opens the door and the dog comes running; he's a marbled pit bull, and Logan doesn't bother holding back his smile. Eddie jumps around excitedly, butting at Veronica's leg, and then stops and turns a glare on Logan.
Logan--because dogs are easier to handle than long-lost loves--puts the groceries down on the floor and crouches. "Hi, buddy," he says, careful to keep his voice low as the dog comes up and sniffs at him. After a second Eddie's licking his face, quivering with excitement, and Logan laughs, petting him in earnest.
"Yeah, you're just terrifying, aren't you," he coos, scratching behind Eddie's ears. "Who's a territorial bastard? Who's a big scary monster? Who's getting killer slobber on my jacket, yeah, hi, there's a good dog."
"You know," Veronica says, sounding put out, "it was bad enough with Backup. This is downright creepy."
"Did I never tell you I was a dog-whisperer?" Logan asks, still scratching. "I try to be selective about who I share that with--some people become overwhelmed with my genius, and then it gets all awkward, doesn't it, Eddie?"
"I can barely handle your brilliance," Veronica agrees, very dry. Logan just laughs again as Eddie headbutts him, knocking him onto the ground. Then, unceremoniously, he plops himself onto Logan's lap.
"Oh my god," Veronica says, "seriously, this is ridiculous. You have bacon in your pocket, right? Tell me you have bacon in your pocket."
"Maybe I'm just happy to see you," Logan suggests, wiggling his eyebrows. She gives him an unimpressed look that doesn't manage to conceal the way the corner of her mouth is twitching, and he looks away, because--fuck. Because it's Veronica Mars, isn't it, and on some level he's actually fairly certain this is some kind of ridiculous fever dream, and he's going to wake up strapped to a bed in a hospital somewhere with Dick outside yelling "Dude, I told you not to list me as your emergency contact, you know I can't control myself around nurses!"
Not that that's ever happened. It's just been a reoccurring nightmare ever since he filled out that bit of paperwork.
"Right," Veronica says, "well, if you just came to illustrate your talents in turning all my pets against me--"
"I didn't turn Eddie against you," Logan says, aghast. "Did I, Eddie, no I didn't--"
"Is it so much to ask that I be the only one to babytalk at my dog?" she asks.
Logan turns to Eddie and affects his most serious expression. "Sorry, buddy, the boss-lady's jealous. And trained in hand-to-hand combat, so you gotta let me up."
Eddie whines pitiably but slinks away when Logan shoves at him, plopping himself down in the corner and putting a paw over his face.
"He's pining," Logan points out, hauling himself to his feet. "Look at him, he's all sad, is your heart made of stone--"
"Don't encourage him," Veronica warns. "God, you're as bad as each other."
Logan raises his eyebrows and makes a sympathetic face in Eddie's direction; Veronica gives up the stern act and almost laughs, shaking her head ruefully.
"I can see what you're thinking," Logan informs her cheerily. "It's practically written on your face."
"So now you're a mind reader?" she asks. "My, my, you have picked up a number of talents since the last time I saw you."
"You should see me on a tightrope."
"I shouldn't," she says, "I really shouldn't. But I'll bite--what am I thinking?"
"What do I get if I'm right?"
"Oh, no," she says, waving a finger in front of his face. "That's not how this works--you offered up the information, you don't get to go back and demand payment for it now. That's practically extortion."
"Only practically?" Logan asks, steepling his fingers and raising his eyebrows. "Could it be that I've become less evil in the eyes of Veronica Mars? Oh, gosh, and I don't even have a speech prepared--"
"Can it," Veronica says, and she's trying so hard to hold back her laughter that her voice is cracking. Logan feels the satisfaction in his toes. "Am I going to have to torture you to get you to tell me my own thoughts? I will, you know. There was a class in that too."
"But you were so skilled in it already, I can't imagine you needed any extra training." She levels a half-hearted glare at him and he sighs, admitting defeat. "Fine, you're thinking--'why did I let this lunatic into my apartment?'"
"Actually," she corrects, smirking at him, "I'm thinking that leaving the door open is letting the smell in. Also, I need a drink. "
She disappears into a room Logan assumes is the kitchen, and he looks around the apartment, charmed despite himself. It's very Veronica, to the extent that he can judge that after a decade of radio silence--one wall of exposed brick, big windows, eclectic decorating. And there are certainly signs that she's newly moved in-- there's a box tucked under the coffee table, and a couple of framed black and white photos sitting on the floor, clearly waiting to be hung.
"You take these?" he calls, remembering her toting around that giant camera in high school. "The photos, I mean."
"Yeah," she says, coming back into the living room with a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Not exactly money shots, but you know what they say about old habits."
"They're good," he says, accepting the glass she hands him. "The ocean shot--that's in Neptune, isn't it?"
She nods, gracious without being conceited, and he notes that she's learned how to take a compliment. Which, actually, is kind of a shame--rattling Veronica Mars had been enough of a challenge when she was a teenager. He thinks he might actually have to do a striptease to manage it now.
"My dad got remarried this summer," she tells him, tilting her head towards the photo. "On Dog Beach. You remember Ms. James, the guidance counselor?"
"Oh my god, Keith married Ms. James? Was--wait, were they dating when we were in--"
Veronica laughs and sits down on her sofa, gesturing for him to do the same. "For like ten minutes, until I put the kibosh on it. They got together again a few years ago, when I was too far away to interfere."
"Not a fan?"
"What, of Rebecca?" She shakes her head and takes a sip of her wine, thoughtful. "I don't--I mean, I don't actively dislike her or anything. It's just--weird. I mean, among other things, she remembers me as the teenage brat who broke them up the first time, and…I don't know. I didn't think he'd ever remarry, I guess? But she makes him happy, so it's fine. It's great."
"You hate her, don't you," Logan interprets. She makes a face that only confirms his theory and he smiles, trying to put her at ease. "Hey, don't look at me like that, I'm certainly not in a position to judge. Family shit can be weird, no one knows that better than me."
"You know, I saw Haul Out," she tells him quietly. "I actually--I tried to call you, but you'd changed your number by then, and I didn't want to--"
"Oh, god, don't worry about it," Logan says, sighing, "They were going to make a biopic about Aaron eventually, it was inevitable. In a lot of ways it was better than it could have been--got Trina out of my hair, for one thing."
"I still can't believe they cast her as Lynn."
"I still can't believe they cast her at all," he says, because he can't. She'd done a decent job of it, though, from what he'd seen--he'd left the theatre fifteen minutes into the screening and never looked back. "You could have, you know."
"Could have what?"
"Called," he says, swirling the wine in the bottom of his glass. "Looked me up, or whatever. I know it would have been misappropriating FBI resources, but I wouldn't have hated to hear from you."
"Well," Veronica says, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet up under her, "if I'd realized the alternative was being ambushed in the grocery store, I might have."
They smile at each other over the rims of their wineglasses, and it's--it should be more awkward, probably, and less too. Instead it's not-quite-comfortable, and they volley bits and pieces of their last ten years back and forth as they work their way through the wine. Veronica's still in touch with Wallace (married and living in Chicago) and Mac (just through with husband number two in Silicon Valley), and Logan tells stories from his days as a cub reporter that leave her in stitches.
"I still can't believe you ended up in New York," she says musingly, when they're close to the end of the bottle. "I guess on some level I thought you'd be surfing with Dick Casablancas in Neptune for the rest of your life."
"Your confidence in me is touching," he laughs, raising his eyebrows. "And I hate to break it to you, but Dick's getting married in a month and a half."
Her mouth drops open. "You're fucking with me."
"Not even a little," he says gleefully. "To a real bitch--"
"Well, that's not a surprise."
"And in New York," he adds, setting his glass down. Veronica gives him a speaking look.
"If Dick Casablancas is living here, you have to tell me," she says, deadly serious. "I'll ask for a transfer, this town isn't big enough for the two of us."
Logan laughs. "No, god no, you couldn't pay him to leave California. Miranda--the girl he's marrying--her dad's in the state assembly here, it was a big deal that they do it in the city. I've been planning his bachelor party for six months."
"Don't count on my credentials to get you out of jail," Veronica says sternly, wagging a finger. Then, considerably less sternly, "Jesus, Dick's getting married, that's bizarre."
"Just seeing you is kind of bizarre," Logan admits. "If I'm still surfing in Neptune in your mind, then you should know that you're still handing out the dish best served cold in mine."
"The revenge business turns out to be kind of disheartening," she says, rolling her eyes. "No one ever learns, for one thing."
He's got his mouth open around a reply when he hears a buzzing noise; they both go for their pockets at once, casting around for their phones.
"Mine," Logan says, pinching the bridge of his nose as he reads the text.
"Booty call?"
"Hardly," he sighs. "I'm working a story on a coke ring in a local high school, and I've got this source who thinks it's cool to text me at three in the morning."
"Is it three?" Veronica demands, grabbing for her phone again. "Oh my god, it is, I've got to be at work in like five hours."
"Jesus," Logan says, blinking. "I didn't realize--"
"Yeah, me neither," she says, shaking her head. He stands, a little off balance, and heads for the door.
"I'll get out of your hair," he says. "Sorry, I wouldn't have--"
"No, really, it's--" she pauses, shakes her head again, and smiles. "It was really good to see you, Logan."
"Likewise," he says, quirking a faint grin. She stares at him for a second, the smile still tugging at the edges of her mouth, and then pulls his phone from his hand.
"You should call me," she says, punching in her number and handing it back. "I mean, if you want to, don't feel--obligated, or anything."
"Well, I was kind of considering going another ten years," he says lightly, "but since you offered…"
She punches him in the arm, lightly enough, and she's still smiling, and Logan is feeling a little lightheaded, actually. It's probably the wine, the wine or the surrealism or the fact that he's been more-or-less hard for nearly four hours, but for a second all he can think about is pushing her back down against the couch and kissing her breathless.
"I'll call you," he says, which is stupid and redundant and makes him feel fourteen, but she doesn't stop smiling, and he doesn't realize he's forgotten his jacket until he's all the way home.
--
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:58 EST
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:23 EST
Wilde? Bold choice. Did time cure you of the inspiring voicemails?
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:27 EST
Don't be silly. I've just learned that inspiration requires a personal touch.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:35 EST
Torn between asking what brought you to that conclusion and congratulating you on using the word "touch" in a sentence without making it dirty.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:38 EST
You underestimate me. Who says inspiration can't be dirty?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:41 EST
There's something wrong with you.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:43 EST
Just one thing? Veronica, that may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:45 EST
I'm trying to work here. You know, that whole government job thing? Kicking ass, taking names? Text messaging is not encouraged.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:50 EST
Speaking of your government job, I think the FBI kind of frowns on employing thieves. You stole my jacket the other night. Don't make me report you to your superiors.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:07 EST
You wouldn't report me to my superiors. You'd write a ridiculously exaggerated front page story about misappropriation of resources. And I didn't steal it, you left it.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:15 EST
So you have been following my reporting career! I'm touched, even if backhanded praise from thieves means nothing to me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:22 EST
You know, people are supposed to get less obnoxious with age.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:24 EST
I've never met a rule I couldn't break, you know that. You gonna return my property, or am I going to have to sue you for grand theft jacket?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:30 EST
Grand theft jacket. Logan.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:31 EST
Don't doubt the sincerity of my threats.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:34 EST
Threatening a federal agent is not generally the wisest of plans, I'm just saying.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:37 EST
And I'm just saying I want my jacket back.
--
Right, so probably he should have stopped at the first jibe about the jacket.
Actually, probably he should have sent a messenger over to pick it up, or at the very least cleaned his place a little in anticipation of her digging up his address and showing up at his door with a scowl three days later. As it is he's not expecting her, so he opens the door shirtless and sucking at a burn on his thumb, with Toby Keith blasting in the background.
"Um," she says, jacket in hand, hair perfectly coiffed, staring at him like he's a crazy person. "This is--not what I was expecting."
"A man's home is his castle," Logan says faintly, because he's got absolutely no other recourse. He hasn't felt so naked in years. "His castle and his sanctuary and his den of not being judged by the federal government, oh, look, you've brought my jacket."
"You're rambling," Veronica says, sounding about as at sea as he feels. "And you've got barbecue sauce on your shoulder."
"Accurate," he says, still trying to get a handle on his thoughts, which are spewing unhelpful, panicked ideas like Kiss her! and Find some sand and bury your head in it like an ostrich! "You should--you should come in, and I'll just go, um, locate a shirt."
"That's," she says, "yeah, okay."
He leaves her in his living room and tears through his bedroom, casting around frantically for a t-shirt. In the process of pulling on the first one he finds--black and of questionable cleanliness, but readily available and thus his best option--he catches sight of his face in the mirror and notices it's bright red. Cursing himself, he slips into his bathroom and splashes his cheeks with cold water, which succeeds only in making him look half-drowned.
When, he thinks, scrubbing his face with a towel, did I go from being the kind of teenager who fucked MILFs to the kind of adult who can't hold his shit together?
The towel fails to answer him, so he goes back out into the living room and finds Veronica perched on the arm of his couch.
"I have to tell you something," she says, all business. "You might want to sit down."
"If it's that you're here to arrest me, it was nice of you to let me dress myself first," he says, in an attempt to be flippant. His voice cracks on it, though, because Veronica Mars is secretly a robot designed to take him back in time, and he prays to higher powers he's never believed in that she didn't notice.
"It's worse," she says, lowering her voice. "I've come to a conclusion, and I've got to tell you, I'm disturbed."
"I'm dying in suspense over here," Logan says. "Also, if you don't spit it out soon my dinner's going to catch fire."
"This apartment," she says, looking around. "It's nice, but--Logan, I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, and frankly I'm surprised you missed it, but this isn't even a penthouse."
He stares at her for a second, and then her poker face breaks and she's laughing, bright and warm, and he's dizzy from her all over again. He thinks, in a vague, half-assed sort of way, that he should maybe consider getting a CAT scan.
"Thanks for bringing that to my attention," he says, when he feels in control of himself again. "Anything else you want to tell me, while I'm in the headspace for bad news?"
"Well, your girlfriend seems to have left her dog here," Veronica says, her tone falling out of playful and into something else entirely. Logan frowns at her, confused, until he notices Butch curled up on the floor.
"C'mere, girl," he says, clapping his hands. Butch hops to her feet and does a complicated three-surface jump that lands her in his arms. "Hate to break it to you, Veronica, but Butch is all mine."
"Butch," Veronica repeats, staring. "Logan, that's a Lhasa Apso. That's a purse dog. Did you--Butch? "
"Well, I wasn't going to call her Princess SparklyPants, she's enough of a hit to my masculinity as it is." Veronica raises her eyebrows and Logan laughs, unable to help himself. "Look, I stole her from Dick's fiancee, it's kind of a long story."
"I've always got time for tales of dognapping," she informs him, eyebrows still up. "All the time in the world, even."
"Unfortunately, I wasn't kidding about the possibility of burning dinner," he sighs, letting Butch down. And then, because he's just full of brilliant ideas this week: "You could stay, you know. There's no way to make ribs for one, so I was going to have too much food as is. We could get a drink, after--a proper one, I mean. If you wanted."
Veronica looks up at him, surprised, for a long second. Then she smiles and says, "Uh, yeah, okay. Thanks. Let me just call my dog walker, see if she can run Eddie out for me one more time?"
"Sure," Logan says. He goes into the kitchen and briefly considers beating himself to death with a saucepan for breaking one of his own rules: do not invite the girl to dinner before you're sure you can fuck her without becoming hopelessly attached. Not that he thinks he's going to fuck Veronica--he's pretty sure that Veronica would put him in handcuffs if he tried, and not in the good way--but the hopelessly attached part is already looking like a legitimate fear. Logan casts his mind around for the last time he felt this unmoored, this off-balance, by a woman, and can't come up with anything.
Well, anything except Veronica the first time around, but there's no point in going there and actually giving himself a heart attack.
She comes into the kitchen a minute later, and she's taken off her jacket and shoes, loosed her hair from the clip that had been pulling it back. She's in casual clothes, jeans and an untucked button-down, and it's even worse than the pantsuit was, somehow. He swallows hard and looks away.
"I thought you lived on Hungry-Man and applesauce," she says, looking over the stove with interest. "You mislead me."
"Learned to cook when I got out of school," he replies, shrugging and flipping the ribs. "I think it was a backlash against all that room service freshman year. But, to be fair, I do mostly live on Hungry-Man and applesauce, if only because I don't usually have time for much more."
"As someone who goes through at least 20 Clif bars a week, I hear that," she laughs. "But I was promised a dognapping story, and I intend to collect."
"It's a sordid tale," he tells her. "You have to promise not to judge me too harshly."
"So promised," she says, hopping up onto the island and letting her feet dangle. "Come on, enough with the stalling."
"Right," he says. "So, a couple years ago--in my youth!--I went out to California to visit Dick, and he dragged me to this party at the governor's mansion--you know, his mom--"
"Yeah, I remember," Veronica says. "Get to the good part."
"So there was this girl," Logan sighs, reaching to stir the mashed potatoes, "and, look, I'd had a lot to drink, and she was…attractive, I guess, in that plastic bimbo sort of way, or she seemed attractive at the time, I don't know. Anyway, to make a long story short, I brought her back to Dick's guest room, and while we were fooling around I heard this whimpering noise."
"She'd brought the dog with her?" Veronica asks, surprised. "What, to a one night stand?"
"Butch was in her purse," Logan says, unable to keep a little bit of a growl from slipping into his voice. "She was just a puppy, and when I opened the bag she was just--huddled in there, right, and I'd been with this woman for hours by that point, between the party and the cab ride, and I had no idea she had a dog with her. When I asked when the last time she'd fed her was, Miranda said it didn't matter, and then I told her she could either leave the dog with me and get out or wait while I called the ASPCA."
"You're kidding," Veronica says. Logan shakes his head.
"Afraid not. She left, and made it all the way down the hall before running into Dick. They've been together ever since."
"Wow. She must love you."
"Not my biggest fan ever," he admits, laughing. "Especially because she knows I kept the dog--I didn't mean to, but I brought her home with me so I'd have time to find her a good home, and then she just kind of stuck."
He doesn't mention the truth of it--that Butch had been terrified of people, had shied away from touch, had cowered whenever he lifted his hand to pet her. He doesn't mention that there'd been something about her, so starved for affection that she feared it, that spoke volumes to parts of himself he generally tried not to address. He doesn't mention that he'd kept her out of some sort of sick fellow feeling, out of a need to prove to her that everyone wasn't like that, but when he meets Veronica's eyes they're soft and knowing, like she's figured it out anyway.
Logan glances away and rips a piece of meat off the ribs, tossing it down to the dog and laughing again to cover his discomfort. "So, yeah, that's my dognapping story. You're officially an accessory now, I think."
"That's not how that works," Veronica tells him. "Also, dognapping for a good cause: generally not high on the list of FBI priorities."
"Whew, that's a relief," Logan says, and she smirks at him, and if he's having a little trouble in the breathing department, it's probably nothing to worry about.
They have wine and easy conversation with dinner, and Veronica's good enough to compliment him on the food, to slip Butch scraps under the table. And that's actually the weirdest thing about seeing Veronica again--she's not the girl he remembers, but she's not anyone else, either. She keeps tucking her hair behind her ear absently as she eats, and that's a habit he recalls, but there are new lines around her eyes, nuances to her speech that weren't there before. He finds himself comparing her to his memories, tracking the changes, trying to figure out which version of her he likes more.
It's around the time she puts on her jacket and follows him to the nearest bar that he decides it doesn't matter one way or the other.
She orders whiskey, on the rocks with a twist, smirking at him when he brings up the fruity drinks she used to like.
"My tastes have matured considerably," she says, knocking back half of the glass in one go, and he downs his scotch just to keep up with her. They went through a bottle of wine with their meal and so they're both pleasantly buzzed when a guy slides into the barstool next to her, orders himself a beer, and puts his hand on her leg.
"Not interested," Veronica says, sounding more bored than anything else. "Move your hand, please."
"Aww, c'mon, baby, don't be like that," the guy says, leering. Logan can smell the vodka on his breath, and does a now-familiar dance of control with the rush of anger that surges in his chest. He knows he could take this guy, but he also knows that his anger management classes had been right about bar fights being a bad choice.
"The lady asked you to move," he says, his voice tight.
"Logan," Veronica says, shooting him a quicksilver smile, "please." She turns back to the guy and leans close to him, pouting.
"Sir," she says, sickly sweet--and what the hell is she doing, what the hell is she thinking about--"I need you to know that I have a three strike system, and you've just used one. So let's try this again--remove your hand."
"You don't scare me, sweetheart," he slurs, and Veronica smiles.
"Last chance," she singsongs, and the guy just tightens his grip, and then--Logan doesn't even have time to blink before Veronica, three drinks in and a little unsteady on her feet, has somehow managed to faceplant the guy against the bar. She's got both of his arms pinned under her left hand, and with her right she pulls her badge out of her pocket, waves it in front of the man's face.
"Bet you'll think twice about ignoring a warning next time, won't you," she says, and Logan laughs so hard he cries.
This is how they end up walking aimlessly around the streets of Manhattan, trying to avoid the curious stares of their fellow bar patrons. Veronica's drunker than she seemed inside and Logan's not particularly sober himself, and when they reach an old wooden dock they wander out onto it, stare out across the Hudson.
Veronica shivers, and Logan sighs and divests himself of his recently returned jacket, draping it over her shoulders. "You can take the girl out of California," he jokes, and Veronica smiles, leaning against the railing.
Then, abruptly, she says, "I was engaged, you know."
"I didn't, actually," Logan says after a beat. From the hunch of her shoulders he figures it's not a happy story, but he has to ask anyway: "What happened?"
Veronica sighs, picking at her nails. "You know how it is. Special Agent Mars sounds sexy on paper, but Special Agent 'Sorry Honey, I Know It's Your Birthday But Duty Calls,' is…less attractive. He called me a succubus, when we broke up."
"That word, succubus," Logan says, because he has to say something, "I do not think it means what he thinks it means."
Veronica laughs, but it's bitter, tired. She sounds older than she should, like she's seen more of the world then she's due. And that's always been true about Veronica Mars--always been true about both of them, really--but it stings anyway, brings up that old ache that used to surface when he thought of her.
"Probably not," she admits. "But I'm not all that great at maintaining relationships, so I can't really be sure."
"You think I'm any good at it?" Logan asks, running a hand through his hair. "The girls I date either know about my past--in which case they're usually fishing for my money--or don't know, and then run screaming when I tell them."
"I'm sure they don't run screaming," Veronica demurs, a hint of a smile creeping onto her face in the darkness.
"Screaming," Logan insists. "There's no good way to say 'one time my movie-star dad slept with and killed my girlfriend,' believe me."
She laughs again, a little less bitter, and then she tilts her head and looks up at him. "Can I ask you a question I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole if I was sober?"
"Shoot."
"Do you ever," and she pauses, looks away from him, shifts her weight from one foot to the other before continuing, "do you ever think about us? I mean, obviously it was a long time ago, and I'm not--this isn't a come on or anything, but I just. Do you ever think that if I'd, or if you'd…if we'd handled it differently, I guess. If we ever had a chance?"
Logan, very briefly, considers jumping off the pier. But Veronica's still not looking at him, and her voice is just this side of raw, and he figures her owes her an honest answer as much as he owes himself one.
"I think we were kids, and between us we were dealing with murder, rape, child abuse, kidnapping, infidelity, arson, and abandonment," he says quietly, leaning against the railing next to her. "And that's just the shit that's easy to sum up. Frankly, I think the fact that we made it as long as we did is a testament to our tenacity."
She snorts, still looking out at the water. "God, Logan. When did you go and get all wise?"
And what Logan wants to tell her is that he doesn't feel wise, not at all. What Logan wants to tell her is that being around her makes him feel like that kid again, so achingly desperate to feel like someone loved him that he was bound to screw it up. What Logan wants to tell her is that he'd had that answer ready because of years of therapy, because he'd had to forcibly disabuse himself of the notion that fucked-up high school romance was forever, because he's still half in love with the version of her he knew ten years ago.
What he says instead, a little harsher than he means to, is, "Veronica, people grow up."
She turns to meet his eyes then, her gaze probing even in the darkness. "Yeah," she says, sounding more wistful than he'd have believed possible, "yeah, I guess they do."
--
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:31 EST
Supposing I needed a favor...
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:37 EST
Is there a rest of that sentence? My copy editor would eviscerate you for that.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:41 EST
There's this FBI dinner next week, an awards thing. I have to go, and I don't really relish the idea of doing it solo.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:42 EST
Veronica Mars, are you attempting to engage my services as an escort?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:45 EST
Well, if the shoe fits.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:47 EST
Calling a man a whore = not the best way to get him to help you out.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:50 EST
Horrifyingly, I'm not above begging. I don't know many people here yet, and I happen to know you look good in a tux.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:53 EST
Ah, flattery, now we're getting somewhere. Tell you what: I'll do the FBI thing if you'll come to Dick's wedding with me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:57 EST
You're not serious.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:02 EST
As a heart attack. I'd pick up a random floozy to drag along, but last time I did that I ended up with a dog and Dick ended up engaged. Seems unwise.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:07 EST
Has anyone told you lately that you're an incredibly classy guy? Because, really, Logan, the depth of your class, I can't even tell you.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:10 EST
I tell myself every morning. And twice on Sundays. Do we have a deal?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:15 EST
I can't believe you're still dragging me to 09er parties.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:15 EST
Was that a yes?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:16 EST
Fine, yes.
--
There aren't many things being the spawn of two royally fucked up movie stars trains you for, Logan has discovered. Luckily, one of them is wearing a tux and loitering awkwardly at a party at which you know no one. Logan stands in the corner of the ballroom and nods politely at the passing agents, feeling vaguely like he's going to be charged with something. Trespassing, perhaps, or doing favors for Veronica Mars--he's sure, at this point, that law enforcement officials have recognized that for the crime it usually is.
He checks her last text again--"Things a little hairy here, going to be late, sorry sorry sorry,"--and sighs, taking a long sip from his champagne flute.
"Let me guess," comes a voice, light and amused. "Stood up by a feeb? Talk about adding insult to injury."
"To be fair, I don't think I've been stood up," Logan says. He looks up from his phone to see a guy in a crisp suit and a black trilby smiling at him. "More of a rain delay."
"Ah, the old working-on-a-case brush off," the guy says, nodding knowingly. "You should know it never gets any better--they're all like this."
"I'm a journalist," Logan says, shrugging. "So it's not exactly new territory for me. You're a little harsh on your brethren, though, I've got to say."
The man throws his head back and laughs, and then holds his hand out, eyebrows up in amusement. "Hell, man, I'm not an agent, don't let them hear you call me one. Neal Caffrey, Consultant, White Collar Division."
"Logan Lester, New York Times," Logan returns, shaking. "How do you end up an FBI consultant, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Off the record?" Neal asks, and Logan likes this guy already--anyone that hyper-aware of the rules is bound to be willing to consider being an informant. "You leave your life of crime behind for a cushy work-release program."
"Life of crime," Logan repeats doubtfully. "No offense, dude, but you don't exactly strike me as the criminal type."
Neal laughs again, but it's an evasive maneuver this time, and Logan resolves to look into this guy's history at the nearest opportunity; it's bound to be interesting. "Maybe that's what makes me so good. So, tell me, which one of our nubile young agents are you waiting to romance this evening?"
"Oh, I'm not--" Logan starts, not even sure how to explain what the hell he's doing at this event, but he's cut off by the whirling tempest of Veronica arriving. Her hair is flying wildly behind her and she's clearly been running, but she looks gorgeous, in a simple black dress and spike heels that bring her nearly three inches closer to eye level with him.
"Logan," she gasps, out of breath, "sorry, sorry, I didn't think that would take so long--"
"Breathe, Mars," Logan advises, grinning at her. "You think this is the first time I've had to wait on a beautiful woman? Plus, this gives me a free pass to cut out on you for a story sometime."
Veronica stares at him like he's grown a second head, and Logan remembers her saying "Special Agent 'Sorry Honey, I Know It's Your Birthday But Duty Calls,' is…less attractive." He wonders how many guys she must have lost to her commitment to her job, how many boyfriends had to have guilted her over this kind of thing, to make her this frantic over being late to meet a friend.
Admittedly, a friend doing her the favor of going to a stuffy black tie FBI event he wouldn't usually be caught dead at, but still.
"Really," Logan says, quieter, "Veronica, it's fine. I even made a friend, look."
Veronica looks away from him for the first time since she's showed up, and he can see her relaxing, and he suddenly hates, actually viscerally hates, every shitty selfish boyfriend she's ever had.
"Caffrey," she say, sounding considerably more like herself, "who made the mistake of letting you talk to the press?"
"You're here with Mars?" Neal says, looking back and forth between them in a pantomime of shock. "Jesus, I thought the next guy on her roster would be a Bill Gates. Or a movie star, at the very least."
"Logan's an old friend," Veronica says, scowling good-naturedly at Neal. Logan is achingly uncomfortable at the movie reference until she brushes her fingers against the back of his hand, a light, calming touch. "Don't you have silverware to be stealing?"
"Cased the joint already, nothing worth taking," Neal sighs, put-upon. "Plus, Peter's still not used to the fact that he can't track my movements, so it's not like I could get away with it anyway."
He nods across the room to another agent, who is, indeed, staring him down. Logan cocks his head and Veronica laughs, delighted.
"Neal here is our pet felon," Veronica explains, her laugh deepening as Neal pulls an exaggerated expression of wounded pride. "He's been confined to a two-mile radius for the last four years, just got his ankle monitor off last week."
"Peter's my handler," Neal says, nodding over to him again. "I think he thinks I'm going to flee the country if he turns around."
Logan looks between them and deduces a number of things at once; one of the benefits of being disillusioned is the ability to see things for what they are, and one of the benefits of being a disillusioned reporter is that you've seen everything. Caffrey is, unless Logan is much mistaken, sleeping with his handler, which means he he can be blackmailed--not that he would ever blackmail a source, that would be unethical, but certainly with a light enough touch between two intelligent parties, the idea of blackmail--
"Well, as much as I've enjoyed this little chat, Logan's looking at you like you're his next front page headline, so we should probably get out of your hair," Veronica says. Logan blinks, shaking himself out of his fond imaginings of--well, yeah, of interviewing this guy and maybe digging into his gritty past, following the threads of his old contacts and his new shiny FBI job into fascinatingly murky waters--but how had Veronica known that?
"Your trained investigative skills are more than a little alarming," he tells her, casting a quick look back at Neal as he's dragged away. "Seriously, it would just be a few questions--"
"You and Caffrey are a bad combination," she says. "I can feel it my bones. Come on, I need a drink."
"I feel like you're always saying that when I'm around," he complains.
"It's this case this time, not you." She sighs and orders herself a glass of wine at the bar, leaning back against it. "We keep getting so fucking close to this guy, only to have him slip away again, it's driving me crazy."
"You'll get him," Logan says, as she reaches to take her glass. She gives him a look, one of those sarcastic nice-try-buster typical Veronica looks, one of those looks that--like the rest of her--has gotten more refined with age. He laughs, shaking his head.
"Fine, if you're going to be like that." He raises his glass and his eyebrows, more a joke than a challenge. "To catching the bad guy, then. May he live in fear of the day you track him down."
Veronica looks at him for a second with her eyes narrowed, like she's weighing him out. Then she cracks a grin, lifts her glass, and drinks to it, and Logan is surprised to find his faith in her is genuine, not even a little bit forced.
--
The month between the FBI dinner and Dick's wedding ends up featuring a lot of Veronica, for better or worse. Logan's not entirely certain how it happens, if it's just the natural progression of a friendship or something more, something that speaks to their history. Whatever the reason, they're going for drinks and meeting for lunch, catching late movies and walking their dogs together. Butch takes about fifteen seconds to establish her unwavering dominance over Eddie, to Veronica's dismay and Logan's amusement, and things settle into a comfortable pattern.
They cancel on each other as much as they meet, which is a novelty Logan finds himself enamored of. She abandons him over dessert to follow a lead on a case, and her leaves her 45 minutes into the new Tarantino film to track down a source, and neither one of them is angry, after. Logan's not used to this level of balance, doesn't know how to navigate in waters this easy, feels thrilled and rudderless by turns.
There are topics they don't broach--his parents, their past--and Logan's not sure if he's grateful for that or not. Aside from her brief, drunken inquiry that night on the pier, Veronica never mentions the years they spent together and not together, dancing around each other like boxers in the ring. And Logan would bring it up, but he can't help but feel that he's walking a tightrope, that if he strays too far towards what once was he'll lose what is.
It's an oddly terrifying thought, losing Veronica's friendship. He's not entirely sure why.
The Saturday before the wedding is the thirteenth anniversary of Lilly's death; he's had it circled on the calendar for months, even though it's not like he could ever forget. He thinks of it, privately, as his personal sad-sack day; mourning his father's death seems perverse and disgusting, and his remembrance of his mother is always tainted by an anger he can't quite shake. So he mourns for Lilly--for all of them, really, as much as he doesn't like to admit it--on the one anniversary of loss that feels justified to him, that feels safe.
He should expect Veronica to show up, really, but he doesn't, and is surprised by the knock on his door. He finds her waiting outside, holding a bag of Chinese food and a bottle of Cuervo and two novelty shot glass. Her eyes are red.
"We might as well do this together," she says, pushing past him into the apartment. "You know what they say about drinking alone."
Logan does know; it hasn't stopped him from starting early, not today. Veronica eyes the glass of scotch on his coffee table knowingly, but doesn't comment, and he's grateful, but not as grateful as he is when she twists the top off the tequila and pours them each a healthy shot.
"To Lilly," she says. "May she be wreaking glorious havoc in whatever reality she calls home."
"I'll drink to that," Logan says, and if his voice is rough already, Veronica's good enough not to comment on it.
Hours later he's stretched across his own couch, his head pillowed on her lap, with Eurotrip playing in the background and no real memory of how he got there. It's nice, he thinks through the haze of tequila, not having to do this alone.
"Do you ever wonder who she'd be?" he asks. "Lilly, I mean. If my--if Aaron--if none of it had happened. What she'd be doing now."
Veronica makes a snorting kind of noise and tips her head back in contemplation. "Divorcing Bono, probably."
Logan laughs, imagining Lilly pushing thirty, a trail of celebrity husbands in her wake. "Or marrying Charlie Sheen."
"She used to say she was going to into the stock market," Veronica says. "Said she'd do anything to be richer than her parents, just to rub it in Celeste's face."
"She used to say she'd never get married, too," Logan remembers. "I never believed her--but then again, for awhile I guess I thought she'd end up marrying me."
Veronica makes the snorting noise again--not quite amusement, but something like it. "Well, at that point I thought I'd be married to Duncan and bearing his children by now, so."
"Fuck," Logan says, "maybe she'd have ended up my stepmother, I don't know. If she'd never found the tapes, I mean."
"She wouldn't have done that to you." Logan knows she means it, but her voice is uncertain all the same, and he can't help but turn his face into her shirt, just a little, just enough to hide his eyes.
"She wouldn't have meant to," he agrees, after a long minute. "She just…"
"Loved a thrill," Veronica sighs. "Yeah, I know."
"She knew," Logan says, because if they're going to talk about this they might as well talk about it. "I mean, it was a long time ago, I know that, but I still can't believe--about Aaron, you know, the way he…what he did. I told her, and she still…"
"Oh, Logan," Veronica says, and from anyone else it would sound like pity, and he'd hate it. From her it's soft, like a warm blanket, like a caress. Or maybe he's just had too much to drink.
Too much or no, he knows it's not the alcohol slipping slender fingers into his hair; he knows it's not the alcohol murmuring comforting nonsense about the way Lilly was. He'd be ashamed of himself, of the way he's clinging to her shirt and taking choked, ragged breaths, but he's drunk and sad and, anyway, she's Veronica Mars. It's not like she doesn't already know.
He wakes up on Sunday under a comforter she clearly brought in from his bedroom, with a throw pillow tucked carefully under his head. There's a bottle of water on the coffee table with a piece of folded paper balanced over it--a cursory check reveals it to be a sheet from one of his reporter's notebooks.
"DRINK ME!" it says, in large underlined letters, and, smaller, below, "Guess I never realized how much better it would be with someone else who loved her. Thanks. V."
Logan has never felt more like a middle school girl in his life, but he saves the note.
Part Two
This story has been a number of things for me, not the least of which being a cure for my writer's block. It's also (*gasp*) het, and my SINCERE apologies to everyone who follows me on Twitter for momentary lapse in sanity while writing the porn scene; I was nervous. I'm still nervous, actually, if only because it feels like it's been ages since I wrote a story this long. I had a blast doing it, though, it was a ridiculously good time, and I hope you guys enjoy it despite it not being the fic I promised would be next.
Title: A Strange New Story Every Time
Pairing: Logan/Veronica
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 19,295
Summary: Ten years clean of Neptune living, Logan's past finds him in an all-night grocery store.
Author's Note: To angelgazing, who doesn't even ship this pairing, and elrhiarhodan, who has NEVER EVEN WATCHED THE SHOW: thank you. Thank you for reading this and putting up with my endless whining and stressing about it, and thank you for reassuring me that I wasn't going crazy, and thank you for not killing me because I was driving you crazy. THANK YOU. Additionally, the title of this story is pulled from a gorgeous poem by J.W Miller, which was originally shown to me by the most excellent jibrailis.
One of these days, Logan is going to have to start grocery shopping at normal human hours.
He recognizes, logically, that he has his reasons for being in the Food Emporium at 11:30 on a Wednesday night. Reasons like his demanding job; reasons like nosy paparazzi who still manage to find him some days. He's not even alone in his habits--half of the city seems to be in here with him, god bless New York. He suspects that at least a few of his fellow shoppers have fallen victim to his most pressing problem: an inability to notice that his entire apartment is empty of edible food until it's too late to be reasonable about it.
He's going to have to work on that, though. He feels kind of creepy seeking out olive oil after dark, however innocent his intentions may be.
Creepy or not, he can't help but glance to his left as he choses between brands. There's a short blonde woman with her back to him reaching for a raspberry vinaigrette on the top shelf; amused, he watches her grab a nearby bottle of ranch and try to knock the thing down. Never one to turn his back on a blonde in need, he laughs and crosses to her, grabbing the bottle himself.
"This seemed easier," he says, dropping it in her cart.
"Thanks," she replies, distracted, and even before she's turned around Logan knows it's her--there are some voices you never forget, no matter how many years it's been. It's still a punch to the gut when he meets her eyes, wide and surprised under the flickering florescent lights.
"Veronica Mars," he says, recovering himself by adopting a terrible southern accent, "as I live and breathe."
Her mouth works soundlessly for a second, and Logan flashes wildly on the thought that she's going to punch him in the face. Which--it's not like she's ever actually done that, not like he's ever been particularly frightened of her physically…but. But there's a difference, he recognizes hazily, between Veronica Mars and The Legend of Veronica Mars, and he's spent rather less time with the former than the latter in recent years.
But then she smiles at him, bright and false to cover her own surprise, and lilts, "Logan Echolls, I do declare."
"It's Logan Lester, now," he says, because he might as well. It's not like she doesn't already know. "It just got too hard to have a mild-mannered alter ego with such an infamous name."
"Well," Veronica says, her smile mutating into something more real, more playful, "if we're going to play that game, it's Special Agent Mars."
"I didn't do it," he says at once, putting up his hands in mock-surrender. "And if this is a sting, I've gotta say, I'm impressed with the foresight. It takes a talented agent to time me down to the last of my food supply."
"All part of the job description," she quips, and they both laugh, a little stilted.
There is an awkward moment; Veronica glances down into her cart and Logan runs a hand through his hair, unsure of where to go from here. On the one hand, it is ridiculously, almost painfully good to see her, but on the other hand--well. There aren't exactly social guidelines for what to do when you run into the once-love-of-your-life in the salad dressing section of the Food Emporium. "Do you feel like re-starting our semi-tragic love affair," seems over the top; "So, remember that time my dad murdered your best friend," seems more than a little unnecessary.
Briefly, Logan considers "Seeing you in a pantsuit has rekindled a number of basically depraved sexual fantasies for me," but decides better of it.
"So," she says eventually, biting the corner of her lip, "what are you up to these days?"
He's pretty fucking sure she knows the answer to that--regardless of how much time has passed, he can't really envision a Veronica Mars who doesn't keep tabs on him in some capacity. It's a lob of a question, though, easy enough to answer despite the wave of surrealism threatening to engulf him, and he takes it gratefully enough.
"I'm a reporter," he says. "By day, at least. Maybe you've seen my byline?"
"I never really believed it was you," she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "I seem to recall you being less than fond of the press. Is this some kind of if 'you can't beat then, join them' thing?"
"Well, I considered becoming an international man of mystery, but the waiting list for the academy was intense that year," he sighs. "And newspaper was always my favorite class in high school, it's not like I don't come by it honestly."
"And here I thought you just liked the free hall passes and the chance to stare at my ass," she teases. "I'm sorry, but I just can't picture you as part of the paparazzi."
He shudders, putting a dramatic hand to his forehead. "You wound me, Veronica. I'll have you know I report only the hardest of news."
"I bet," she snorts. And, god help him, in some ways it's just like high school--he can't help but push her that extra inch, can't control himself at all.
"The newspaper business is a noble choice for those of us born to wealth and class," he informs her sternly. "There have been Kennedys in my line of work."
She's laughing now, her shoulders shaking with it. He probably shouldn't be so proud of himself. "God, did I miss you becoming a Kennedy? I guess I do need to keep up with the news."
"The Echollses have a number of similarities with the Kennedys," he says, mostly kidding. "A tendency to die young, for one."
"And I see time has yet to dull your morbid streak," she returns. She's still smiling, and he remembers too well a time when she would have cut into him for going down that road--but then again, he remembers a time when going down that road was more than he could handle. "Good to know some things never change."
"I'll say," he responds, leering at her a little. She meets him stare for stare and he backs down, grinning at her properly. "You look exactly as terrifying as I remember you."
"Not more terrifying?" she asks, tilting her head and pouting. "You know, there's a whole class on scowling at Quantico. I got full marks."
"You mean they didn't let you teach it?" he demands. "That's an outrage, I'll have to do an exposé."
She's laughing again, bright and uninhibited, and he takes the chance to look her over while her guard is down. Her hair's longer, pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her face has lost some of the roundness that always made her look deceptively innocent. She looks more pulled together, happier, and somehow less…dogged, less intense than she once did.
Logan figures he's probably the only person in the world to find his ex less intimidating after she's been licensed to kill, but then, he's always been an unusual guy.
He's opening his mouth to say something to that effect, actually, when a woman with an overfull cart approaches them. "I'm walking here," she snaps, bitchy to the hilt, and they step back to opposite sides of the aisle to let her through. It breaks the spell somehow, and Logan realizes he can't exactly stand in the middle of the grocery store forever, chatting up his past.
Veronica must realize the same thing, because she laughs again--awkwardly, this time--and says, "Uh, right. So, I, um--"
"Do you want to get a drink?" Logan asks, before he can think about it. He isn't sure how that thought made it out of his mouth without give his brain so much as a passing wave, but he doesn't regret it. It's probably stupid, but he's not--he doesn't particularly want this encounter to end.
Then Veronica winces, and he rethinks the whole not regretting it thing.
"Oh, Logan," she says, "I'd love to, but I--"
"Never mind," he says quickly, taking a step back. "I don't--I mean, obviously you've got--we've both got groceries, and--"
"No," she says, "no, I mean, honestly, I'd love to, but I haven't been home all day and Eddie's probably tearing up the apartment again--"
Logan smirks before he can help himself. "And here I remember you objecting to overly-jealous boyfriends."
She blinks at him for a second, stopped in her tracks, and then she--well, it's not quite a blush, but it's not quite anything else. She closes her eyes, embarrassed, for half a second.
"God," she breathes, laughing on it a little, "ah, no. I, sorry, Eddie's--Edgar--he's my dog. He's only a year old, he gets a little lonely when I'm not at home, and since we just--you know, I only moved here a few weeks ago, he's not used to--um. I'm not actually, uh. I'm not dating anyone."
"Oh," says Logan. It's not his best recovery ever.
"You could come to my place," Veronica says suddenly, and then makes a face that leads Logan to the conclusion that she's having some impulse control problems of her own. "I mean, you don't--I'm not like--oh, fuck. I just, I really would like to have a drink, catch up, but I seriously think Eddie'll tear the couch to pieces if I'm not back soon, and I--"
"Sure," Logan says. "That sounds--yeah. That sounds good."
"Okay," Veronica says. She smiles at him, a strange mixture of confident and awkward as all hell, and Logan's stomach does a complicated flip-flopping kind of dance. "So should I just--meet you at checkout, then?"
"That's probably for the best," Logan agrees, glancing into his cart. "I doubt you'll still want to associate with me when you realize I subsist largely on Hungry-Man and applesauce."
"Too late," she tells him cheerfully, and heads off for aisles unknown.
If Logan spends five whole minutes standing stock-still next to the balsamic, wondering if she'll end up reading into his olive oil purchase--well. It's not like he has to tell anyone about it.
--
"I'm sorry about the smell in here," Veronica says, wincing as he follows her down the hallway to her apartment. "I swear it's not normally like this, the super said it's some kind of--"
"Veronica," Logan says, cutting her off, "this is an apartment complex in New York City. I'd be freaked out if the hallway didn't smell."
"Did you just pass up the opportunity to make a 'so this is how the other half lives' joke?" she asks, turning her head just enough to give him a suspicious glance. "Are you sure you're Logan Echolls?"
"I'm sure I'm not, actually," he throws back. He means it lightly, but she pulls a face, and he feels like an incomparable ass at once.
"Right," she says, sounding uncomfortable. "Sorry, that's going to be hard to get used to."
"Yeah, I know how that is," he jokes, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. "Some days I look in the mirror and I hardly know myself."
She throws a grin back at him and stops in front of one of the doors, juggling her bags as she reaches for her keys. Unthinkingly, Logan steps forward to take one of them from her, putting his hand on her back to steady himself; the touch is fleeting but not without aftereffects, and he pulls away quickly. She's still grinning, though, as she puts the key in the lock, and he thinks suddenly that it's nice, to see her relaxed. Most of his memories of her are tied up in complicated emotions or tragedy; the idea of making new ones appeals.
Of course, there's a fairly large chunk of memories that are devoid of complication and tragedy, but those also tend to be devoid of clothing. He's not sure if this is headed that direction. He's not sure he wants it to.
"Look," she says as she turns the key, "don't let Eddie freak you out, okay? He's still young and he's kind of…territorial, but he's well-trained, he won't attack unless I tell him to."
She opens the door and the dog comes running; he's a marbled pit bull, and Logan doesn't bother holding back his smile. Eddie jumps around excitedly, butting at Veronica's leg, and then stops and turns a glare on Logan.
Logan--because dogs are easier to handle than long-lost loves--puts the groceries down on the floor and crouches. "Hi, buddy," he says, careful to keep his voice low as the dog comes up and sniffs at him. After a second Eddie's licking his face, quivering with excitement, and Logan laughs, petting him in earnest.
"Yeah, you're just terrifying, aren't you," he coos, scratching behind Eddie's ears. "Who's a territorial bastard? Who's a big scary monster? Who's getting killer slobber on my jacket, yeah, hi, there's a good dog."
"You know," Veronica says, sounding put out, "it was bad enough with Backup. This is downright creepy."
"Did I never tell you I was a dog-whisperer?" Logan asks, still scratching. "I try to be selective about who I share that with--some people become overwhelmed with my genius, and then it gets all awkward, doesn't it, Eddie?"
"I can barely handle your brilliance," Veronica agrees, very dry. Logan just laughs again as Eddie headbutts him, knocking him onto the ground. Then, unceremoniously, he plops himself onto Logan's lap.
"Oh my god," Veronica says, "seriously, this is ridiculous. You have bacon in your pocket, right? Tell me you have bacon in your pocket."
"Maybe I'm just happy to see you," Logan suggests, wiggling his eyebrows. She gives him an unimpressed look that doesn't manage to conceal the way the corner of her mouth is twitching, and he looks away, because--fuck. Because it's Veronica Mars, isn't it, and on some level he's actually fairly certain this is some kind of ridiculous fever dream, and he's going to wake up strapped to a bed in a hospital somewhere with Dick outside yelling "Dude, I told you not to list me as your emergency contact, you know I can't control myself around nurses!"
Not that that's ever happened. It's just been a reoccurring nightmare ever since he filled out that bit of paperwork.
"Right," Veronica says, "well, if you just came to illustrate your talents in turning all my pets against me--"
"I didn't turn Eddie against you," Logan says, aghast. "Did I, Eddie, no I didn't--"
"Is it so much to ask that I be the only one to babytalk at my dog?" she asks.
Logan turns to Eddie and affects his most serious expression. "Sorry, buddy, the boss-lady's jealous. And trained in hand-to-hand combat, so you gotta let me up."
Eddie whines pitiably but slinks away when Logan shoves at him, plopping himself down in the corner and putting a paw over his face.
"He's pining," Logan points out, hauling himself to his feet. "Look at him, he's all sad, is your heart made of stone--"
"Don't encourage him," Veronica warns. "God, you're as bad as each other."
Logan raises his eyebrows and makes a sympathetic face in Eddie's direction; Veronica gives up the stern act and almost laughs, shaking her head ruefully.
"I can see what you're thinking," Logan informs her cheerily. "It's practically written on your face."
"So now you're a mind reader?" she asks. "My, my, you have picked up a number of talents since the last time I saw you."
"You should see me on a tightrope."
"I shouldn't," she says, "I really shouldn't. But I'll bite--what am I thinking?"
"What do I get if I'm right?"
"Oh, no," she says, waving a finger in front of his face. "That's not how this works--you offered up the information, you don't get to go back and demand payment for it now. That's practically extortion."
"Only practically?" Logan asks, steepling his fingers and raising his eyebrows. "Could it be that I've become less evil in the eyes of Veronica Mars? Oh, gosh, and I don't even have a speech prepared--"
"Can it," Veronica says, and she's trying so hard to hold back her laughter that her voice is cracking. Logan feels the satisfaction in his toes. "Am I going to have to torture you to get you to tell me my own thoughts? I will, you know. There was a class in that too."
"But you were so skilled in it already, I can't imagine you needed any extra training." She levels a half-hearted glare at him and he sighs, admitting defeat. "Fine, you're thinking--'why did I let this lunatic into my apartment?'"
"Actually," she corrects, smirking at him, "I'm thinking that leaving the door open is letting the smell in. Also, I need a drink. "
She disappears into a room Logan assumes is the kitchen, and he looks around the apartment, charmed despite himself. It's very Veronica, to the extent that he can judge that after a decade of radio silence--one wall of exposed brick, big windows, eclectic decorating. And there are certainly signs that she's newly moved in-- there's a box tucked under the coffee table, and a couple of framed black and white photos sitting on the floor, clearly waiting to be hung.
"You take these?" he calls, remembering her toting around that giant camera in high school. "The photos, I mean."
"Yeah," she says, coming back into the living room with a bottle of wine and two glasses. "Not exactly money shots, but you know what they say about old habits."
"They're good," he says, accepting the glass she hands him. "The ocean shot--that's in Neptune, isn't it?"
She nods, gracious without being conceited, and he notes that she's learned how to take a compliment. Which, actually, is kind of a shame--rattling Veronica Mars had been enough of a challenge when she was a teenager. He thinks he might actually have to do a striptease to manage it now.
"My dad got remarried this summer," she tells him, tilting her head towards the photo. "On Dog Beach. You remember Ms. James, the guidance counselor?"
"Oh my god, Keith married Ms. James? Was--wait, were they dating when we were in--"
Veronica laughs and sits down on her sofa, gesturing for him to do the same. "For like ten minutes, until I put the kibosh on it. They got together again a few years ago, when I was too far away to interfere."
"Not a fan?"
"What, of Rebecca?" She shakes her head and takes a sip of her wine, thoughtful. "I don't--I mean, I don't actively dislike her or anything. It's just--weird. I mean, among other things, she remembers me as the teenage brat who broke them up the first time, and…I don't know. I didn't think he'd ever remarry, I guess? But she makes him happy, so it's fine. It's great."
"You hate her, don't you," Logan interprets. She makes a face that only confirms his theory and he smiles, trying to put her at ease. "Hey, don't look at me like that, I'm certainly not in a position to judge. Family shit can be weird, no one knows that better than me."
"You know, I saw Haul Out," she tells him quietly. "I actually--I tried to call you, but you'd changed your number by then, and I didn't want to--"
"Oh, god, don't worry about it," Logan says, sighing, "They were going to make a biopic about Aaron eventually, it was inevitable. In a lot of ways it was better than it could have been--got Trina out of my hair, for one thing."
"I still can't believe they cast her as Lynn."
"I still can't believe they cast her at all," he says, because he can't. She'd done a decent job of it, though, from what he'd seen--he'd left the theatre fifteen minutes into the screening and never looked back. "You could have, you know."
"Could have what?"
"Called," he says, swirling the wine in the bottom of his glass. "Looked me up, or whatever. I know it would have been misappropriating FBI resources, but I wouldn't have hated to hear from you."
"Well," Veronica says, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet up under her, "if I'd realized the alternative was being ambushed in the grocery store, I might have."
They smile at each other over the rims of their wineglasses, and it's--it should be more awkward, probably, and less too. Instead it's not-quite-comfortable, and they volley bits and pieces of their last ten years back and forth as they work their way through the wine. Veronica's still in touch with Wallace (married and living in Chicago) and Mac (just through with husband number two in Silicon Valley), and Logan tells stories from his days as a cub reporter that leave her in stitches.
"I still can't believe you ended up in New York," she says musingly, when they're close to the end of the bottle. "I guess on some level I thought you'd be surfing with Dick Casablancas in Neptune for the rest of your life."
"Your confidence in me is touching," he laughs, raising his eyebrows. "And I hate to break it to you, but Dick's getting married in a month and a half."
Her mouth drops open. "You're fucking with me."
"Not even a little," he says gleefully. "To a real bitch--"
"Well, that's not a surprise."
"And in New York," he adds, setting his glass down. Veronica gives him a speaking look.
"If Dick Casablancas is living here, you have to tell me," she says, deadly serious. "I'll ask for a transfer, this town isn't big enough for the two of us."
Logan laughs. "No, god no, you couldn't pay him to leave California. Miranda--the girl he's marrying--her dad's in the state assembly here, it was a big deal that they do it in the city. I've been planning his bachelor party for six months."
"Don't count on my credentials to get you out of jail," Veronica says sternly, wagging a finger. Then, considerably less sternly, "Jesus, Dick's getting married, that's bizarre."
"Just seeing you is kind of bizarre," Logan admits. "If I'm still surfing in Neptune in your mind, then you should know that you're still handing out the dish best served cold in mine."
"The revenge business turns out to be kind of disheartening," she says, rolling her eyes. "No one ever learns, for one thing."
He's got his mouth open around a reply when he hears a buzzing noise; they both go for their pockets at once, casting around for their phones.
"Mine," Logan says, pinching the bridge of his nose as he reads the text.
"Booty call?"
"Hardly," he sighs. "I'm working a story on a coke ring in a local high school, and I've got this source who thinks it's cool to text me at three in the morning."
"Is it three?" Veronica demands, grabbing for her phone again. "Oh my god, it is, I've got to be at work in like five hours."
"Jesus," Logan says, blinking. "I didn't realize--"
"Yeah, me neither," she says, shaking her head. He stands, a little off balance, and heads for the door.
"I'll get out of your hair," he says. "Sorry, I wouldn't have--"
"No, really, it's--" she pauses, shakes her head again, and smiles. "It was really good to see you, Logan."
"Likewise," he says, quirking a faint grin. She stares at him for a second, the smile still tugging at the edges of her mouth, and then pulls his phone from his hand.
"You should call me," she says, punching in her number and handing it back. "I mean, if you want to, don't feel--obligated, or anything."
"Well, I was kind of considering going another ten years," he says lightly, "but since you offered…"
She punches him in the arm, lightly enough, and she's still smiling, and Logan is feeling a little lightheaded, actually. It's probably the wine, the wine or the surrealism or the fact that he's been more-or-less hard for nearly four hours, but for a second all he can think about is pushing her back down against the couch and kissing her breathless.
"I'll call you," he says, which is stupid and redundant and makes him feel fourteen, but she doesn't stop smiling, and he doesn't realize he's forgotten his jacket until he's all the way home.
--
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:58 EST
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:23 EST
Wilde? Bold choice. Did time cure you of the inspiring voicemails?
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:27 EST
Don't be silly. I've just learned that inspiration requires a personal touch.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:35 EST
Torn between asking what brought you to that conclusion and congratulating you on using the word "touch" in a sentence without making it dirty.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:38 EST
You underestimate me. Who says inspiration can't be dirty?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:41 EST
There's something wrong with you.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:43 EST
Just one thing? Veronica, that may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 1:45 EST
I'm trying to work here. You know, that whole government job thing? Kicking ass, taking names? Text messaging is not encouraged.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 1:50 EST
Speaking of your government job, I think the FBI kind of frowns on employing thieves. You stole my jacket the other night. Don't make me report you to your superiors.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:07 EST
You wouldn't report me to my superiors. You'd write a ridiculously exaggerated front page story about misappropriation of resources. And I didn't steal it, you left it.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:15 EST
So you have been following my reporting career! I'm touched, even if backhanded praise from thieves means nothing to me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:22 EST
You know, people are supposed to get less obnoxious with age.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:24 EST
I've never met a rule I couldn't break, you know that. You gonna return my property, or am I going to have to sue you for grand theft jacket?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:30 EST
Grand theft jacket. Logan.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:31 EST
Don't doubt the sincerity of my threats.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 2:34 EST
Threatening a federal agent is not generally the wisest of plans, I'm just saying.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 2:37 EST
And I'm just saying I want my jacket back.
--
Right, so probably he should have stopped at the first jibe about the jacket.
Actually, probably he should have sent a messenger over to pick it up, or at the very least cleaned his place a little in anticipation of her digging up his address and showing up at his door with a scowl three days later. As it is he's not expecting her, so he opens the door shirtless and sucking at a burn on his thumb, with Toby Keith blasting in the background.
"Um," she says, jacket in hand, hair perfectly coiffed, staring at him like he's a crazy person. "This is--not what I was expecting."
"A man's home is his castle," Logan says faintly, because he's got absolutely no other recourse. He hasn't felt so naked in years. "His castle and his sanctuary and his den of not being judged by the federal government, oh, look, you've brought my jacket."
"You're rambling," Veronica says, sounding about as at sea as he feels. "And you've got barbecue sauce on your shoulder."
"Accurate," he says, still trying to get a handle on his thoughts, which are spewing unhelpful, panicked ideas like Kiss her! and Find some sand and bury your head in it like an ostrich! "You should--you should come in, and I'll just go, um, locate a shirt."
"That's," she says, "yeah, okay."
He leaves her in his living room and tears through his bedroom, casting around frantically for a t-shirt. In the process of pulling on the first one he finds--black and of questionable cleanliness, but readily available and thus his best option--he catches sight of his face in the mirror and notices it's bright red. Cursing himself, he slips into his bathroom and splashes his cheeks with cold water, which succeeds only in making him look half-drowned.
When, he thinks, scrubbing his face with a towel, did I go from being the kind of teenager who fucked MILFs to the kind of adult who can't hold his shit together?
The towel fails to answer him, so he goes back out into the living room and finds Veronica perched on the arm of his couch.
"I have to tell you something," she says, all business. "You might want to sit down."
"If it's that you're here to arrest me, it was nice of you to let me dress myself first," he says, in an attempt to be flippant. His voice cracks on it, though, because Veronica Mars is secretly a robot designed to take him back in time, and he prays to higher powers he's never believed in that she didn't notice.
"It's worse," she says, lowering her voice. "I've come to a conclusion, and I've got to tell you, I'm disturbed."
"I'm dying in suspense over here," Logan says. "Also, if you don't spit it out soon my dinner's going to catch fire."
"This apartment," she says, looking around. "It's nice, but--Logan, I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, and frankly I'm surprised you missed it, but this isn't even a penthouse."
He stares at her for a second, and then her poker face breaks and she's laughing, bright and warm, and he's dizzy from her all over again. He thinks, in a vague, half-assed sort of way, that he should maybe consider getting a CAT scan.
"Thanks for bringing that to my attention," he says, when he feels in control of himself again. "Anything else you want to tell me, while I'm in the headspace for bad news?"
"Well, your girlfriend seems to have left her dog here," Veronica says, her tone falling out of playful and into something else entirely. Logan frowns at her, confused, until he notices Butch curled up on the floor.
"C'mere, girl," he says, clapping his hands. Butch hops to her feet and does a complicated three-surface jump that lands her in his arms. "Hate to break it to you, Veronica, but Butch is all mine."
"Butch," Veronica repeats, staring. "Logan, that's a Lhasa Apso. That's a purse dog. Did you--Butch? "
"Well, I wasn't going to call her Princess SparklyPants, she's enough of a hit to my masculinity as it is." Veronica raises her eyebrows and Logan laughs, unable to help himself. "Look, I stole her from Dick's fiancee, it's kind of a long story."
"I've always got time for tales of dognapping," she informs him, eyebrows still up. "All the time in the world, even."
"Unfortunately, I wasn't kidding about the possibility of burning dinner," he sighs, letting Butch down. And then, because he's just full of brilliant ideas this week: "You could stay, you know. There's no way to make ribs for one, so I was going to have too much food as is. We could get a drink, after--a proper one, I mean. If you wanted."
Veronica looks up at him, surprised, for a long second. Then she smiles and says, "Uh, yeah, okay. Thanks. Let me just call my dog walker, see if she can run Eddie out for me one more time?"
"Sure," Logan says. He goes into the kitchen and briefly considers beating himself to death with a saucepan for breaking one of his own rules: do not invite the girl to dinner before you're sure you can fuck her without becoming hopelessly attached. Not that he thinks he's going to fuck Veronica--he's pretty sure that Veronica would put him in handcuffs if he tried, and not in the good way--but the hopelessly attached part is already looking like a legitimate fear. Logan casts his mind around for the last time he felt this unmoored, this off-balance, by a woman, and can't come up with anything.
Well, anything except Veronica the first time around, but there's no point in going there and actually giving himself a heart attack.
She comes into the kitchen a minute later, and she's taken off her jacket and shoes, loosed her hair from the clip that had been pulling it back. She's in casual clothes, jeans and an untucked button-down, and it's even worse than the pantsuit was, somehow. He swallows hard and looks away.
"I thought you lived on Hungry-Man and applesauce," she says, looking over the stove with interest. "You mislead me."
"Learned to cook when I got out of school," he replies, shrugging and flipping the ribs. "I think it was a backlash against all that room service freshman year. But, to be fair, I do mostly live on Hungry-Man and applesauce, if only because I don't usually have time for much more."
"As someone who goes through at least 20 Clif bars a week, I hear that," she laughs. "But I was promised a dognapping story, and I intend to collect."
"It's a sordid tale," he tells her. "You have to promise not to judge me too harshly."
"So promised," she says, hopping up onto the island and letting her feet dangle. "Come on, enough with the stalling."
"Right," he says. "So, a couple years ago--in my youth!--I went out to California to visit Dick, and he dragged me to this party at the governor's mansion--you know, his mom--"
"Yeah, I remember," Veronica says. "Get to the good part."
"So there was this girl," Logan sighs, reaching to stir the mashed potatoes, "and, look, I'd had a lot to drink, and she was…attractive, I guess, in that plastic bimbo sort of way, or she seemed attractive at the time, I don't know. Anyway, to make a long story short, I brought her back to Dick's guest room, and while we were fooling around I heard this whimpering noise."
"She'd brought the dog with her?" Veronica asks, surprised. "What, to a one night stand?"
"Butch was in her purse," Logan says, unable to keep a little bit of a growl from slipping into his voice. "She was just a puppy, and when I opened the bag she was just--huddled in there, right, and I'd been with this woman for hours by that point, between the party and the cab ride, and I had no idea she had a dog with her. When I asked when the last time she'd fed her was, Miranda said it didn't matter, and then I told her she could either leave the dog with me and get out or wait while I called the ASPCA."
"You're kidding," Veronica says. Logan shakes his head.
"Afraid not. She left, and made it all the way down the hall before running into Dick. They've been together ever since."
"Wow. She must love you."
"Not my biggest fan ever," he admits, laughing. "Especially because she knows I kept the dog--I didn't mean to, but I brought her home with me so I'd have time to find her a good home, and then she just kind of stuck."
He doesn't mention the truth of it--that Butch had been terrified of people, had shied away from touch, had cowered whenever he lifted his hand to pet her. He doesn't mention that there'd been something about her, so starved for affection that she feared it, that spoke volumes to parts of himself he generally tried not to address. He doesn't mention that he'd kept her out of some sort of sick fellow feeling, out of a need to prove to her that everyone wasn't like that, but when he meets Veronica's eyes they're soft and knowing, like she's figured it out anyway.
Logan glances away and rips a piece of meat off the ribs, tossing it down to the dog and laughing again to cover his discomfort. "So, yeah, that's my dognapping story. You're officially an accessory now, I think."
"That's not how that works," Veronica tells him. "Also, dognapping for a good cause: generally not high on the list of FBI priorities."
"Whew, that's a relief," Logan says, and she smirks at him, and if he's having a little trouble in the breathing department, it's probably nothing to worry about.
They have wine and easy conversation with dinner, and Veronica's good enough to compliment him on the food, to slip Butch scraps under the table. And that's actually the weirdest thing about seeing Veronica again--she's not the girl he remembers, but she's not anyone else, either. She keeps tucking her hair behind her ear absently as she eats, and that's a habit he recalls, but there are new lines around her eyes, nuances to her speech that weren't there before. He finds himself comparing her to his memories, tracking the changes, trying to figure out which version of her he likes more.
It's around the time she puts on her jacket and follows him to the nearest bar that he decides it doesn't matter one way or the other.
She orders whiskey, on the rocks with a twist, smirking at him when he brings up the fruity drinks she used to like.
"My tastes have matured considerably," she says, knocking back half of the glass in one go, and he downs his scotch just to keep up with her. They went through a bottle of wine with their meal and so they're both pleasantly buzzed when a guy slides into the barstool next to her, orders himself a beer, and puts his hand on her leg.
"Not interested," Veronica says, sounding more bored than anything else. "Move your hand, please."
"Aww, c'mon, baby, don't be like that," the guy says, leering. Logan can smell the vodka on his breath, and does a now-familiar dance of control with the rush of anger that surges in his chest. He knows he could take this guy, but he also knows that his anger management classes had been right about bar fights being a bad choice.
"The lady asked you to move," he says, his voice tight.
"Logan," Veronica says, shooting him a quicksilver smile, "please." She turns back to the guy and leans close to him, pouting.
"Sir," she says, sickly sweet--and what the hell is she doing, what the hell is she thinking about--"I need you to know that I have a three strike system, and you've just used one. So let's try this again--remove your hand."
"You don't scare me, sweetheart," he slurs, and Veronica smiles.
"Last chance," she singsongs, and the guy just tightens his grip, and then--Logan doesn't even have time to blink before Veronica, three drinks in and a little unsteady on her feet, has somehow managed to faceplant the guy against the bar. She's got both of his arms pinned under her left hand, and with her right she pulls her badge out of her pocket, waves it in front of the man's face.
"Bet you'll think twice about ignoring a warning next time, won't you," she says, and Logan laughs so hard he cries.
This is how they end up walking aimlessly around the streets of Manhattan, trying to avoid the curious stares of their fellow bar patrons. Veronica's drunker than she seemed inside and Logan's not particularly sober himself, and when they reach an old wooden dock they wander out onto it, stare out across the Hudson.
Veronica shivers, and Logan sighs and divests himself of his recently returned jacket, draping it over her shoulders. "You can take the girl out of California," he jokes, and Veronica smiles, leaning against the railing.
Then, abruptly, she says, "I was engaged, you know."
"I didn't, actually," Logan says after a beat. From the hunch of her shoulders he figures it's not a happy story, but he has to ask anyway: "What happened?"
Veronica sighs, picking at her nails. "You know how it is. Special Agent Mars sounds sexy on paper, but Special Agent 'Sorry Honey, I Know It's Your Birthday But Duty Calls,' is…less attractive. He called me a succubus, when we broke up."
"That word, succubus," Logan says, because he has to say something, "I do not think it means what he thinks it means."
Veronica laughs, but it's bitter, tired. She sounds older than she should, like she's seen more of the world then she's due. And that's always been true about Veronica Mars--always been true about both of them, really--but it stings anyway, brings up that old ache that used to surface when he thought of her.
"Probably not," she admits. "But I'm not all that great at maintaining relationships, so I can't really be sure."
"You think I'm any good at it?" Logan asks, running a hand through his hair. "The girls I date either know about my past--in which case they're usually fishing for my money--or don't know, and then run screaming when I tell them."
"I'm sure they don't run screaming," Veronica demurs, a hint of a smile creeping onto her face in the darkness.
"Screaming," Logan insists. "There's no good way to say 'one time my movie-star dad slept with and killed my girlfriend,' believe me."
She laughs again, a little less bitter, and then she tilts her head and looks up at him. "Can I ask you a question I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole if I was sober?"
"Shoot."
"Do you ever," and she pauses, looks away from him, shifts her weight from one foot to the other before continuing, "do you ever think about us? I mean, obviously it was a long time ago, and I'm not--this isn't a come on or anything, but I just. Do you ever think that if I'd, or if you'd…if we'd handled it differently, I guess. If we ever had a chance?"
Logan, very briefly, considers jumping off the pier. But Veronica's still not looking at him, and her voice is just this side of raw, and he figures her owes her an honest answer as much as he owes himself one.
"I think we were kids, and between us we were dealing with murder, rape, child abuse, kidnapping, infidelity, arson, and abandonment," he says quietly, leaning against the railing next to her. "And that's just the shit that's easy to sum up. Frankly, I think the fact that we made it as long as we did is a testament to our tenacity."
She snorts, still looking out at the water. "God, Logan. When did you go and get all wise?"
And what Logan wants to tell her is that he doesn't feel wise, not at all. What Logan wants to tell her is that being around her makes him feel like that kid again, so achingly desperate to feel like someone loved him that he was bound to screw it up. What Logan wants to tell her is that he'd had that answer ready because of years of therapy, because he'd had to forcibly disabuse himself of the notion that fucked-up high school romance was forever, because he's still half in love with the version of her he knew ten years ago.
What he says instead, a little harsher than he means to, is, "Veronica, people grow up."
She turns to meet his eyes then, her gaze probing even in the darkness. "Yeah," she says, sounding more wistful than he'd have believed possible, "yeah, I guess they do."
--
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:31 EST
Supposing I needed a favor...
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:37 EST
Is there a rest of that sentence? My copy editor would eviscerate you for that.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:41 EST
There's this FBI dinner next week, an awards thing. I have to go, and I don't really relish the idea of doing it solo.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:42 EST
Veronica Mars, are you attempting to engage my services as an escort?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:45 EST
Well, if the shoe fits.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:47 EST
Calling a man a whore = not the best way to get him to help you out.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:50 EST
Horrifyingly, I'm not above begging. I don't know many people here yet, and I happen to know you look good in a tux.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 10:53 EST
Ah, flattery, now we're getting somewhere. Tell you what: I'll do the FBI thing if you'll come to Dick's wedding with me.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 10:57 EST
You're not serious.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:02 EST
As a heart attack. I'd pick up a random floozy to drag along, but last time I did that I ended up with a dog and Dick ended up engaged. Seems unwise.
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:07 EST
Has anyone told you lately that you're an incredibly classy guy? Because, really, Logan, the depth of your class, I can't even tell you.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:10 EST
I tell myself every morning. And twice on Sundays. Do we have a deal?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:15 EST
I can't believe you're still dragging me to 09er parties.
From Logan Lester to Veronica Mars, 11:15 EST
Was that a yes?
From Veronica Mars to Logan Lester, 11:16 EST
Fine, yes.
--
There aren't many things being the spawn of two royally fucked up movie stars trains you for, Logan has discovered. Luckily, one of them is wearing a tux and loitering awkwardly at a party at which you know no one. Logan stands in the corner of the ballroom and nods politely at the passing agents, feeling vaguely like he's going to be charged with something. Trespassing, perhaps, or doing favors for Veronica Mars--he's sure, at this point, that law enforcement officials have recognized that for the crime it usually is.
He checks her last text again--"Things a little hairy here, going to be late, sorry sorry sorry,"--and sighs, taking a long sip from his champagne flute.
"Let me guess," comes a voice, light and amused. "Stood up by a feeb? Talk about adding insult to injury."
"To be fair, I don't think I've been stood up," Logan says. He looks up from his phone to see a guy in a crisp suit and a black trilby smiling at him. "More of a rain delay."
"Ah, the old working-on-a-case brush off," the guy says, nodding knowingly. "You should know it never gets any better--they're all like this."
"I'm a journalist," Logan says, shrugging. "So it's not exactly new territory for me. You're a little harsh on your brethren, though, I've got to say."
The man throws his head back and laughs, and then holds his hand out, eyebrows up in amusement. "Hell, man, I'm not an agent, don't let them hear you call me one. Neal Caffrey, Consultant, White Collar Division."
"Logan Lester, New York Times," Logan returns, shaking. "How do you end up an FBI consultant, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Off the record?" Neal asks, and Logan likes this guy already--anyone that hyper-aware of the rules is bound to be willing to consider being an informant. "You leave your life of crime behind for a cushy work-release program."
"Life of crime," Logan repeats doubtfully. "No offense, dude, but you don't exactly strike me as the criminal type."
Neal laughs again, but it's an evasive maneuver this time, and Logan resolves to look into this guy's history at the nearest opportunity; it's bound to be interesting. "Maybe that's what makes me so good. So, tell me, which one of our nubile young agents are you waiting to romance this evening?"
"Oh, I'm not--" Logan starts, not even sure how to explain what the hell he's doing at this event, but he's cut off by the whirling tempest of Veronica arriving. Her hair is flying wildly behind her and she's clearly been running, but she looks gorgeous, in a simple black dress and spike heels that bring her nearly three inches closer to eye level with him.
"Logan," she gasps, out of breath, "sorry, sorry, I didn't think that would take so long--"
"Breathe, Mars," Logan advises, grinning at her. "You think this is the first time I've had to wait on a beautiful woman? Plus, this gives me a free pass to cut out on you for a story sometime."
Veronica stares at him like he's grown a second head, and Logan remembers her saying "Special Agent 'Sorry Honey, I Know It's Your Birthday But Duty Calls,' is…less attractive." He wonders how many guys she must have lost to her commitment to her job, how many boyfriends had to have guilted her over this kind of thing, to make her this frantic over being late to meet a friend.
Admittedly, a friend doing her the favor of going to a stuffy black tie FBI event he wouldn't usually be caught dead at, but still.
"Really," Logan says, quieter, "Veronica, it's fine. I even made a friend, look."
Veronica looks away from him for the first time since she's showed up, and he can see her relaxing, and he suddenly hates, actually viscerally hates, every shitty selfish boyfriend she's ever had.
"Caffrey," she say, sounding considerably more like herself, "who made the mistake of letting you talk to the press?"
"You're here with Mars?" Neal says, looking back and forth between them in a pantomime of shock. "Jesus, I thought the next guy on her roster would be a Bill Gates. Or a movie star, at the very least."
"Logan's an old friend," Veronica says, scowling good-naturedly at Neal. Logan is achingly uncomfortable at the movie reference until she brushes her fingers against the back of his hand, a light, calming touch. "Don't you have silverware to be stealing?"
"Cased the joint already, nothing worth taking," Neal sighs, put-upon. "Plus, Peter's still not used to the fact that he can't track my movements, so it's not like I could get away with it anyway."
He nods across the room to another agent, who is, indeed, staring him down. Logan cocks his head and Veronica laughs, delighted.
"Neal here is our pet felon," Veronica explains, her laugh deepening as Neal pulls an exaggerated expression of wounded pride. "He's been confined to a two-mile radius for the last four years, just got his ankle monitor off last week."
"Peter's my handler," Neal says, nodding over to him again. "I think he thinks I'm going to flee the country if he turns around."
Logan looks between them and deduces a number of things at once; one of the benefits of being disillusioned is the ability to see things for what they are, and one of the benefits of being a disillusioned reporter is that you've seen everything. Caffrey is, unless Logan is much mistaken, sleeping with his handler, which means he he can be blackmailed--not that he would ever blackmail a source, that would be unethical, but certainly with a light enough touch between two intelligent parties, the idea of blackmail--
"Well, as much as I've enjoyed this little chat, Logan's looking at you like you're his next front page headline, so we should probably get out of your hair," Veronica says. Logan blinks, shaking himself out of his fond imaginings of--well, yeah, of interviewing this guy and maybe digging into his gritty past, following the threads of his old contacts and his new shiny FBI job into fascinatingly murky waters--but how had Veronica known that?
"Your trained investigative skills are more than a little alarming," he tells her, casting a quick look back at Neal as he's dragged away. "Seriously, it would just be a few questions--"
"You and Caffrey are a bad combination," she says. "I can feel it my bones. Come on, I need a drink."
"I feel like you're always saying that when I'm around," he complains.
"It's this case this time, not you." She sighs and orders herself a glass of wine at the bar, leaning back against it. "We keep getting so fucking close to this guy, only to have him slip away again, it's driving me crazy."
"You'll get him," Logan says, as she reaches to take her glass. She gives him a look, one of those sarcastic nice-try-buster typical Veronica looks, one of those looks that--like the rest of her--has gotten more refined with age. He laughs, shaking his head.
"Fine, if you're going to be like that." He raises his glass and his eyebrows, more a joke than a challenge. "To catching the bad guy, then. May he live in fear of the day you track him down."
Veronica looks at him for a second with her eyes narrowed, like she's weighing him out. Then she cracks a grin, lifts her glass, and drinks to it, and Logan is surprised to find his faith in her is genuine, not even a little bit forced.
--
The month between the FBI dinner and Dick's wedding ends up featuring a lot of Veronica, for better or worse. Logan's not entirely certain how it happens, if it's just the natural progression of a friendship or something more, something that speaks to their history. Whatever the reason, they're going for drinks and meeting for lunch, catching late movies and walking their dogs together. Butch takes about fifteen seconds to establish her unwavering dominance over Eddie, to Veronica's dismay and Logan's amusement, and things settle into a comfortable pattern.
They cancel on each other as much as they meet, which is a novelty Logan finds himself enamored of. She abandons him over dessert to follow a lead on a case, and her leaves her 45 minutes into the new Tarantino film to track down a source, and neither one of them is angry, after. Logan's not used to this level of balance, doesn't know how to navigate in waters this easy, feels thrilled and rudderless by turns.
There are topics they don't broach--his parents, their past--and Logan's not sure if he's grateful for that or not. Aside from her brief, drunken inquiry that night on the pier, Veronica never mentions the years they spent together and not together, dancing around each other like boxers in the ring. And Logan would bring it up, but he can't help but feel that he's walking a tightrope, that if he strays too far towards what once was he'll lose what is.
It's an oddly terrifying thought, losing Veronica's friendship. He's not entirely sure why.
The Saturday before the wedding is the thirteenth anniversary of Lilly's death; he's had it circled on the calendar for months, even though it's not like he could ever forget. He thinks of it, privately, as his personal sad-sack day; mourning his father's death seems perverse and disgusting, and his remembrance of his mother is always tainted by an anger he can't quite shake. So he mourns for Lilly--for all of them, really, as much as he doesn't like to admit it--on the one anniversary of loss that feels justified to him, that feels safe.
He should expect Veronica to show up, really, but he doesn't, and is surprised by the knock on his door. He finds her waiting outside, holding a bag of Chinese food and a bottle of Cuervo and two novelty shot glass. Her eyes are red.
"We might as well do this together," she says, pushing past him into the apartment. "You know what they say about drinking alone."
Logan does know; it hasn't stopped him from starting early, not today. Veronica eyes the glass of scotch on his coffee table knowingly, but doesn't comment, and he's grateful, but not as grateful as he is when she twists the top off the tequila and pours them each a healthy shot.
"To Lilly," she says. "May she be wreaking glorious havoc in whatever reality she calls home."
"I'll drink to that," Logan says, and if his voice is rough already, Veronica's good enough not to comment on it.
Hours later he's stretched across his own couch, his head pillowed on her lap, with Eurotrip playing in the background and no real memory of how he got there. It's nice, he thinks through the haze of tequila, not having to do this alone.
"Do you ever wonder who she'd be?" he asks. "Lilly, I mean. If my--if Aaron--if none of it had happened. What she'd be doing now."
Veronica makes a snorting kind of noise and tips her head back in contemplation. "Divorcing Bono, probably."
Logan laughs, imagining Lilly pushing thirty, a trail of celebrity husbands in her wake. "Or marrying Charlie Sheen."
"She used to say she was going to into the stock market," Veronica says. "Said she'd do anything to be richer than her parents, just to rub it in Celeste's face."
"She used to say she'd never get married, too," Logan remembers. "I never believed her--but then again, for awhile I guess I thought she'd end up marrying me."
Veronica makes the snorting noise again--not quite amusement, but something like it. "Well, at that point I thought I'd be married to Duncan and bearing his children by now, so."
"Fuck," Logan says, "maybe she'd have ended up my stepmother, I don't know. If she'd never found the tapes, I mean."
"She wouldn't have done that to you." Logan knows she means it, but her voice is uncertain all the same, and he can't help but turn his face into her shirt, just a little, just enough to hide his eyes.
"She wouldn't have meant to," he agrees, after a long minute. "She just…"
"Loved a thrill," Veronica sighs. "Yeah, I know."
"She knew," Logan says, because if they're going to talk about this they might as well talk about it. "I mean, it was a long time ago, I know that, but I still can't believe--about Aaron, you know, the way he…what he did. I told her, and she still…"
"Oh, Logan," Veronica says, and from anyone else it would sound like pity, and he'd hate it. From her it's soft, like a warm blanket, like a caress. Or maybe he's just had too much to drink.
Too much or no, he knows it's not the alcohol slipping slender fingers into his hair; he knows it's not the alcohol murmuring comforting nonsense about the way Lilly was. He'd be ashamed of himself, of the way he's clinging to her shirt and taking choked, ragged breaths, but he's drunk and sad and, anyway, she's Veronica Mars. It's not like she doesn't already know.
He wakes up on Sunday under a comforter she clearly brought in from his bedroom, with a throw pillow tucked carefully under his head. There's a bottle of water on the coffee table with a piece of folded paper balanced over it--a cursory check reveals it to be a sheet from one of his reporter's notebooks.
"DRINK ME!" it says, in large underlined letters, and, smaller, below, "Guess I never realized how much better it would be with someone else who loved her. Thanks. V."
Logan has never felt more like a middle school girl in his life, but he saves the note.
Part Two