Fic: "washed in the blood V", V/Lamb, V/Weevil, adult language.
Yes, I'm still at the office. BECAUSE THIS FIC ATE MY BRAIN.
GAH!
But, hey, it's done, and now I'm going home to watch this show and probably have MORE fic eat my brain.
Previous parts are linked/posted here: witb: a contemplative montage.
Title: "washed in the blood V"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating/Classification: lots of adult language, angst, V/Lamb, V/Weevil.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, am not making a profit, and am driving myself batshit crazy.
Summary: There were too many pauses.
Note: I couldn't even think of a separate title for this fifth story, so it's just...V. Fitting, I guess. LOL.
He'd always had an eye for detail. He could smooth over the smallest scratches on a Kawasaki, fix a coughing engine so it purred instead, and pinpoint a girl's G spot within fifteen seconds of getting her panties off. He paid attention in class -- when he bothered to *go* -- memorized things like the average rainfall in the Amazon basin and the stupid chapter about the frog in The Grapes of Wrath. He knew all the words to his grandmother's lullabies...which was a challenge since she didn't sing in Spanish but in Quechua.
So, it didn't take long for him to have the lay-out of Lamb's office down. He parked his ass in the chair, noting the hollowed-out space indicating all the asses that had parked before him and the boot grooves in the desk. Que bueno. Proof. The noble Sheriff of Neptune spent most of his time sitting down on the job.
"Let me guess. You're here to discuss the rash of crimes attributed to your PCH-er compadres, Navarro?"
Rash of crimes? What was that about? He filed it away for later, shrugging easily as he kicked over Lamb's name plate. "Naw...I just ain't been here in a while so I thought I'd see if you redecorated. And, oh, yeah...remember when I said I'd cut you if you fucked with my girl?"
"Remember when I said I'd hand you the knife?" Lamb countered with a surprising display of cojones. "I can assure you I haven't been anywhere near Veronica Mars."
The man tried to play cool. Really gave it an impressive try. But her name...her name was the giveaway. There were too many pauses. One before it. One between her first and last name. One after. And, oh, the whole part where he clenched his fists and looked like he was going to punch something helped, too.
Jesus. The hombre had it bad. Worse than V, even. "Like I said. You hurt her, you pay."
He watched the blood drain from Lamb's face as he added 2 and 2 and got four. He'd laughed the first time he realized that, no joke, there really was a whiter shade of pale. And it never got old.
Except maybe today.
This was his good deed for the year. That's what he was telling himself. That's what had gotten him sneaking past those pansy-ass beat cops at the water cooler, charming Inga, and picking the lock on the sheriff's door. Somebody needed to let Don Lamb know just how fucking lucky he was that Veronica believed in him. Somebody had to tell the cabron that the most amazing girl in Neptune had him on the brain and he needed to appreciate that or perform neurosurgery ASAP. And, well, he'd nominated himself that somebody.
On the off chance that Donnie Boy would prove he didn't deserve the newsflash and he could break his legs.
On the off chance that Donnie Boy would fuck things up and V. would still be his.
He'd always been a gambler.
He could count cards with the best of them and had no problem betting the pot.
He swung his feet off Lamb's desk, slid out of the chair, and sauntered past the man who, for once, had absolutely nothing on him.
He'd always had an eye for detail.
And Veronica's best interests at heart.
***
She shoved her keys into her back pocket as she turned the corner and attempted to make a bee-line toward her locker. And, seriously, who had invented the term 'bee-line'? Did bees actually fly straight and manage to get where they were going uninterrupted?
She sure couldn't seem to.
Smacking straight into Lisa Newman proved that.
"Veronica. What...um...what are you doing here?" Lisa stammered out, staring somewhere between the second button on her cardigan and her Prada knock-off belt.
"I'm...um...going to class," she pointed out, even though it was cruel to mock the girl's nerves.
Nerves. Oh. Like a teenage hooker had nerves? Maybe it was just a speech impediment. Which made the mockery worse, but, hey, at least she'd found an occupation where she didn't have to talk.
"Right. Class. Where we go." The sophomore blushed. "Separately. You're a senior. We don't go to the same place. Or, um, know the same kind of people."
Oh. Great. So Lamb had been right. Everyone *would* assume they were...you know...doing it. Fucking. Shagging. Making the beast with two backs. What was she, the Slut Queen of Neptune High? Lilly would be so proud. Too bad she wasn't actually having any sex. Between keeping herself from using Weevil -- who was more than happy to be used -- and the fact that she and Duncan were too distracted to even bother faking it anymore, she'd begun to forget the general Tab A, Slot B mechanics of the act.
"Look...I don't care what you do in your spare time, Lisa, and I'm not about to tell anyone. Just give me a name," she urged the girl. "Tell me who arranges things for you." *Please let it be Celeste Kane. Please.*
Lisa shook her head, her mouth a tight, paranoid, line, and practically fled down the hall. Oh, well. It had been worth a try.
The 'Out of Order' sign was up. That couldn't be good. But at least Logan had seen fit to change the font. Franklin Gothic. Lovely. And there was something inherently wrong with her for recognizing type face. Okay, there was something inherently wrong with her for far bigger reasons than that, but who was she to quibble? She shouldered into the bathroom, dropping her bag against the door as an early warning system in case somebody should ignore the sign.
Decidedly male shoes -- or very butch female ones -- were visible behind the middle stall door. "Logan, you can stop writing complimentary graffiti about yourself now. I don't have all morning. Classes to skip, exes to avoid...you know how it goes."
The door banged open. Theoretically, if this was a t.v. show, she would've done the whole panning-up sweep...from the baggy jeans to the expensive pull-over, to the face that...gasp...wasn't Logan's. But she didn't pan. She went straight for the face. That literally arresting face. Suntanned, five o'clock shadowed, and long past seventeen.
"*You*?!?! How did *you* get in here?" she demanded, backing up against the sinks.
"I do have my ways." Lamb arched an eyebrow, twirled his imaginary mustache, and stopped short of tying her to some railroad tracks. "Undercover 101 was a popular class at the academy."
"You came in here in drag? Oh, let there be incriminating pictures," she pleaded, knotting her hands at him. "Mama needs a new pair of shoes."
If this were a t.v. show, or even Trina's precious movie based on some of the most horrifying moments in her life, there would be more banter. At least five minutes worth. With a laugh track. Instead, there was just Lamb staring at her as the muscle in his cheek twitched because he was clenching his jaw so hard. His dental bills had to be a bitch.
Before, Logan had been right. Every time she walked into this bathroom, she had visions of them when the good times were rolling. Her legs, his waist, up against the counter and frantic because discovery was imminent. They'd burned hot. Who was she to lie? (Okay, she lied a lot, but that wasn't the point). But that was Before. Before this. Before Lamb staring at her like the few feet of cheap tile between them was the Grand Canyon.
Funny, but she'd had no problem crossing the gulf at the Mannings.' Whispering "thank you" in the dark. But fluorescent lights made everything harsher, brighter. The lines on his face, the whiteness of his knuckles.
"You know, a lot of kids consider this my office," she said, conversationally, glancing at the door. Still shut. Thank God. "The last time *I* was in *your* office, you told me to get out."
"The last time you were in my office..." he began. And trailed off. He stopped looking at her, fixing his eyes somewhere to her left. Maybe at his own reflection in the mirror. Was he remembering how he'd pulled her out of the chair? How he'd held onto her wrist and turned seconds into eons? How close he'd come to...and how close she'd come to... "You can tell me to get out if you want," he said, tightly.
"Would you listen?" she wondered.
"Did you?" he shot back.
She answered the question with a far more crucial one. "Why are you here, Donald?"
He banged the stall divider with one fist. The sound bounced off the walls like a gun shot, like the strangled sound that followed. She couldn't tell if it was a growl or the word "fuck" or, God forbid, a sob.
"Why won't you leave me alone, Mars?" he asked, closing his eyes.
And she knew...she knew he saw her anyway.
"You're like herpes. Just when I think you're gone, you're in my face or in the middle of a case or just...everywhere," He laughed, rubbing at his face with both palms. "Yeah. Great. Every girl wants to hear she's an STD..."
"Don't knock herpes. It's more flattering than gonorrhea," she joked, lamely, clutching the counter so she wouldn't fall.
"I'm not...I don't want to flatter you, Veronica," he hissed. "I don't want to think about you, I don't want to hear your name or see you. Or be in a room where you've just been because the smell of your perfume is still there and it stays on my clothes even when I run them through the wash twice. I. Don't. Want. Anything. To. Do. With. You."
Any attempt to use the counter as support failed. Her knees buckled and she hit the tiles hard enough to rattle her teeth. Maybe Lamb's dentist could give them a group rate. Oh God. "Lamb...I..." He crossed the self-imposed Grand Canyon faster than anyone had a right to, crouching so he could pat her down and make sure she hadn't hurt herself. She grabbed his hands, stopping them from the clinical exploration. "What is this...? Wh-what are we doing?" And, hysterically enough, she knew that Eli had asked her the very same question all too recently.
"I don't want you, Veronica," he whispered, staring down at her fingers wrapping around his. "I don't want you in my life. I don't want you looking at me like you are right now. And, most of all...I don't want to kiss you so badly that it fucks with simple processes like tying my shoes."
She couldn't help it. She looked down. His faded Nikes were, in fact, untied.
And then she was looking up and he was cupping her face with his palms and lowering his lips to hers. And everything he didn't want...everything she couldn't stop from wanting... met in the one thing, the only thing, that they couldn't deny any longer.
They'd made a bee-line to this moment. Kissing on a bathroom floor. Her arms around his neck, his legs on either side of her as she leaned into his chest. His mouth was hot and soft and all kinds of brutal, like the whisker-burn of his stubble against her skin. He stroked her cheeks, dug his hands into her hair so he could cradle her head as he did criminal things with his tongue. French kissing no longer belonged to the French. No. He claimed it, made it his own as he slanted his mouth across hers again and again...until she gasped, "Don..."
And then it was over.
Too soon.
Not soon enough.
He yanked away, scrambling across the tile, as they both struggled to breathe. "Damn it, Mars," he whispered, eyes wide and stark and filled with desperation. "Do *not* redeem me. I don't need it. I don't need you. And don't even think for one second that I'm in love with you."
Her chest heaved like a romance novel heroine's. She touched her mouth. Her lips were tender, already swelling, and no one outside these cramped walls was going to miss that she'd been engaged in some heavy making out. "Liar," she accused, as matter-of-factly as she could while still searching for air. "If you were in court, you'd have to arrest yourself for perjury."
"Then we're lucky I'm not."
She pretended not to watch as he adjusted his situationally too-tight jeans. As he ran water at the faucet and splashed his face. As he walked right past her and kicked her bag out of the way so he could peek out into the corridor. He didn't even glance back at her as he slipped out the door. Suntanned, five o'clock shadowed, and long past seventeen.
For a long stretch of minutes, she pretended not to cry.
And then she did what she always did...she kept moving. She got up, pulled down her shirt and finger-combed her foreplay-tousled hair. She'd have to re-do her eyes entirely...so she sleepwalked toward the middle stall to tear off a few squares of toilet paper.
"Liar," she heard herself repeat as she lowered herself, numbly, to the edge of the commode. "Liar. Liar. Liar."
The slashes of black Sharpie were fresh on the back of the door. And familiar. She had a dozen notebooks from junior high where the heart and the initials filled the margins.
VM + DL.
And he'd gone one better.
Beneath the letters was something that looked like a sideways 8.
The symbol for infinity.
Eternity.
Forever.
And his damnation.
--end--
December 7, 2005.
GAH!
But, hey, it's done, and now I'm going home to watch this show and probably have MORE fic eat my brain.
Previous parts are linked/posted here: witb: a contemplative montage.
Title: "washed in the blood V"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating/Classification: lots of adult language, angst, V/Lamb, V/Weevil.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, am not making a profit, and am driving myself batshit crazy.
Summary: There were too many pauses.
Note: I couldn't even think of a separate title for this fifth story, so it's just...V. Fitting, I guess. LOL.
He'd always had an eye for detail. He could smooth over the smallest scratches on a Kawasaki, fix a coughing engine so it purred instead, and pinpoint a girl's G spot within fifteen seconds of getting her panties off. He paid attention in class -- when he bothered to *go* -- memorized things like the average rainfall in the Amazon basin and the stupid chapter about the frog in The Grapes of Wrath. He knew all the words to his grandmother's lullabies...which was a challenge since she didn't sing in Spanish but in Quechua.
So, it didn't take long for him to have the lay-out of Lamb's office down. He parked his ass in the chair, noting the hollowed-out space indicating all the asses that had parked before him and the boot grooves in the desk. Que bueno. Proof. The noble Sheriff of Neptune spent most of his time sitting down on the job.
"Let me guess. You're here to discuss the rash of crimes attributed to your PCH-er compadres, Navarro?"
Rash of crimes? What was that about? He filed it away for later, shrugging easily as he kicked over Lamb's name plate. "Naw...I just ain't been here in a while so I thought I'd see if you redecorated. And, oh, yeah...remember when I said I'd cut you if you fucked with my girl?"
"Remember when I said I'd hand you the knife?" Lamb countered with a surprising display of cojones. "I can assure you I haven't been anywhere near Veronica Mars."
The man tried to play cool. Really gave it an impressive try. But her name...her name was the giveaway. There were too many pauses. One before it. One between her first and last name. One after. And, oh, the whole part where he clenched his fists and looked like he was going to punch something helped, too.
Jesus. The hombre had it bad. Worse than V, even. "Like I said. You hurt her, you pay."
He watched the blood drain from Lamb's face as he added 2 and 2 and got four. He'd laughed the first time he realized that, no joke, there really was a whiter shade of pale. And it never got old.
Except maybe today.
This was his good deed for the year. That's what he was telling himself. That's what had gotten him sneaking past those pansy-ass beat cops at the water cooler, charming Inga, and picking the lock on the sheriff's door. Somebody needed to let Don Lamb know just how fucking lucky he was that Veronica believed in him. Somebody had to tell the cabron that the most amazing girl in Neptune had him on the brain and he needed to appreciate that or perform neurosurgery ASAP. And, well, he'd nominated himself that somebody.
On the off chance that Donnie Boy would prove he didn't deserve the newsflash and he could break his legs.
On the off chance that Donnie Boy would fuck things up and V. would still be his.
He'd always been a gambler.
He could count cards with the best of them and had no problem betting the pot.
He swung his feet off Lamb's desk, slid out of the chair, and sauntered past the man who, for once, had absolutely nothing on him.
He'd always had an eye for detail.
And Veronica's best interests at heart.
***
She shoved her keys into her back pocket as she turned the corner and attempted to make a bee-line toward her locker. And, seriously, who had invented the term 'bee-line'? Did bees actually fly straight and manage to get where they were going uninterrupted?
She sure couldn't seem to.
Smacking straight into Lisa Newman proved that.
"Veronica. What...um...what are you doing here?" Lisa stammered out, staring somewhere between the second button on her cardigan and her Prada knock-off belt.
"I'm...um...going to class," she pointed out, even though it was cruel to mock the girl's nerves.
Nerves. Oh. Like a teenage hooker had nerves? Maybe it was just a speech impediment. Which made the mockery worse, but, hey, at least she'd found an occupation where she didn't have to talk.
"Right. Class. Where we go." The sophomore blushed. "Separately. You're a senior. We don't go to the same place. Or, um, know the same kind of people."
Oh. Great. So Lamb had been right. Everyone *would* assume they were...you know...doing it. Fucking. Shagging. Making the beast with two backs. What was she, the Slut Queen of Neptune High? Lilly would be so proud. Too bad she wasn't actually having any sex. Between keeping herself from using Weevil -- who was more than happy to be used -- and the fact that she and Duncan were too distracted to even bother faking it anymore, she'd begun to forget the general Tab A, Slot B mechanics of the act.
"Look...I don't care what you do in your spare time, Lisa, and I'm not about to tell anyone. Just give me a name," she urged the girl. "Tell me who arranges things for you." *Please let it be Celeste Kane. Please.*
Lisa shook her head, her mouth a tight, paranoid, line, and practically fled down the hall. Oh, well. It had been worth a try.
The 'Out of Order' sign was up. That couldn't be good. But at least Logan had seen fit to change the font. Franklin Gothic. Lovely. And there was something inherently wrong with her for recognizing type face. Okay, there was something inherently wrong with her for far bigger reasons than that, but who was she to quibble? She shouldered into the bathroom, dropping her bag against the door as an early warning system in case somebody should ignore the sign.
Decidedly male shoes -- or very butch female ones -- were visible behind the middle stall door. "Logan, you can stop writing complimentary graffiti about yourself now. I don't have all morning. Classes to skip, exes to avoid...you know how it goes."
The door banged open. Theoretically, if this was a t.v. show, she would've done the whole panning-up sweep...from the baggy jeans to the expensive pull-over, to the face that...gasp...wasn't Logan's. But she didn't pan. She went straight for the face. That literally arresting face. Suntanned, five o'clock shadowed, and long past seventeen.
"*You*?!?! How did *you* get in here?" she demanded, backing up against the sinks.
"I do have my ways." Lamb arched an eyebrow, twirled his imaginary mustache, and stopped short of tying her to some railroad tracks. "Undercover 101 was a popular class at the academy."
"You came in here in drag? Oh, let there be incriminating pictures," she pleaded, knotting her hands at him. "Mama needs a new pair of shoes."
If this were a t.v. show, or even Trina's precious movie based on some of the most horrifying moments in her life, there would be more banter. At least five minutes worth. With a laugh track. Instead, there was just Lamb staring at her as the muscle in his cheek twitched because he was clenching his jaw so hard. His dental bills had to be a bitch.
Before, Logan had been right. Every time she walked into this bathroom, she had visions of them when the good times were rolling. Her legs, his waist, up against the counter and frantic because discovery was imminent. They'd burned hot. Who was she to lie? (Okay, she lied a lot, but that wasn't the point). But that was Before. Before this. Before Lamb staring at her like the few feet of cheap tile between them was the Grand Canyon.
Funny, but she'd had no problem crossing the gulf at the Mannings.' Whispering "thank you" in the dark. But fluorescent lights made everything harsher, brighter. The lines on his face, the whiteness of his knuckles.
"You know, a lot of kids consider this my office," she said, conversationally, glancing at the door. Still shut. Thank God. "The last time *I* was in *your* office, you told me to get out."
"The last time you were in my office..." he began. And trailed off. He stopped looking at her, fixing his eyes somewhere to her left. Maybe at his own reflection in the mirror. Was he remembering how he'd pulled her out of the chair? How he'd held onto her wrist and turned seconds into eons? How close he'd come to...and how close she'd come to... "You can tell me to get out if you want," he said, tightly.
"Would you listen?" she wondered.
"Did you?" he shot back.
She answered the question with a far more crucial one. "Why are you here, Donald?"
He banged the stall divider with one fist. The sound bounced off the walls like a gun shot, like the strangled sound that followed. She couldn't tell if it was a growl or the word "fuck" or, God forbid, a sob.
"Why won't you leave me alone, Mars?" he asked, closing his eyes.
And she knew...she knew he saw her anyway.
"You're like herpes. Just when I think you're gone, you're in my face or in the middle of a case or just...everywhere," He laughed, rubbing at his face with both palms. "Yeah. Great. Every girl wants to hear she's an STD..."
"Don't knock herpes. It's more flattering than gonorrhea," she joked, lamely, clutching the counter so she wouldn't fall.
"I'm not...I don't want to flatter you, Veronica," he hissed. "I don't want to think about you, I don't want to hear your name or see you. Or be in a room where you've just been because the smell of your perfume is still there and it stays on my clothes even when I run them through the wash twice. I. Don't. Want. Anything. To. Do. With. You."
Any attempt to use the counter as support failed. Her knees buckled and she hit the tiles hard enough to rattle her teeth. Maybe Lamb's dentist could give them a group rate. Oh God. "Lamb...I..." He crossed the self-imposed Grand Canyon faster than anyone had a right to, crouching so he could pat her down and make sure she hadn't hurt herself. She grabbed his hands, stopping them from the clinical exploration. "What is this...? Wh-what are we doing?" And, hysterically enough, she knew that Eli had asked her the very same question all too recently.
"I don't want you, Veronica," he whispered, staring down at her fingers wrapping around his. "I don't want you in my life. I don't want you looking at me like you are right now. And, most of all...I don't want to kiss you so badly that it fucks with simple processes like tying my shoes."
She couldn't help it. She looked down. His faded Nikes were, in fact, untied.
And then she was looking up and he was cupping her face with his palms and lowering his lips to hers. And everything he didn't want...everything she couldn't stop from wanting... met in the one thing, the only thing, that they couldn't deny any longer.
They'd made a bee-line to this moment. Kissing on a bathroom floor. Her arms around his neck, his legs on either side of her as she leaned into his chest. His mouth was hot and soft and all kinds of brutal, like the whisker-burn of his stubble against her skin. He stroked her cheeks, dug his hands into her hair so he could cradle her head as he did criminal things with his tongue. French kissing no longer belonged to the French. No. He claimed it, made it his own as he slanted his mouth across hers again and again...until she gasped, "Don..."
And then it was over.
Too soon.
Not soon enough.
He yanked away, scrambling across the tile, as they both struggled to breathe. "Damn it, Mars," he whispered, eyes wide and stark and filled with desperation. "Do *not* redeem me. I don't need it. I don't need you. And don't even think for one second that I'm in love with you."
Her chest heaved like a romance novel heroine's. She touched her mouth. Her lips were tender, already swelling, and no one outside these cramped walls was going to miss that she'd been engaged in some heavy making out. "Liar," she accused, as matter-of-factly as she could while still searching for air. "If you were in court, you'd have to arrest yourself for perjury."
"Then we're lucky I'm not."
She pretended not to watch as he adjusted his situationally too-tight jeans. As he ran water at the faucet and splashed his face. As he walked right past her and kicked her bag out of the way so he could peek out into the corridor. He didn't even glance back at her as he slipped out the door. Suntanned, five o'clock shadowed, and long past seventeen.
For a long stretch of minutes, she pretended not to cry.
And then she did what she always did...she kept moving. She got up, pulled down her shirt and finger-combed her foreplay-tousled hair. She'd have to re-do her eyes entirely...so she sleepwalked toward the middle stall to tear off a few squares of toilet paper.
"Liar," she heard herself repeat as she lowered herself, numbly, to the edge of the commode. "Liar. Liar. Liar."
The slashes of black Sharpie were fresh on the back of the door. And familiar. She had a dozen notebooks from junior high where the heart and the initials filled the margins.
VM + DL.
And he'd gone one better.
Beneath the letters was something that looked like a sideways 8.
The symbol for infinity.
Eternity.
Forever.
And his damnation.
--end--
December 7, 2005.