Veronica Mars fic: Weevil/Veronica
Title: too soon too strong
Author: obv_hot_mess
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1700
Summary: AU. Keith died young and Veronica grew up a PCHer. A story about first loves told in 17 drabbles.
Author's Note: This would never have happened if not for shealynn88 who read this as I wrote it and cheerleaded and Jes, who said OH HAI, IT'S FINISHED. POST IT ALREADY. So yeah. Thanks.
1.
Veronica sleeps on her side, best when her back is pressed against the wall, one hand under the pillow and the other wrapped up in the edge of the blanket. Weevil has a twin bed but when they were little she fit perfectly between him and the wall.
Tonight, he comes home and she’s already there, asleep and sad-looking. So her mom is drunk again…or one of the boyfriends is over. He flips the light off and changes in the dark, careful, quiet, and then slides in beside her and fixes the blanket around her face the way she likes.
2.
Growing up, Veronica’s favorite dinners at Lety’s were always the ones when Felix stayed. He was tall and he was the best at 7 Minutes in Heaven.
Hector was sloppy and Chardo was grabby.
Weevil never played. “This is dumb,” he’d say. “If you’re only there for 7 minutes, it ain’t heaven,” and then he’d grab whatever girl wasn’t annoying him that week and take her out in the backyard and kiss her up against the side of the garage all afternoon.
Felix never pushed her up against a wall but he was the first boy that really kissed her.
3.
It’s September but the heat of August is hanging on. Veronica’s wearing cut-offs, a tank top fraying at the hem, dark black shades. She’s hung over and sitting very still in the front seat of Weevil’s car waiting impatiently for the black coffee he’d promised ten minutes ago when he’d called to wake her up.
She thinks that she would feel better if they were going to the beach today or the mall or Mexico or really anywhere but the first day of their junior year - back to Neptune High and homework, 09er’s and another year of being invisible.
4.
Felix's hands are always warm and he splays his fingers across Veronica’s stomach as she reaches over her head to hang up the pictures she's working on.
"What's up?" she asks, laughing and he pulls her close to his hips. She feels his breath against her ear when he whispers. "You know."
She drops the picture. He does this thing with his tongue. She lets her head fall back against his shoulder then he’s turning her around, lifting her up on the counter.
She likes kissing him because he knows what to do with his tongue. He’s quiet. He’s not complicated.
5.
She’d had Lilly Kane on the ground, was going to kick her ass but Weevil had come out of nowhere and dragged her out of the crowd.
Now she’s fighting with him.
“I was looking out for you.”
“You were looking out for your precious girlfriend’s face.”
“She ain’t my girlfriend.”
“I forgot she doesn’t talk to you in public.”
“That’s rich, V. You wanna talk about slumming?”
“You’re unbelievable. At least he knows who I am, knows where I’m from. You’re such a hypocrite. He’s your best friend.”
“Nah V, that’s you,” he says quietly, like he’s admitting defeat.
6.
“You do this with other guys?” he asks between kisses. “I’m just asking.”
She props herself on her elbow. “Would it matter if I did?”
He looks away and she reaches under his t-shirt, traces lines on his stomach until he stops her. “I’m just wondering…”
She smiles. There is no jealousy in his voice…he’s just curious…always likes to know the score.
“Well I don’t belong to anybody, do I? You gonna give me a reason why I shouldn’t?
Felix pushes her down into his pillow then and his mouth is covering hers, kissing her, kissing her a hundred reasons.
7.
Things they don’t talk about are their dead fathers, their drunk mothers, and how they’d die for each other; would run into the River Styx or across the waterfront under a hail of bullets or off a cliff if it meant the other made it home safe.
Lately it’s him fucking Lilly Kane that they don’t talk about and how every time he’s inside of her, perfect princess Lilly, with her long red fuck-me fingernails scraping skin from his back, he buries his face in her long blonde hair and pretends he’s somewhere else.
They don’t talk about that.
8.
Doesn’t matter what else is going on, Sundays everyone is washed up and at the long table in the back yard for dinner by five. It’s a noisy affair with laughter and talking and 14 pairs of hands reaching for green-rchile enchiladas and tamales and arroz con leche for dessert and Grama Lety trying to get a sense of what her “kids” have going on in the coming week.
Everyone’s accounted for today but Weevil and Veronica are sitting at opposite ends of the table, and there’s an uneasy tension in the yard that no one is talking about.
9.
She starts the shower and stands in the steam until the water runs cold. When she goes back to her bedroom her skin is raw and red.
She falls asleep not looking at the picture of them on the table by her bed, though the image is burned in her brain and it’s all she sees when she closes her eyes, them standing in front of Grama Lety’s Oldsmobile on the first day of third grade, her crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out while he pulls on one of her long pigtails and tries hard to look tough.
10.
The kids take turns smacking the piñata, each blindfolded, spun, and crazed for candy. Veronica is cheering the loudest of all the older kids, shouting encouragements in her accented Spanish. No outsider would think she belonged here in the middle of this party but her laughter tells a different story.
He catches her eye and waves. She smiles…a truce, maybe?
And then the moment is over because Felix is there, a blindfold for Veronica’s eyes, putting the bat in her hands, spinning her and kissing her like it’s nothing, guiding her hands toward the stupid unicorn and it’s mocking smile.
11.
It was 43 steps from his porch to hers the summer they were seven. He knows because they counted…on the second day that the movers carried furniture into the tiny house and her mom said that it was okay if she played outside because she had a headache and she wanted to sleep.
They ate ice cream from the truck and caught a lizard that day and talked about how they didn’t have daddies anymore and they counted the steps from his porch to hers.
It was 43 seven-year-old steps that day…less now but it feels like more.
12.
“You know we all had crushes on you when we were little, right?”
She can feel Felix staring at her. She focuses on the snag in the dashboard cover of his mom’s car.
“Weevil always told us not to mess with you, that you were one of us.”
She shakes her head. “Should mind his own business,” she says, reaching for him, pulling him in for a kiss then.
He stops her. “Veronica, you know I’d never hurt you, right?”
He won’t kiss her and she knows what’s coming.
“You don’t want to be with me,” he says quietly.
13.
She’s sitting on his bed in sweats and her eyes are small and tired from crying.
“He says I wanna be with you.”
He looks away. She knows then they aren’t going to talk about it.
“You staying?” he asks, sitting on the bed next to her and when she nods, he flips the light out and tucks himself in beside her.
Minutes pass and he whispers her name in the dark but she is quiet, pretends to sleep.
He kisses her forehead then, says, “I’m sorry.” She knows from his breath on her face that he is watching her.
14.
When he was little, Veronica was the perfect girl. She’d hide her braids under a baseball cap, put on a t-shirt and cut-off jeans and beat Chuck Taylors and hit homeruns in the park. She could spit and she could fight and she wasn’t afraid and she never cried.
And she was his. He always thought of her that way: his to trust, his to protect.
Lying beside her now as she cries over Felix makes him feel like that isn’t true…like maybe he’s been wrong all these years…that he doesn’t know her anymore and she isn’t his at all.
15.
It’s her birthday but he’s giddier than she is.
“You ready?” he asks laughing and takes his hands from her eyes.
She looks from the El Camino to him, looks more shocked than anything and then she’s laughing, throws her arms around his neck and says thank you over and over.
He kisses her.
She is still laughing when he finds her lips, a little clumsy at first which he’s not used to but he has to do this, knows it now.
She stops laughing. It fades into a moan and she’s kissing him back like it was her idea.
16.
He’s getting into bed when he hears her voice at the end of the hall, calling good night to his grandmother.
She comes through the door smirking. “Mind if I crash tonight?” but he’s already sliding over. She kisses him, crawls under the covers.
“You know you can crash here anytime.”
“I love this smell,” she says. “This room.”
“You know your hair is everywhere in here…”
She straddles him, pulls the tank top she’s wearing over her head.
“Oh yeah, crash here anytime.”
“How long do you think we’re going to get away with this?” she whispers between kisses.
17.
They sit in the bed of her car, their backs to the cab and their legs stretched out in front of them under a blanket he snagged as they were leaving the house.
“You cold?” he asks and she can feel him shift his body into hers as he slides an arm around her shoulder.
She reaches up for his hand, entangles all her fingers with his own and then again, concentrating on all the ways their two hands come together.
“Is this weird?” he asks.
“A little bit, but it’s good.”
Author: obv_hot_mess
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1700
Summary: AU. Keith died young and Veronica grew up a PCHer. A story about first loves told in 17 drabbles.
Author's Note: This would never have happened if not for shealynn88 who read this as I wrote it and cheerleaded and Jes, who said OH HAI, IT'S FINISHED. POST IT ALREADY. So yeah. Thanks.
1.
Veronica sleeps on her side, best when her back is pressed against the wall, one hand under the pillow and the other wrapped up in the edge of the blanket. Weevil has a twin bed but when they were little she fit perfectly between him and the wall.
Tonight, he comes home and she’s already there, asleep and sad-looking. So her mom is drunk again…or one of the boyfriends is over. He flips the light off and changes in the dark, careful, quiet, and then slides in beside her and fixes the blanket around her face the way she likes.
2.
Growing up, Veronica’s favorite dinners at Lety’s were always the ones when Felix stayed. He was tall and he was the best at 7 Minutes in Heaven.
Hector was sloppy and Chardo was grabby.
Weevil never played. “This is dumb,” he’d say. “If you’re only there for 7 minutes, it ain’t heaven,” and then he’d grab whatever girl wasn’t annoying him that week and take her out in the backyard and kiss her up against the side of the garage all afternoon.
Felix never pushed her up against a wall but he was the first boy that really kissed her.
3.
It’s September but the heat of August is hanging on. Veronica’s wearing cut-offs, a tank top fraying at the hem, dark black shades. She’s hung over and sitting very still in the front seat of Weevil’s car waiting impatiently for the black coffee he’d promised ten minutes ago when he’d called to wake her up.
She thinks that she would feel better if they were going to the beach today or the mall or Mexico or really anywhere but the first day of their junior year - back to Neptune High and homework, 09er’s and another year of being invisible.
4.
Felix's hands are always warm and he splays his fingers across Veronica’s stomach as she reaches over her head to hang up the pictures she's working on.
"What's up?" she asks, laughing and he pulls her close to his hips. She feels his breath against her ear when he whispers. "You know."
She drops the picture. He does this thing with his tongue. She lets her head fall back against his shoulder then he’s turning her around, lifting her up on the counter.
She likes kissing him because he knows what to do with his tongue. He’s quiet. He’s not complicated.
5.
She’d had Lilly Kane on the ground, was going to kick her ass but Weevil had come out of nowhere and dragged her out of the crowd.
Now she’s fighting with him.
“I was looking out for you.”
“You were looking out for your precious girlfriend’s face.”
“She ain’t my girlfriend.”
“I forgot she doesn’t talk to you in public.”
“That’s rich, V. You wanna talk about slumming?”
“You’re unbelievable. At least he knows who I am, knows where I’m from. You’re such a hypocrite. He’s your best friend.”
“Nah V, that’s you,” he says quietly, like he’s admitting defeat.
6.
“You do this with other guys?” he asks between kisses. “I’m just asking.”
She props herself on her elbow. “Would it matter if I did?”
He looks away and she reaches under his t-shirt, traces lines on his stomach until he stops her. “I’m just wondering…”
She smiles. There is no jealousy in his voice…he’s just curious…always likes to know the score.
“Well I don’t belong to anybody, do I? You gonna give me a reason why I shouldn’t?
Felix pushes her down into his pillow then and his mouth is covering hers, kissing her, kissing her a hundred reasons.
7.
Things they don’t talk about are their dead fathers, their drunk mothers, and how they’d die for each other; would run into the River Styx or across the waterfront under a hail of bullets or off a cliff if it meant the other made it home safe.
Lately it’s him fucking Lilly Kane that they don’t talk about and how every time he’s inside of her, perfect princess Lilly, with her long red fuck-me fingernails scraping skin from his back, he buries his face in her long blonde hair and pretends he’s somewhere else.
They don’t talk about that.
8.
Doesn’t matter what else is going on, Sundays everyone is washed up and at the long table in the back yard for dinner by five. It’s a noisy affair with laughter and talking and 14 pairs of hands reaching for green-rchile enchiladas and tamales and arroz con leche for dessert and Grama Lety trying to get a sense of what her “kids” have going on in the coming week.
Everyone’s accounted for today but Weevil and Veronica are sitting at opposite ends of the table, and there’s an uneasy tension in the yard that no one is talking about.
9.
She starts the shower and stands in the steam until the water runs cold. When she goes back to her bedroom her skin is raw and red.
She falls asleep not looking at the picture of them on the table by her bed, though the image is burned in her brain and it’s all she sees when she closes her eyes, them standing in front of Grama Lety’s Oldsmobile on the first day of third grade, her crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out while he pulls on one of her long pigtails and tries hard to look tough.
10.
The kids take turns smacking the piñata, each blindfolded, spun, and crazed for candy. Veronica is cheering the loudest of all the older kids, shouting encouragements in her accented Spanish. No outsider would think she belonged here in the middle of this party but her laughter tells a different story.
He catches her eye and waves. She smiles…a truce, maybe?
And then the moment is over because Felix is there, a blindfold for Veronica’s eyes, putting the bat in her hands, spinning her and kissing her like it’s nothing, guiding her hands toward the stupid unicorn and it’s mocking smile.
11.
It was 43 steps from his porch to hers the summer they were seven. He knows because they counted…on the second day that the movers carried furniture into the tiny house and her mom said that it was okay if she played outside because she had a headache and she wanted to sleep.
They ate ice cream from the truck and caught a lizard that day and talked about how they didn’t have daddies anymore and they counted the steps from his porch to hers.
It was 43 seven-year-old steps that day…less now but it feels like more.
12.
“You know we all had crushes on you when we were little, right?”
She can feel Felix staring at her. She focuses on the snag in the dashboard cover of his mom’s car.
“Weevil always told us not to mess with you, that you were one of us.”
She shakes her head. “Should mind his own business,” she says, reaching for him, pulling him in for a kiss then.
He stops her. “Veronica, you know I’d never hurt you, right?”
He won’t kiss her and she knows what’s coming.
“You don’t want to be with me,” he says quietly.
13.
She’s sitting on his bed in sweats and her eyes are small and tired from crying.
“He says I wanna be with you.”
He looks away. She knows then they aren’t going to talk about it.
“You staying?” he asks, sitting on the bed next to her and when she nods, he flips the light out and tucks himself in beside her.
Minutes pass and he whispers her name in the dark but she is quiet, pretends to sleep.
He kisses her forehead then, says, “I’m sorry.” She knows from his breath on her face that he is watching her.
14.
When he was little, Veronica was the perfect girl. She’d hide her braids under a baseball cap, put on a t-shirt and cut-off jeans and beat Chuck Taylors and hit homeruns in the park. She could spit and she could fight and she wasn’t afraid and she never cried.
And she was his. He always thought of her that way: his to trust, his to protect.
Lying beside her now as she cries over Felix makes him feel like that isn’t true…like maybe he’s been wrong all these years…that he doesn’t know her anymore and she isn’t his at all.
15.
It’s her birthday but he’s giddier than she is.
“You ready?” he asks laughing and takes his hands from her eyes.
She looks from the El Camino to him, looks more shocked than anything and then she’s laughing, throws her arms around his neck and says thank you over and over.
He kisses her.
She is still laughing when he finds her lips, a little clumsy at first which he’s not used to but he has to do this, knows it now.
She stops laughing. It fades into a moan and she’s kissing him back like it was her idea.
16.
He’s getting into bed when he hears her voice at the end of the hall, calling good night to his grandmother.
She comes through the door smirking. “Mind if I crash tonight?” but he’s already sliding over. She kisses him, crawls under the covers.
“You know you can crash here anytime.”
“I love this smell,” she says. “This room.”
“You know your hair is everywhere in here…”
She straddles him, pulls the tank top she’s wearing over her head.
“Oh yeah, crash here anytime.”
“How long do you think we’re going to get away with this?” she whispers between kisses.
17.
They sit in the bed of her car, their backs to the cab and their legs stretched out in front of them under a blanket he snagged as they were leaving the house.
“You cold?” he asks and she can feel him shift his body into hers as he slides an arm around her shoulder.
She reaches up for his hand, entangles all her fingers with his own and then again, concentrating on all the ways their two hands come together.
“Is this weird?” he asks.
“A little bit, but it’s good.”