September to June (Piz/Veronica), PG-13
Title: September to June
Author: Evie (jenedorspas )
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Piz
Word Count: ~5,000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Stosh Piznarski's freshman year, from September to June (with a brief aside from Veronica)
Spoilers: Let's just say...everything
Warnings: Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Veronica Mars. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: This is a much-belated vm_santa gift for dira_o! I apologize for its lateness. Beta'd by dionneshea , whose praises I will not stop singing.
September to June
Piz
(with a brief aside from Veronica)
1.
do you remember when we first met?
i sure do, it was sometime in early september
you were lazy about it, you made me wait around
i was so crazy about you i didn’t mind
Piz never thought the best part of his first week at college would involve sitting on a lawn chair, drinking spring water and wearing some other guy’s argyle sweater.
Then again, there are a lot of things he didn’t anticipate about his first week at college, like thieves who pose as welcoming committees, a south quad full of girls lounging around in bikinis, or answering a knock at his door to find Veronica Mars.
She’s not a cartoon, she doesn’t carry a magnifying glass, and she’s nothing like anyone Piz has ever met before. She’s tiny and tough and beautiful and sarcastic and Piz is pretty sure he doesn’t get her at all. She’s like some alien whirlwind, and he can’t help but watch her in fascination whenever she’s around.
*
He asks Wallace what her deal is one night, why she’s a pint-sized girl detective in her spare time instead of just having a hobby (Which, Piz thinks, sidenote: all the more reason she should have taken him up on those guitar lessons).
“You’ve never heard of Lilly Kane?” Wallace asks, incredulous.
“Well, I-the name sounds familiar, but…” Piz shrugs.
“Aaron Echolls?” Wallace tries next.
“The movie star?” Piz asks. Wallace nods.
“Lilly Kane was the girl he killed,” Wallace says.
“I thought Aaron Echolls was acquitted,” Piz asks, confused.
“Man, does Beaver-town not have television?” Wallace asks, shaking his head. “Or bookstores? Veronica’s dad even wrote a book about the whole thing.”
*
Veronica isn’t a cartoon and doesn’t carry a magnifying glass, and she’s not big on having a heart-to-heart with him about her dead best friend, either. She’s also not single which, well, he should have guessed.
But she’s there next to him, settled in to watch the outcome of her latest handiwork, and she reaches over and pats him on the leg and says this is the good part. And it definitely is the good part, Piz thinks, even if it’s just a brush of her hand on his knee. She’s beautiful and smart and maybe a little bit crazy.
“Boom goes the dynamite,” Veronica says, and Piz’s heart goes right along with it.
2.
well there’s something about her that’s cold
blowing through the trees leaving me raw
the words come out and i get confused
i get shattered like a bulb in an october moon
she’s inside me like a secret and i’ve got no one to tell
wandering like a fool through the halls of a blue hotel
Veronica may be helping Kurt and Trish, but Piz is pretty sure he’s the one actually gaining the most from the situation. A missing playbook gives him not only a chance to impress his future boss, but also an excuse to see Veronica again.
Asking Wallace how to get in touch with Veronica is easier when Piz can give a semi-legitimate reason (“It’s for a case thing, I’m trying to impress the girl who has the power to give me a job at the Hearst radio station,” Piz explains in a whisper, nodding his head toward Trish and Kurt, standing in the doorway).
“Right,” Wallace says (Piz could almost swear there’s a glimmer of something in Wallace’s eye, like Piz is totally transparent, but Piz pushes it out of his mind, because he has a good reason, it’s not like he’s just asking for her phone number, right?). “Well, I think she’s at work right now. In the library, at the information desk.”
“Cool,” Piz says, trying to sound nonchalant.
(Wallace shakes his head and chuckles as he watches Piz go. He wonders if Piz is physically incapable of playing it cool about anything.)
*
“Okay, Piz, we’ll try it,” Trish says, and Piz can’t help but grin. Scoring a job at the campus radio station is pretty much the top of his list of things to accomplish at college.
(It also gives him an excuse to go see Veronica again, right? He owes her a thank-you, doesn’t he?)
Veronica shows up at the radio station, as if she can hear Piz thinking about her (she can’t, can she?). He starts to thank her, but she’s looking right through him and tells him she’s about to make Trish very unhappy, so Piz just gets out of her way.
*
When Piz walks out of the radio station a couple of days later, there’s Veronica, walking across the student union. (He wonders if it’s fate, the way their paths seem to cross.)
“Hey,” he says, catching up and settling into stride with her (which is harder than you might expect, because she’s stalking along on some sort of mission).
“What’s up, Piz?” she says, not looking enthused.
“Not much,” he says. “Any plans for the weekend?”
Apparently it’s the wrong question, because Veronica just scowls for a few seconds.
“No,” she says, finally, and then plasters a big, fake smile across her face. “Apparently my boyfriend is going not-surfing in Mexico this weekend, so I’m very much free.”
“Oh,” Piz says, practically tripping over the opening she’s given him. “Well, uh, Trish was saying that there’s this opening at an art gallery this weekend, just off campus, I guess she knows the artist? So if you’re not busy, maybe we could all-”
“Yeah,” Veronica says. “Maybe. Look-I have to go take care of something, so I’ll see you later, okay?”
Piz watches her go, giving a slight wave that goes unnoticed. He shoves his hands in his pockets and heads back for the dorm.
It’s funny, he thinks, because he and Veronica have conversations. Hell, Piz even paid her $500 last month, so it’s not like she doesn’t know him. But somehow it reminds him of the girl he had a crush on, when he was in the 9th grade and she was a junior, a girl he’d never even talked to but used to watch longingly from across the cafeteria. Somehow, with Veronica, he still winds up wondering, periodically, if she even knows he exists.
*
Piz is pretty psyched after the first episode of “But We Were Just Talking.” Well, maybe not psyched, because the angry staring contest between the girls of Lilith House and the boys of the Lampoon almost turns into a fist-fight when one of the girls announces that their friend Claire has been raped.
“Good job,” Trish tells him afterward.
Piz decides that the library is on the way back to his dorm room (it’s at least not the opposite direction), and he decides to swing by and say hi to Veronica. He figures he can see if she wants to go to the art opening, or at least tell her about the new information from the Lilith girls about Claire, which was all during a commercial break, so she wouldn’t have heard it if she was listening (Piz wonders if Veronica was listening). Anyway, it’s got to be a new clue or something, so she’ll want to know. Wallace had said she was investigating the campus rapes.
In the end, though, he doesn’t say anything to Veronica, because when he rounds the corner toward the information desk, there’s a “closed” sign up and Veronica’s walking off, kissing her boyfriend. Apparently Logan’s not not-surfing, and not in Mexico, after all.
Piz swallows, and feels a pang in his stomach as his heart sinks. He stands by the stacks and watches until they’ve disappeared, and it’s the proverbial train wreck he can’t bring himself to look away from. He walks home, bathed in the slight chill of autumn air and the silvery-blue light of an almost-full moon, and wonders why it has to feel quite as terrible as it does.
3.
if we could take the time
to lay it on the line
i could rest my head
just knowin’ that you were mine
so if you want to love me
then darling don’t refrain
or i'll just end up walking
in the cold november rain
Bowling, Piz decides, is basically the worst spontaneous idea he’s ever had. Parker’s trash-talking him, and Logan is on his best behavior, and Veronica, well-Veronica is VeronicaLogan or VerLo or, oh Jesus, LoVer. Piz closes his eyes and sighs, half from the thought and half from the gutterball he’s just sent down the lane.
“Damn it straight to hell,” Piz mutters to himself.
Apparently, though, it can get worse: Veronica shows up at the station, acting weird, and finally Piz realizes she’s there on behalf of Parker.
“I mean, no, she's really nice, it's j-...but she's not really my type,” he says.
“Oh,” Veronica says, with a nod. “You have a type.”
“Yeah, kinda,” Piz says. “And…it’s not her.”
Even though Veronica seems to understand this, she still shows up at the station with Parker, who starts asking him all about the stuff around the booth, up until she does an about-face and takes Veronica with her.
Sorry, Parker, Piz tells her in his head and he watches them go. I guess we both have the same type: people who only have eyes for someone else.
That night, staring at his dorm room ceiling, Piz decides he doesn’t want to be the equivalent of Parker with Veronica.
It makes Wallace’s invitation to go cram for midterms in some hotel, away from distractions, seem like a good idea. A few days away from campus-maybe it’s exactly what he needs to clear his head.
Piz is confident that it’s a good plan, but then it turns out that, first, Wallace has morphed from Regular Wallace into Crazy Wallace; and, second, when he flees from Crazy Wallace he opens his dorm room door to find Veronica standing there. She’s wearing boxers and a t-shirt and she’s all legs and damp blonde hair and Piz stares and she notices, but she also stays. And so he abandons his plan, and he doesn’t get much studying for midterms done, either.
*
Veronica
It isn’t until she gets into Wallace’s bed to go to sleep that night and winds up staring at the ceiling that Veronica starts to wonder what she’s doing there. What she’s still doing there, that is-she knows full well what she was doing there in the first place, and that was taking a vacation from a life in which her boyfriend won’t tell her what debauchery he got up to in Mexico, her advisor is having an affair with the dean’s wife, and her father is staying out all night with a married woman. And Wallace’s abandoned dorm room had been a convenient place to hide from all of the disappointing men in her life.
But what she’s still doing there, now that Piz is back and the room is no longer a boy-free zone? Veronica sighs, and lets her head fall to the side. She can just see Piz’s sleeping form, and Parker’s voice is suddenly in Veronica’s head: So what’s the story with him?
Nothing, I’ve got a boyfriend, Veronica had said, and, she reminds herself, she still does.
She rolls over, turning away from Piz’s general direction, and banishes all thoughts from her mind.
*
I want you to come home. I ended things with Harmony, and…I’d-I’d just like to see you, okay?
Veronica smiles to herself with relief as she exits her voicemail. She’s somewhat used to Logan disappointing her, and she’s somewhat used to teachers disappointing her (Professor Landry joins Mr. Rooks in that particular boat), but she doesn’t think she could handle her father turning into the sort of guy who winds up on the opposite end of the PI’s telephoto lens.
She could go home, Veronica thinks. Or she could stay one more night in Wallace’s room-he’s still away, it’s already evening, and now that Meryl’s safely squired away next door with Sully, it’s-it’s just Piz.
She shakes her head as if to dislodge the thought, but instead of the thought floating off, it seems like everything is swimming. After a few seconds, she realizes that a wayward train of thought is the least of her problems.
When she wakes up, it’s not in Wallace’s bed, and it’s not with Piz at her feet; it’s on the couch, with Keith and Logan. And just like that, the spell is broken.
4.
you fell down of course
and then you got up of course
and you started over
forgot my name of course
then you started to remember
pretty tough to think about
the beginning of december
“Excellent,” Veronica says. “Meet you boys out front, nine sharp. I really appreciate it.”
“What are we doing?” Piz asks, but Veronica’s already gone.
Wallace just shakes his head.
“Whatever it is, it’s probably going to seriously cut into my plan to actually chill and have a good time,” he says.
“So, why don’t you just…say no?” Piz asks.
“Say no?” Wallace asks, incredulously. “To Veronica?” Wallace laughs, and Piz gives him a knowing smile.
“Besides,” Wallace says, softening a little, “She and Logan broke up, so I think she needs a project to distract her.”
“Oh,” Piz says, and tries to sound casual.
Maybe, he thinks to himself, it won’t be so bad after all.
*
“You seen Veronica?” Mac asks Piz as they scan the crowd below them.
“Not in a while,” Piz says, shaking his head. Wallace and Logan have headed out to the drugged girl’s apartment; Veronica was supposed to be staying at the party.
Piz doesn’t see Veronica again until the next day, when Mac drives him and Wallace over to Veronica’s apartment. She’s curled up on one end of the couch with a gash over her eye, looking a little worse for wear, but her voice is steady as she recounts what happened the night before.
Thinking about Mercer attacking Veronica makes Piz’s stomach turn, and he has to swallow back the strange sensation of anger, followed by the strange sensation of satisfaction that washes over him when Veronica says she stabbed Mercer in the leg with a model unicorn.
When Mac says she has to get back to campus, they all stand up, even Veronica, and she hugs Mac, and then Wallace, and then Piz.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he tells her, enveloping her tiny frame with his arms. She’s just the right height for Piz to lean his cheek against her temple, and she lets him. There’s so much else he wants to say to her, so much else he tells himself he would say to her if Mac and Wallace weren’t there.
“Thanks,” Veronica says, and Piz likes to think there’s a glimmer of something in her eyes as she pulls away, but Mac is standing there jingling her keys impatiently, so he just gives Veronica a little wave as they head out the door.
He thinks about her on the drive back to campus; of all the sorts of girls he thought he’d meet at college, he never expected a crime-solving, unicorn-wielding junior private eye. No, Piz thinks, when he accepted at Hearst, he never could have anticipated Veronica Mars. She’s both the toughest girl he’s ever met and the girl he’s most ever felt the strange urge to protect.
5.
come january we're frozen inside
making new resolutions a hundred times
Piz flies home for the Christmas break, two days after he finishes his final exams. It’s nice, but slightly jarring: from Neptune to Beaverton; from dorm room on campus to bedroom in the suburbs; from California’s endless march of sunny-and-mid-70s to Oregon’s drizzly winter season.
If there’s one thing he’s missed about Oregon, Piz thinks, it’s the rain. He knows Californians would collectively wrinkle their noses at such a thought, but it’s true: he’s used to these winters, with the world wrapped in a blanket of low-hanging gray clouds and the hiss of the constant mist. Piz sits in the den in his parents’ house and strums chords idly while he watches the rain fall.
For New Year’s he takes his new fake ID (that Veronica made him) and goes out to the bars in Portland with the guys. He kisses some girl at midnight (and, well, for a little while before and after), and she seems nice, but she’s not really his type. She gives him her number, in case he’s bored and wants to meet up in Portland, and he means to call (at least he tells himself he does), but in the end, the folded slip of paper with her number stays in his wallet, behind the fake ID (that Veronica made him). He was going to call the girl from New Year’s, but then Black Licorice meets up to practice and it just never happens. Piz writes four new songs and the band doesn’t sound bad, despite four months without practice, and he’s pretty content with that.
Three of the songs are about unrequited love, and one is about how girls always choose the assholes over the nice guys, although it’s, like, metaphorical. It’s kind of lame, Piz thinks, but whatever; Ben Gibbard writes songs about girls choosing assholes and love, and that seems to have worked out pretty decently for him.
*
January in California turns out to be a lot like every other month Piz has spent in California. He helps Veronica pull a Veronica on Ed Argent, which Piz maybe feels a little bit bad about, but not too bad, because Piz is pretty much a pacifist and Ed Argent seems to love guns more than music.
She buys him a late dinner in the food court a few days later as a thank-you, and the food is crappy but Piz doesn’t even care. Somehow the conversation veers from talking about the guys trying to score at the Roxy to relationships and holding out for something that’s good, instead of just settling for anything.
“I think that’s like ninety percent of life, just knowing the difference,” Piz says, and Veronica’s eyes lock with his and Piz can’t help but grin. He figures he’s being completely transparent, but he doesn’t even care, because it’s just them and they stay late in the food court, just talking, until Veronica looks at her watch and realizes she needs to head home.
Piz goes back to the dorm and writes another new song, and the melody is okay but the lyrics are syrupy-sweet and he wonders if he’s going to turn into those guys who write ballads about how some girl’s body is a wonderland. He falls asleep smiling and gets up early to swing by the food court for breakfast, because he knows Veronica has an early class.
Veronica’s there and it’s perfect and he offers to buy her breakfast. And then Logan’s there and he’s bought Veronica breakfast and it’s not perfect at all, and Piz goes to class without breakfast instead.
In the afternoon, Piz sits in the dorm and strums his guitar aimlessly and wishes the world were wrapped in the grey blanket of an Oregon winter, instead of the sunshine that clashes so strongly with his mood.
6.
well you wish upon a star that turns into a plane
and I guess that's right on par
who's left to blame?
if you were a pill
i'd take a handful at my will
and i'd knock you back with something sweet and strong
plenty of times you wake up in february make-up
like the moon and the morning star you're gone
It’s Valentine’s Day. Again. And Piz knows Veronica and Logan are broken up, again. Wallace even claims the break-up’s going to stick “this time,” and Piz knows it might be an opportunity he should seize, but fuck it. With Veronica, every opening Piz has thought he’s had has turned out to be a mirage, disappearing as soon as he gets close.
And as if Valentine’s Day doesn’t suck enough all on its own, the radio station decides to devote 24 hours to love songs, so Piz has to endure crappy, sappy ballads while he’s trying to eat his lunch. And on top of it all, Mac and Parker show up, and Parker’s eyes and smile go wide as she asks Piz if he’s busy that evening. He lies and says he has plans, and he feels a little bit bad when Parker’s eyes and smile fall, but then he feels a lot relieved when Mac explains that Parker needs a partner-in-crime for the Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt. Christ, Piz thinks, he’s not sure he could find anything more painful to do if he tried.
Wallace comes home from practice while Piz is studying, takes a shower, and then announces he’s going to visit Veronica to tell her the news about Mason not showing up for practice.
“It’s messed up, man,” Wallace says as he puts his shoes back on to go. “Coach Barry, Josh, Mason disappearing, Veronica…”
“Yeah,” Piz says, absentmindedly. “Wait, what about Veronica?”
“Dude,” Wallace says. “She’s in jail. They think she helped Josh escape.”
“In jail?” Piz asks, sitting up. He’s pretty sure he’s never known anyone before who’s been put in jail.
Once Wallace has left, Piz considers the alternatives: spend Valentine’s Day on a themed scavenger hunt, or spend Valentine’s Day in jail? He’s torn between the two as to which option is less painful.
At any rate, Piz ends up neither in jail nor on a scavenger hunt; instead, he ends up in the food court with Trish, who doesn’t seem to be having a great Valentine’s Day, either.
7.
so watch your back, the ides of march
cut your hair like joan of arc
disguise your will, they'll find you out
and when they do, look out
there's money lenders inside the temple
that circus tiger's going to break your heart
something so wild turned into paper
if i loved you, well that's my fault
For Piz’s first spring break as a college student, he and his five best guy friends from Beaverton fly down to Cabo and spend five days and five bottles of tequila getting drunk on five different beaches.
The legal drinking age is 18, but Piz still brings the fake ID that Veronica made him, because he likes using it. Every time he pulls it out, it’s like pulling out a small piece of Veronica, always right there in his back pocket.
“That thing’s pretty professional, dude,” Jake says when Piz pulls it out one night. “Have you seen Aaron’s fake? I mean, for starters, it says he’s six-two and from Alabama.”
“Yeah,” Piz says, and he can’t help smiling to himself. “Well, my friend’s kind of a pro.”
8.
i’m an april fool for you
April Fool’s Day lasts for at least two weeks in Bennis Hall, if not the entire month. There’s green food coloring in milk, hidden alarm clocks beeping at odd hours, a whole bevy of computer tricks, fire alarms pulled in the middle of the night and, at some point, the third floor hallway is covered in dish soap.
One day, Piz answers a knock at the door to find Veronica covered in confetti.
“Times like these, I’m reminded how lucky I am to still live with my father,” Veronica says with a forced smile.
“What happened?” Piz asks, and he can’t help but smile.
“I opened the door to the stairwell, and a whole mess of confetti just came tumbling down on top of me,” she says, standing in the middle of the room and trying to brush the tiny bits of paper off. “Is Wallace here?”
“No,” Piz says. “But, he should be back from class soon.”
She sits cross-legged in the middle of the floor, brushing confetti out of her hair with Piz’s hairbrush, until Wallace gets home and laughs at her.
“Big, bad Veronica Mars, fleeced by some college dorm prank,” Wallace crows, and Veronica rolls her eyes and half-glares at him.
Piz’s phone rings while Wallace and Veronica are teasing each other, and he turns away to answer it. It’s Trish, and she stumbles over her words more than usual and in the end asks Piz if he wants to go to the Postal Service show with her, because she has two tickets.
The following Friday, they go to the concert and Trish tries to kiss him at the end of the night, and she’s pretty and loves the same music but Piz just…can’t. He tells her goodnight and walks back to Bennis Hall with his hands jammed in his pocket, thinking that he’s probably an idiot for turning down an awesome girl just because he can’t get some unattainable blonde out of his head. He’s so distracted thinking about it that he doesn’t remember to be on the lookout for pranks and ends up soaking wet and covered in feathers by the time he gets to his room.
“April Fool’s, dude!” Alex from down the hall says when he sees Piz, and Piz forces a fake smile and laugh until he’s retreated into the sanctuary of his own room.
“I am a fucking April Fool,” he tells himself in the mirror as he starts to pick the feathers out of his hair, and the feathers aren’t even the half of it.
9.
the lusty month of may
that lovely month when everyone goes
blissfully astray
Veronica rushes up out of nowhere and throws her arms around Piz. His heart jumps, involuntarily, and then she whispers I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend.
He hates her for it, hates her for being self-centered and callous and for making him think, for a split second, that she was actually hugging him, not just using him as a convenient prop. He hates her for it, but he also adores her, and so after a few seconds he pulls away and goes along with it, telling her he’ll get her a drink and kissing her forehead. Getting her a drink, he figures, lets him play along while simultaneously walking away.
Getting her a drink also gives him a chance to pour himself a shot of tequila, and then a second, while he thinks about Veronica and what Wallace said.
When Piz returns to Veronica, things are weird and Wallace is giving Veronica a Look and then Veronica leads him out to the balcony and starts stuttering through an attempt to let him down easy. I’ve been so caught up in my own relationship drama, she says, and Piz wants to laugh but he doesn’t. She keeps going, keeps talking, and Piz either wants to interrupt her and tell her he gets it, or interrupt her so she doesn’t finish and he can go on pretending that he doesn’t get it.
Somehow, he decides to do both. He takes her face in her hands and presses his mouth to hers, taking a few seconds to savor the shape of her lips and the way they feel against his. And then he pulls away, tells her he gets it, that she just wants to be friends, and walks away.
“I went all in,” he tells Wallace.
10.
a misty shadow spread its wings
and covered all the ground
and even though the sun was out
the rain came pouring down
the cherished things are perishing
and buried in their tomb
there is no hope, no reasoning
this rainy day in june
It’s awkward for a few days and then it’s perfect for two weeks and then it all falls apart, starting with the moment Logan Echolls storms in and starts throwing punches. And then it turns out that the very best part of the last two weeks, the part where Veronica let Piz see her naked, was actually the very worst part, because a camera also got to see her naked, and now the whole thing is on the internet for posterity.
By the time another two weeks have passed, Keith Mars has lost the special election for sheriff and been charged with destruction of evidence, Veronica is barely talking to Piz-let alone anyone else-and there are only 24 hours left until the Hearst dorms close for the summer. Piz is packing up all of his possessions and wondering if he’s going to have to pack up all of his time with Veronica, too, bubble-wrapping the fragile memories that will be the only thing he has of their relationship.
Veronica shows up the next day to help him move out of Bennis Hall and Southern California and maybe her entire life, for all Piz knows.
(“Maybe I shouldn’t have helped you get your stuff back,” she faux-grumbles as she carries one of his boxes of vinyls, and for a second she seems like her old self.)
Piz prolongs it as long as he can, but eventually, the room is empty, he’s turned in his dorm keys, and they’re standing by his car, re-packed with all his worldly possessions, with nothing left to do but say goodbye.
“Hey,” he says, brushing her hair back and touching her face. “I’m really going to miss you.”
She smiles a weak smile and says she’ll miss him too. It’s unconvincing, and they both know it.
“I’ll come visit you in New York,” she adds, jamming her hands deep into her pockets.
“Or I can come visit you in Virginia,” he says, taking the time to try to memorize the curves and angles of her face.
Piz cups her face in his hands and kisses her, as earnestly as he can. She kisses him back-sweetly, chastely-and then he takes one last, long look at her, at her blue eyes and the shape of her lips, and smiles. The last image he sees of her is in his rearview mirror, giving him a halfhearted wave as he drives away.