Veronica Mars fic: Five Things (Mac/Lilly)
Title: Five Things You Never Did With Lilly Kane, but Kind of Wish You Had
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing: Mac/Lilly
Rating: teen
Words: 1886
Notes: For lillerina in the Sadie Hawkins Dance femslash_today minificathon. Masterlist is here.
You never had a sleepover at Lilly Kane's house.
It's something you might have done if you were Cindy Sinclair and an '09er all your life. And you know exactly how it would have gone down.
You're eleven and excited, she's twelve and already way too old for this. Lilly's mom wouldn't let Duncan invite a bunch of his friends over the same night so it's just Duncan hiding in his room and Lilly in a bad mood which she takes out on everyone until she gets bored with that, too.
You play truth or dare and you find yourself making out with the back of your hand, but you've gotten off easy because one girl has to call the lamest boy in school and ask him out and you would have rather died.
You dare Lilly to answer the door when the pizza guy gets there wearing her underwear on the outside of her clothes and she loves it - which you knew she would. She poses for pictures then someone's demonstrating blowjob technique on a pepsi bottle and none of you ever get around to telling any truths. You're not even teenagers, it's probably a good thing you don't have any to tell.
The thing is, though, Lilly Kane never looked at you twice when you were eleven. Or when you were any age, actually. She was the queen bee and you were a weird little nobody, though she never even noticed you enough to call you that.
You're not bitter about it or anything - the money, maybe, the whole lifestyle of the rich and famous deal - but not the person you are. You have to wonder who Lilly would have been in your place. You can't quite picture it.
*
You never cut class to share a cigarette with Lilly Kane in the girl's bathroom.
Probably just as well. It's a little Degrassi Junior High, that image, where you sit on the counter, leaning against the mirror while Lilly checks her makeup. She calls you Cindy because no one does and she knows you won't tell her to stop, and you listen to her bitch about French class, and you bitch about History and you're both just glad to be out of there.
There's this one time, you're already lit up when Lilly comes in, searching through her bag.
"Shit, Duncan took my cigarettes again. My god, that boy is lame."
She looks at you and you shrug. "Last one, sorry."
So she steps up beside you, bumps shoulders and looks even more pointedly from you to the cigarette in your hand. You roll your eyes and hand it over. Her lip gloss stains the filter and you pretend not to notice, just stand there passing it back and forth till it's gone.
You're both there just for something to do, though you'd claim it's for a nicotine hit to get you through math next period. You get to know each other, sort of, the way it's sometimes easier talking to a stranger than someone close. Then she dies and no one ever knows you had this with her. She never told anyone and neither did you.
But you don't smoke, you've never smoked, and the bathrooms at school are fitted with smoke detectors so kids who want to light up have to go outside like the rest of America.
And if you ever saw Lilly Kane in the girl's room it was because you both needed to pee. She was the kind of girl who said "Excuse me, god!" at the top of her voice just to see younger girls scatter. She never had to wait for her turn at the sink.
*
You didn't go to the prom with Lilly Kane.
Well, no. Of course you didn't.
But you can just see it, how she dumps her various boyfriends' collective asses and starts to plan her big gay debut on the Neptune High social scene. How she slides in to sit next to the dykiest-looking girl in school one lunchtime and how according to Lilly? That's you.
"I'm not -" you start to say when she asks you to be her prom date.
"You are," she insists, "And it's perfect. You're perfect, because everyone thinks this is a joke, they're not taking me seriously, but if I show up with an actual lesbian? Hello, best prom picture ever."
"I don't want to be a joke," you say, kind of pissed off, actually, about all the assuming that's going on right now. "Do you even know my name?"
"It's Cindy," she says, and leans in so close towards you her lips actually touch your ear when she talks. "And hey Cindy? I'm so incredibly over boys."
But you don't say yes, not the first time she asks or the second. You've got some pride, after all, and you're not dumb enough to think she's actually serious.
The second time she asks ("Oh come on, you know you want to," big eyes and wheedling tone as she leans next to your locker) it's hard not to smile but you went through a Stephen King kick a few years back, and you saw Carrie about fifteen times. You know how this ends, with pigs blood and public humiliation, only without the satisfaction of setting your classmates on fire with your eyes.
So you tell her no again, slam your locker shut and think you actually hear her stamp her foot as you walk away.
The third time, though, she shows up at your door in a tuxedo that must have been made for a twelve year old.
You stand there in your sweatpants and slippers, staring as she announces, "I look like freaking Avril Lavigne. You have to go with me."
She does. And you do.
She buys you a corsage to match your dress, there's slow dancing and your picture, as Lilly predicted, ends up on the front page of the school paper. Neither of you will ever live it down but your second date with Lilly is a far more conventional dinner-and-a-movie deal and you could care less, at this point.
It's nice to think about how it could have been if you ever actually made it to an officially endorsed Neptune High prom. Not like that, because real life never is, but it might have been nice, anyway.
*
You didn't lose your virginity to Lilly Kane.
Again, this should come as a surprise to no one. Still, you can't help but think about all the trouble it might have saved if your first sexual experience was with Lilly instead of in a hotel room bed with a rapist and mass murderer.
Talk about a no-brainer.
In your fantasy - not that it's a fantasy, more of a musing, really, because it's weird enough, thinking about a dead girl like this - in your fantasy-slash-musing you work up the nerve to talk to Lilly at a party.
(You don't go to a lot of parties. It's not that you're anti-social, exactly, more like the social scene is anti-you. But this is your non-fantasy and it's just as likely you'd be at a party with Lilly Kane as you would be talking to her.)
She's by herself, drinking and surveying the beach like it and everyone on it are beneath her notice. And you walk up to her and say hi.
She blinks up at you a moment, smiles faintly and sips from her beer bottle. "Hey. I know you, you're that girl..."
That girl who's good with computers, you fill in the rest of the sentence when she doesn't seem to be forthcoming. With the craptastic car? With no friends who never talks to anyone?
"Mac," you say.
"I like your hair," she says. "Take a damn seat."
So you do, and you sit there not really drinking your hard lemonade and listening to Lilly talk.
"I'm going to college in a few weeks." It's the end of summer, that's what this thing is all about - you're heading back to Neptune High for your senior year and she's heading off for parts unknown. "Finally getting the hell out of this place forever."
She says it like it explains everything and you remember that you don't actually know Lilly Kane, and that you never will. You think you should say something, ask her where she's going to college, what she's been doing over the summer, something.
She touches your hair, though, separating out the lime-green parts. And what do you say to that? Lilly knows: "It's never been purple. I've seen it red and blue and orange..."
"Thought it'd be too obvious, I guess."
She sprawls back artfully, tossing her head. "If I went neo-goth what would my alternative hair be?"
"Um," you try to picture it, it isn't too hard, "Something with pink?"
"God, it's like you've known me my whole life." She smiles and grabs your arm as she sits forward again and jumps up in one motion, pulling you up with her. "Come on," she says.
You're leaning up against the hood of a car in the parking lot and you don't know whose car it is, just that it's not yours. There are people around but Lilly kisses you like she doesn't care if anyone's watching.
In the back seat (it's her car, apparently) it's quiet and still after the beach. You're not skinny enough or pretty enough or blonde enough for this, you think as you touch Lilly Kane the way you've never touched anyone but yourself. But her fingers are undoing the button of your jeans and her breath is warm on your face, and apparently that doesn't matter nearly as much as you always thought it did.
But no, this is a fantasy. Your first time wasn't like that.
Instead, it takes years of confusion, and Cassidy Casablancas, and college to figure out what Lilly Kane would have dragged out of you in five minutes flat.
And at least Lilly wouldn't have had trouble getting it up.
*
Once, you stood in line at a vege cafe and Lilly Kane was in front of you.
They have the best lentil burgers in Neptune at that place, but that day you assumed Lilly wasn't as interested in the food as she was in irritating her parents by going on a vegetarian kick. You still do - assume, that is. Maybe she was a tofu-loving hippie, you don't know. And you could ask Veronica about it, but you won't.
The line was longish, anyway, and Lilly seemed bored, and after playing with her cell phone for a while she started looking around. That's when she noticed you behind her, and blinked in recognition.
"I know you," she said, "You're that girl -"
"Can I help you?" the guy behind the counter said just then, and Lilly turned back around to make her order instead of talking to you.
And that was it.
You never found out what she was going to say. It probably wasn't anything all that interesting, anyway. Maybe it was even slightly offensive in some careless, snobby way. But it always bugged you and now you'll never know just what kind of girl you were to a girl like Lilly Kane.
end
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Pairing: Mac/Lilly
Rating: teen
Words: 1886
Notes: For lillerina in the Sadie Hawkins Dance femslash_today minificathon. Masterlist is here.
You never had a sleepover at Lilly Kane's house.
It's something you might have done if you were Cindy Sinclair and an '09er all your life. And you know exactly how it would have gone down.
You're eleven and excited, she's twelve and already way too old for this. Lilly's mom wouldn't let Duncan invite a bunch of his friends over the same night so it's just Duncan hiding in his room and Lilly in a bad mood which she takes out on everyone until she gets bored with that, too.
You play truth or dare and you find yourself making out with the back of your hand, but you've gotten off easy because one girl has to call the lamest boy in school and ask him out and you would have rather died.
You dare Lilly to answer the door when the pizza guy gets there wearing her underwear on the outside of her clothes and she loves it - which you knew she would. She poses for pictures then someone's demonstrating blowjob technique on a pepsi bottle and none of you ever get around to telling any truths. You're not even teenagers, it's probably a good thing you don't have any to tell.
The thing is, though, Lilly Kane never looked at you twice when you were eleven. Or when you were any age, actually. She was the queen bee and you were a weird little nobody, though she never even noticed you enough to call you that.
You're not bitter about it or anything - the money, maybe, the whole lifestyle of the rich and famous deal - but not the person you are. You have to wonder who Lilly would have been in your place. You can't quite picture it.
*
You never cut class to share a cigarette with Lilly Kane in the girl's bathroom.
Probably just as well. It's a little Degrassi Junior High, that image, where you sit on the counter, leaning against the mirror while Lilly checks her makeup. She calls you Cindy because no one does and she knows you won't tell her to stop, and you listen to her bitch about French class, and you bitch about History and you're both just glad to be out of there.
There's this one time, you're already lit up when Lilly comes in, searching through her bag.
"Shit, Duncan took my cigarettes again. My god, that boy is lame."
She looks at you and you shrug. "Last one, sorry."
So she steps up beside you, bumps shoulders and looks even more pointedly from you to the cigarette in your hand. You roll your eyes and hand it over. Her lip gloss stains the filter and you pretend not to notice, just stand there passing it back and forth till it's gone.
You're both there just for something to do, though you'd claim it's for a nicotine hit to get you through math next period. You get to know each other, sort of, the way it's sometimes easier talking to a stranger than someone close. Then she dies and no one ever knows you had this with her. She never told anyone and neither did you.
But you don't smoke, you've never smoked, and the bathrooms at school are fitted with smoke detectors so kids who want to light up have to go outside like the rest of America.
And if you ever saw Lilly Kane in the girl's room it was because you both needed to pee. She was the kind of girl who said "Excuse me, god!" at the top of her voice just to see younger girls scatter. She never had to wait for her turn at the sink.
*
You didn't go to the prom with Lilly Kane.
Well, no. Of course you didn't.
But you can just see it, how she dumps her various boyfriends' collective asses and starts to plan her big gay debut on the Neptune High social scene. How she slides in to sit next to the dykiest-looking girl in school one lunchtime and how according to Lilly? That's you.
"I'm not -" you start to say when she asks you to be her prom date.
"You are," she insists, "And it's perfect. You're perfect, because everyone thinks this is a joke, they're not taking me seriously, but if I show up with an actual lesbian? Hello, best prom picture ever."
"I don't want to be a joke," you say, kind of pissed off, actually, about all the assuming that's going on right now. "Do you even know my name?"
"It's Cindy," she says, and leans in so close towards you her lips actually touch your ear when she talks. "And hey Cindy? I'm so incredibly over boys."
But you don't say yes, not the first time she asks or the second. You've got some pride, after all, and you're not dumb enough to think she's actually serious.
The second time she asks ("Oh come on, you know you want to," big eyes and wheedling tone as she leans next to your locker) it's hard not to smile but you went through a Stephen King kick a few years back, and you saw Carrie about fifteen times. You know how this ends, with pigs blood and public humiliation, only without the satisfaction of setting your classmates on fire with your eyes.
So you tell her no again, slam your locker shut and think you actually hear her stamp her foot as you walk away.
The third time, though, she shows up at your door in a tuxedo that must have been made for a twelve year old.
You stand there in your sweatpants and slippers, staring as she announces, "I look like freaking Avril Lavigne. You have to go with me."
She does. And you do.
She buys you a corsage to match your dress, there's slow dancing and your picture, as Lilly predicted, ends up on the front page of the school paper. Neither of you will ever live it down but your second date with Lilly is a far more conventional dinner-and-a-movie deal and you could care less, at this point.
It's nice to think about how it could have been if you ever actually made it to an officially endorsed Neptune High prom. Not like that, because real life never is, but it might have been nice, anyway.
*
You didn't lose your virginity to Lilly Kane.
Again, this should come as a surprise to no one. Still, you can't help but think about all the trouble it might have saved if your first sexual experience was with Lilly instead of in a hotel room bed with a rapist and mass murderer.
Talk about a no-brainer.
In your fantasy - not that it's a fantasy, more of a musing, really, because it's weird enough, thinking about a dead girl like this - in your fantasy-slash-musing you work up the nerve to talk to Lilly at a party.
(You don't go to a lot of parties. It's not that you're anti-social, exactly, more like the social scene is anti-you. But this is your non-fantasy and it's just as likely you'd be at a party with Lilly Kane as you would be talking to her.)
She's by herself, drinking and surveying the beach like it and everyone on it are beneath her notice. And you walk up to her and say hi.
She blinks up at you a moment, smiles faintly and sips from her beer bottle. "Hey. I know you, you're that girl..."
That girl who's good with computers, you fill in the rest of the sentence when she doesn't seem to be forthcoming. With the craptastic car? With no friends who never talks to anyone?
"Mac," you say.
"I like your hair," she says. "Take a damn seat."
So you do, and you sit there not really drinking your hard lemonade and listening to Lilly talk.
"I'm going to college in a few weeks." It's the end of summer, that's what this thing is all about - you're heading back to Neptune High for your senior year and she's heading off for parts unknown. "Finally getting the hell out of this place forever."
She says it like it explains everything and you remember that you don't actually know Lilly Kane, and that you never will. You think you should say something, ask her where she's going to college, what she's been doing over the summer, something.
She touches your hair, though, separating out the lime-green parts. And what do you say to that? Lilly knows: "It's never been purple. I've seen it red and blue and orange..."
"Thought it'd be too obvious, I guess."
She sprawls back artfully, tossing her head. "If I went neo-goth what would my alternative hair be?"
"Um," you try to picture it, it isn't too hard, "Something with pink?"
"God, it's like you've known me my whole life." She smiles and grabs your arm as she sits forward again and jumps up in one motion, pulling you up with her. "Come on," she says.
You're leaning up against the hood of a car in the parking lot and you don't know whose car it is, just that it's not yours. There are people around but Lilly kisses you like she doesn't care if anyone's watching.
In the back seat (it's her car, apparently) it's quiet and still after the beach. You're not skinny enough or pretty enough or blonde enough for this, you think as you touch Lilly Kane the way you've never touched anyone but yourself. But her fingers are undoing the button of your jeans and her breath is warm on your face, and apparently that doesn't matter nearly as much as you always thought it did.
But no, this is a fantasy. Your first time wasn't like that.
Instead, it takes years of confusion, and Cassidy Casablancas, and college to figure out what Lilly Kane would have dragged out of you in five minutes flat.
And at least Lilly wouldn't have had trouble getting it up.
*
Once, you stood in line at a vege cafe and Lilly Kane was in front of you.
They have the best lentil burgers in Neptune at that place, but that day you assumed Lilly wasn't as interested in the food as she was in irritating her parents by going on a vegetarian kick. You still do - assume, that is. Maybe she was a tofu-loving hippie, you don't know. And you could ask Veronica about it, but you won't.
The line was longish, anyway, and Lilly seemed bored, and after playing with her cell phone for a while she started looking around. That's when she noticed you behind her, and blinked in recognition.
"I know you," she said, "You're that girl -"
"Can I help you?" the guy behind the counter said just then, and Lilly turned back around to make her order instead of talking to you.
And that was it.
You never found out what she was going to say. It probably wasn't anything all that interesting, anyway. Maybe it was even slightly offensive in some careless, snobby way. But it always bugged you and now you'll never know just what kind of girl you were to a girl like Lilly Kane.
end