fic: Angle of Incidence (SPN/VMars; Dean/Veronica; au; pg)
so instead of working on any of my wsip, I ... finished a story I'd abandoned. *hands*
Angle of Incidence
Supernatural/Veronica Mars; Dean/Veronica; au; pg; 2,240 words
Dean Winchester had seemed sketchy from the moment they'd met.
~*~
Angle of Incidence
"And that's when the lights started flickering, and the dresser went skidding across the floor."
Veronica stared at the couple across the desk, trying hard to keep the professional smile pinned on her face while they looked at her with nervous eagerness that made her think of little kids who knew they'd done something wrong and were hoping to get away with it.
"I... see." She tapped her pen against her cheek and tried to figure out if this was more Wallace's or Mac's speed in terms of pranks.
There was a knock at the open door and the hot guy from the office down the hall grinned at her. "Hey, have you seen--Are you guys the Reubens?" The couple nodded in time, like bobble-headed dolls. "I'm Dean Winchester. We had a two o'clock?"
"Oh, we thought--" Mr. Reuben looked embarrassed. "We thought she was your secretary."
"Assistant," Mrs. Reuben muttered, poking her husband in the ribs. As if that made the mistake easier for Veronica to bear.
"I wish," Winchester said, leering at her playfully.
"No," Veronica said, glaring. He grinned back, uncowed. "But I'm sorry for the mix-up." She figured it was wiser to be polite, because in the few months they'd been neighbors in the building, Winchester had steered a couple of clients her way, saying they weren't his kind of case, and once or twice, that he was too busy to take them on, even though he never seemed to actually have work.
"No problem, V." He ushered the Reubens out of her office and she leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.
Dean Winchester had seemed sketchy from the moment they'd met, with his excessive good looks, his tabloid-ready past (she hadn't gotten far trying to tap into his FBI file, which continued to drive her crazy, and none of her contacts at the bureau would help her out, but she knew he'd been exonerated of being a serial killer), and his completely unbusinesslike manner. She'd worried at first about moving in next door to another detective agency, but he'd just given her that megawatt grin and said, "I don't think our client bases will overlap much." She'd pictured a parade of bitter wives looking to catch their husbands test-driving wife number two. Not that she'd have turned down that kind of work if it came her way. But it seemed like it'd be his specialty; no doubt he was an expert at providing comfort to the women who needed it. And she tried not to think about that, because she couldn't afford to be mooning after the guy down the hall, who was probably no better than Vinnie Van Lowe, at best.
Now, she wondered if he was really a private investigator at all, or if he was working some kind of con, because the Reubens' story had been ridiculous--flickering lights and breaking glass and furniture moving around the room like something out of a bad horror movie.
She updated her address book and fiddled with her filing system, but she really had nothing to do, so when she heard the Reubens leaving, she went down the hall to his office, pen in hand.
He was typing up his notes, lower lip caught between his teeth. He had the western exposure, and the afternoon sunlight clung to him like liquid gold. She had to stop and take a deep breath before she knocked on the open door.
"Hey," she said.
He looked up, smiling. "Hey. Sorry about that. They're a little nervous. Can't blame 'em really, you know?" He gestured to one of the client chairs and she sat, crossed her legs, and gave him an appraising look. "Weird shit starts happening, and people freak."
"Weird shit." She didn't even try to keep the skepticism out of her voice.
"Yeah." He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. "It's kinda my thing. Anyone else shows up at your door talking about weird shit--you know, like Weekly World News, paranormal crap--just send 'em on down to me."
She repressed the urge to shake her head in disbelief and leaned forward, slipping the pen onto his messy desk. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. Look, I was wondering--I was going to put in a water cooler, but it's kind of expensive, and I can't really justify it yet, but if we split the bill, put it in that alcove between our offices..."
He smiled again, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and God, it just wasn't fair for a man to be that good-looking. "Our very first piece of community property, V?"
"My name is Veronica."
"I know." The elevator dinged, and he nodded towards the hallway. "I think your appointment is here."
She got up and walked to the door. "And the water cooler?"
"I'll get back to you on that."
*
It wasn't hard to tail him. He drove the most ridiculous classic muscle car. Every man she knew--from her father to Wallace to Weevil--would be salivating over it, and she had to admit, the car was nearly as gorgeous as he was. It was also as conspicuous as a debutante at a PCHer party.
He stopped off to pick up a guy who looked like he was twice as tall as Veronica, and then headed towards a residential neighborhood not too far from Stanford. They went into the Reubens' house, and about fifteen minutes later, they were ushering the Reubens out, no doubt offering reassurances of some sort while planning to rob them blind.
She settled back to watch through her telephoto lens.
She was starting to get bored--she really needed to stop by the nearest animal shelter and get a dog, because she missed Backup almost as much as she missed her father--when the lights in the Reuben house all flared and went out at once. Even the streetlights in front of the house flickered and died. The other houses on the block stayed lit, though, which was weird unless--Could they really be that incompetent? They didn't even have to disarm the alarm and they'd blown the fuse box. She was still shaking her head in amusement when the front windows exploded outward in a fountain of glass shards.
She had her phone in hand, and had already dialed the nine and the one when Winchester and his partner came strolling out of the house. They weren't carrying anything more than they'd gone in with, and they didn't look too happy about what had happened, but they also weren't acting like they were criminals who'd just botched a sure thing.
She drove away while they were still loading their trunk, the last digit undialed.
*
Three weeks of listening to Winchester's conversations turned up nothing but more ridiculous stories of ghosts and demons, a lot of chatter with his brother, Sam--who, it turned out, was the tall guy from the Reubens'--and an ongoing flirtation with Hilda, the woman who cleaned their offices. Hilda was fifty if she was a day, and Veronica shouldn't have found that charming, but since Hilda did, Veronica did, too.
She was staring out the window, mentally rearranging her apartment, when Winchester swung through the open door of her office.
"Hey, Sam and I are heading out to a haunting in Santa Rosa if you want to come."
She sat up, startled, dropping her feet down to the floor. "What?"
"Saves gas if we all go in one car, instead of you following me. Better for the environment." He rolled his eyes at the last bit, which was no surprise, given the gas-guzzler he drove.
Fuck. "I haven't--"
"We're burning daylight, V. Either you're in or you're out, but the whole stalking thing has got to stop. It's not safe."
"I'm not--"
"Of course not. Figure of speech. But since you're interested enough to bug my office--" he tossed the pen onto her desk-- "and follow me around in your little silver hybrid--" he made the words sound insulting-- "I thought you'd be interested enough to see what's really going on. But if you're afraid of the truth..." He left the dare hanging, knowing she couldn't resist.
She grabbed her keys and slung her bag over her shoulders. "Okay."
"I knew you were interested." Instead of waiting for the elevator, he led her down the four flights of stairs to the street.
"Professional interest only," she said.
"Of course, V. If that's what you have to tell yourself."
She rolled her eyes.
Sam was leaning against the car when they got outside. He straightened up and she had to crane her neck to look at him.
"Hi. I'm Sam."
Her hand disappeared into his, huge as a baseball mitt, and warm. "Veronica."
"So," she said opening the passenger-side door in the back, "a haunting? Seriously?"
*
It was a lot less Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a lot more Dirty Jobs than she expected, and when it was done, there was sticky black goop (she refused to call it ectoplasm) in her hair and rock salt in her shoes.
"And these weren't cheap shoes, either," she said.
"Boots are your best bet," Dean answered. Neither he nor Sam seemed all that upset about the mess, though they weren't wearing quite as much of it as she was. Then again, Sam had had a lamp cord wrapped around his throat for a couple of really tense seconds, and Dean had been tossed into a coffee table that splintered under the impact, so maybe some sticky slime in her hair and some salt in her shoes was a small price to pay.
"Not that you'll be coming with us again," Sam said, shooting Dean a bitchy look that made Veronica blink and be grateful that she had no younger siblings.
"Safer than her following us all over the place," Dean answered, not even fazed, and she realized this was an old argument. He glanced back at her. "If you promise not to do that anymore--"
Veronica twisted her dirty hair up into a ponytail and said, "Only if you tell me everything."
Dean grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "Deal."
*
On the ride back to her apartment, they gave a her a little spiel about how monsters and demons were real. Even having seen it for herself, she was skeptical and it showed on her face.
"You can pretend you didn't see what you saw," Dean said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror. "Plenty of people we help do that. But I think we all know that you're not the kind of person who swallows the lie when the truth is right in front of you."
She huffed, not sure if he meant it as an insult or a compliment. "What makes you say that?"
"You think you're the only one who can do research, V?" Dean jerked a thumb in Sam's direction. "Sammy here is a grade-A geek, and he's got the full might of the Stanford library system behind him."
"You work at Stanford?" she asked, surprised.
Sam nodded. "Part time. I'm finishing up my undergrad. I had to drop out after my girlfriend was killed a few years ago, but since the world didn't end..." He trailed off and shrugged a shoulder.
"Huh."
"Yeah." Dean pulled into the spot in front of her apartment building, the spot that was never empty when she got home. Then he got out of the car and opened the back door for her. "Veronica is inviting me in for coffee, Sam, so why don't you go home and do your homework and I'll see you in the morning?"
"Oh, I am, am I?" Veronica had to laugh at his presumption.
Dean leaned against the front door of the car and grinned wide and bright at her. "I think so, yeah."
Sam slid into the driver's seat and looked up at her, his face all earnest concern that was actually believable, though she didn't know him well enough to know if it was for real. "You're all he talks about these days," he said.
"Sam!"
Sam's sincerity disappeared, replaced by a mischievous grin. "I'm just saying. You'd be doing both of us a favor."
"Wow, I can't tell if you're the best or the worst wingman ever," she said. She glanced up at Dean. "Does this approach usually work for you?"
"There's a first time for everything." He shrugged and laughed. "If you say the word, I'll get back in the car and go. And then we'll have a lot of awkward moments at the water cooler."
"I thought you hadn't made up your mind about that yet."
"I'm in if you are."
She smiled, heat and anticipation uncurling low in her belly. "Yeah," she said. "I think I am."
"Have a good time," Sam said, gunning the engine. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Come on, Sam, we wanna have some fun," Dean called after him as he pulled away, waving at them with his middle finger in the air.
"I have one condition," Veronica said as she unlocked the door and led him upstairs to her apartment.
"Yeah?"
"When we get the signs on the office doors repainted, they're going to say Mars and Winchester."
He laughed again, his hand steady on her back and his breath warm on the nape of her neck, making her shiver.
"I can live with that."
end
~*~
Feedback is always welcome.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/397234.html.
people have commented there.
Angle of Incidence
Supernatural/Veronica Mars; Dean/Veronica; au; pg; 2,240 words
Dean Winchester had seemed sketchy from the moment they'd met.
~*~
Angle of Incidence
"And that's when the lights started flickering, and the dresser went skidding across the floor."
Veronica stared at the couple across the desk, trying hard to keep the professional smile pinned on her face while they looked at her with nervous eagerness that made her think of little kids who knew they'd done something wrong and were hoping to get away with it.
"I... see." She tapped her pen against her cheek and tried to figure out if this was more Wallace's or Mac's speed in terms of pranks.
There was a knock at the open door and the hot guy from the office down the hall grinned at her. "Hey, have you seen--Are you guys the Reubens?" The couple nodded in time, like bobble-headed dolls. "I'm Dean Winchester. We had a two o'clock?"
"Oh, we thought--" Mr. Reuben looked embarrassed. "We thought she was your secretary."
"Assistant," Mrs. Reuben muttered, poking her husband in the ribs. As if that made the mistake easier for Veronica to bear.
"I wish," Winchester said, leering at her playfully.
"No," Veronica said, glaring. He grinned back, uncowed. "But I'm sorry for the mix-up." She figured it was wiser to be polite, because in the few months they'd been neighbors in the building, Winchester had steered a couple of clients her way, saying they weren't his kind of case, and once or twice, that he was too busy to take them on, even though he never seemed to actually have work.
"No problem, V." He ushered the Reubens out of her office and she leaned back in her chair, shaking her head.
Dean Winchester had seemed sketchy from the moment they'd met, with his excessive good looks, his tabloid-ready past (she hadn't gotten far trying to tap into his FBI file, which continued to drive her crazy, and none of her contacts at the bureau would help her out, but she knew he'd been exonerated of being a serial killer), and his completely unbusinesslike manner. She'd worried at first about moving in next door to another detective agency, but he'd just given her that megawatt grin and said, "I don't think our client bases will overlap much." She'd pictured a parade of bitter wives looking to catch their husbands test-driving wife number two. Not that she'd have turned down that kind of work if it came her way. But it seemed like it'd be his specialty; no doubt he was an expert at providing comfort to the women who needed it. And she tried not to think about that, because she couldn't afford to be mooning after the guy down the hall, who was probably no better than Vinnie Van Lowe, at best.
Now, she wondered if he was really a private investigator at all, or if he was working some kind of con, because the Reubens' story had been ridiculous--flickering lights and breaking glass and furniture moving around the room like something out of a bad horror movie.
She updated her address book and fiddled with her filing system, but she really had nothing to do, so when she heard the Reubens leaving, she went down the hall to his office, pen in hand.
He was typing up his notes, lower lip caught between his teeth. He had the western exposure, and the afternoon sunlight clung to him like liquid gold. She had to stop and take a deep breath before she knocked on the open door.
"Hey," she said.
He looked up, smiling. "Hey. Sorry about that. They're a little nervous. Can't blame 'em really, you know?" He gestured to one of the client chairs and she sat, crossed her legs, and gave him an appraising look. "Weird shit starts happening, and people freak."
"Weird shit." She didn't even try to keep the skepticism out of her voice.
"Yeah." He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. "It's kinda my thing. Anyone else shows up at your door talking about weird shit--you know, like Weekly World News, paranormal crap--just send 'em on down to me."
She repressed the urge to shake her head in disbelief and leaned forward, slipping the pen onto his messy desk. "Sure. Fine. Whatever. Look, I was wondering--I was going to put in a water cooler, but it's kind of expensive, and I can't really justify it yet, but if we split the bill, put it in that alcove between our offices..."
He smiled again, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and God, it just wasn't fair for a man to be that good-looking. "Our very first piece of community property, V?"
"My name is Veronica."
"I know." The elevator dinged, and he nodded towards the hallway. "I think your appointment is here."
She got up and walked to the door. "And the water cooler?"
"I'll get back to you on that."
*
It wasn't hard to tail him. He drove the most ridiculous classic muscle car. Every man she knew--from her father to Wallace to Weevil--would be salivating over it, and she had to admit, the car was nearly as gorgeous as he was. It was also as conspicuous as a debutante at a PCHer party.
He stopped off to pick up a guy who looked like he was twice as tall as Veronica, and then headed towards a residential neighborhood not too far from Stanford. They went into the Reubens' house, and about fifteen minutes later, they were ushering the Reubens out, no doubt offering reassurances of some sort while planning to rob them blind.
She settled back to watch through her telephoto lens.
She was starting to get bored--she really needed to stop by the nearest animal shelter and get a dog, because she missed Backup almost as much as she missed her father--when the lights in the Reuben house all flared and went out at once. Even the streetlights in front of the house flickered and died. The other houses on the block stayed lit, though, which was weird unless--Could they really be that incompetent? They didn't even have to disarm the alarm and they'd blown the fuse box. She was still shaking her head in amusement when the front windows exploded outward in a fountain of glass shards.
She had her phone in hand, and had already dialed the nine and the one when Winchester and his partner came strolling out of the house. They weren't carrying anything more than they'd gone in with, and they didn't look too happy about what had happened, but they also weren't acting like they were criminals who'd just botched a sure thing.
She drove away while they were still loading their trunk, the last digit undialed.
*
Three weeks of listening to Winchester's conversations turned up nothing but more ridiculous stories of ghosts and demons, a lot of chatter with his brother, Sam--who, it turned out, was the tall guy from the Reubens'--and an ongoing flirtation with Hilda, the woman who cleaned their offices. Hilda was fifty if she was a day, and Veronica shouldn't have found that charming, but since Hilda did, Veronica did, too.
She was staring out the window, mentally rearranging her apartment, when Winchester swung through the open door of her office.
"Hey, Sam and I are heading out to a haunting in Santa Rosa if you want to come."
She sat up, startled, dropping her feet down to the floor. "What?"
"Saves gas if we all go in one car, instead of you following me. Better for the environment." He rolled his eyes at the last bit, which was no surprise, given the gas-guzzler he drove.
Fuck. "I haven't--"
"We're burning daylight, V. Either you're in or you're out, but the whole stalking thing has got to stop. It's not safe."
"I'm not--"
"Of course not. Figure of speech. But since you're interested enough to bug my office--" he tossed the pen onto her desk-- "and follow me around in your little silver hybrid--" he made the words sound insulting-- "I thought you'd be interested enough to see what's really going on. But if you're afraid of the truth..." He left the dare hanging, knowing she couldn't resist.
She grabbed her keys and slung her bag over her shoulders. "Okay."
"I knew you were interested." Instead of waiting for the elevator, he led her down the four flights of stairs to the street.
"Professional interest only," she said.
"Of course, V. If that's what you have to tell yourself."
She rolled her eyes.
Sam was leaning against the car when they got outside. He straightened up and she had to crane her neck to look at him.
"Hi. I'm Sam."
Her hand disappeared into his, huge as a baseball mitt, and warm. "Veronica."
"So," she said opening the passenger-side door in the back, "a haunting? Seriously?"
*
It was a lot less Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a lot more Dirty Jobs than she expected, and when it was done, there was sticky black goop (she refused to call it ectoplasm) in her hair and rock salt in her shoes.
"And these weren't cheap shoes, either," she said.
"Boots are your best bet," Dean answered. Neither he nor Sam seemed all that upset about the mess, though they weren't wearing quite as much of it as she was. Then again, Sam had had a lamp cord wrapped around his throat for a couple of really tense seconds, and Dean had been tossed into a coffee table that splintered under the impact, so maybe some sticky slime in her hair and some salt in her shoes was a small price to pay.
"Not that you'll be coming with us again," Sam said, shooting Dean a bitchy look that made Veronica blink and be grateful that she had no younger siblings.
"Safer than her following us all over the place," Dean answered, not even fazed, and she realized this was an old argument. He glanced back at her. "If you promise not to do that anymore--"
Veronica twisted her dirty hair up into a ponytail and said, "Only if you tell me everything."
Dean grinned at her in the rearview mirror. "Deal."
*
On the ride back to her apartment, they gave a her a little spiel about how monsters and demons were real. Even having seen it for herself, she was skeptical and it showed on her face.
"You can pretend you didn't see what you saw," Dean said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror. "Plenty of people we help do that. But I think we all know that you're not the kind of person who swallows the lie when the truth is right in front of you."
She huffed, not sure if he meant it as an insult or a compliment. "What makes you say that?"
"You think you're the only one who can do research, V?" Dean jerked a thumb in Sam's direction. "Sammy here is a grade-A geek, and he's got the full might of the Stanford library system behind him."
"You work at Stanford?" she asked, surprised.
Sam nodded. "Part time. I'm finishing up my undergrad. I had to drop out after my girlfriend was killed a few years ago, but since the world didn't end..." He trailed off and shrugged a shoulder.
"Huh."
"Yeah." Dean pulled into the spot in front of her apartment building, the spot that was never empty when she got home. Then he got out of the car and opened the back door for her. "Veronica is inviting me in for coffee, Sam, so why don't you go home and do your homework and I'll see you in the morning?"
"Oh, I am, am I?" Veronica had to laugh at his presumption.
Dean leaned against the front door of the car and grinned wide and bright at her. "I think so, yeah."
Sam slid into the driver's seat and looked up at her, his face all earnest concern that was actually believable, though she didn't know him well enough to know if it was for real. "You're all he talks about these days," he said.
"Sam!"
Sam's sincerity disappeared, replaced by a mischievous grin. "I'm just saying. You'd be doing both of us a favor."
"Wow, I can't tell if you're the best or the worst wingman ever," she said. She glanced up at Dean. "Does this approach usually work for you?"
"There's a first time for everything." He shrugged and laughed. "If you say the word, I'll get back in the car and go. And then we'll have a lot of awkward moments at the water cooler."
"I thought you hadn't made up your mind about that yet."
"I'm in if you are."
She smiled, heat and anticipation uncurling low in her belly. "Yeah," she said. "I think I am."
"Have a good time," Sam said, gunning the engine. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Come on, Sam, we wanna have some fun," Dean called after him as he pulled away, waving at them with his middle finger in the air.
"I have one condition," Veronica said as she unlocked the door and led him upstairs to her apartment.
"Yeah?"
"When we get the signs on the office doors repainted, they're going to say Mars and Winchester."
He laughed again, his hand steady on her back and his breath warm on the nape of her neck, making her shiver.
"I can live with that."
end
~*~
Feedback is always welcome.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/397234.html.
people have commented there.