The Return 19-Drama (Logan, Veronica, Wallace) R
Title: The Return 19-Drama
Rating: R (sexual situations, swearing, and anything else)
Word Count: 4,259
Characters/Pairings: Logan, Wallace, Dick, Mac, Veronica, Parker (mentions of: Lilly the first, Weevil, Duncan, Piz) Logan/Veronica and Mac/Dick
Spoilers: All episodes (from 1.01: Pilot to 3.20: The Bitch Is Back. Just to be sure) Although this is obviously AU and there are obviously going to be some alterations to events and especially some in the last couple of episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally, nothing. So don’t sue me over this, because you won’t get anything. It all belongs to Rob Thomas and if I had owned it when it was still on the last season would have been way different.
Chapter 1: Awake/ Chapter 2: Homecoming/ Chapter 3: Forgive/ Chapter 4: Arrival/ Chapter 5: Reconnect/ Chapter 6: Belong/ Chapter 7: Bets/ Chapter 8: Fight/ Chapter 9: Battle/ Chapter 10: Retreat/ Chapter 11: Push/ Chapter 12: Sound/ Chapter 13: Potential/ Chapter 14: More/ Chapter 15: Storytime/ Chapter 16: Understanding/ Chapter 17: Piggyback/ Chapter 18: Sinners
The Return
19
Drama
~Logan~
“Come on, just open the door already.” Logan shouted from behind Dick and Mac, juggling his share of the groceries.
“What’s the password?” Wallace asked, laughing, from the other side of the front door.
“The password is: Open the damn door, Wallace, before I just drop all this food and beat your ass!” Logan yelled back, getting more annoyed by the minute.
“Can’t beat my ass unless you can get in the house.” Wallace pointed out, sounding embarrassingly unafraid.
“I’ve got a key, remember?” Logan replied, trying to adjust the his bags to reach into his pocket for his car keys again.
The front door swung open, revealing a grinning Wallace in a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and socks. “Oddly enough, that was the password.”
Wallace reached out and relieved Mac of a good portion of her load.
“Thanks, Wallace.” Mac sighed in obvious relief, Logan hadn’t realized she’d taken so much out of the back of the Rover.
In a line, all four of the walked to the kitchen, setting their bags on the counter. Digging into the bags, they all began putting the food away. Logan pulled two boxes of Lucky Charms out of one of the bags, grabbing a Sharpie he walked back to the counter and laid them down.
“What are you doing?” Wallace asked, leaning around Logan’s side to try and see what he was writing on the cereal boxes.
“I am making it clear which one the moochers can eat out of and which one is mine. The pancakes were good but, but I wanted my cereal.” Logan pulled the cap off with his teeth and held it there as he wrote in big black letters on the front of the boxes.
‘LOGAN’S CEREAL. DO NOT TOUCH UNDER PAIN OF DEATH!’
‘PUBLIC CEREAL.’
“Nice, Logan.” Wallace said sarcastically as he took the boxes out of Logan’s hands, but Logan wouldn’t let go of his box so easily.
“Uh-uh, mine is going in my room. I’m not taking any chances with the people that can’t seem to keep their hands off my cereal.” Logan said, tugging it out of Wallace’s hands and tucking it under his arm. “Now if you will all excuse me, there’s a bubble bath upstairs calling my name.” Logan turned to the door.
“A bubble bath? That sounds a little gay, Logan.” Dick commented, still putting the last of the groceries away while Mac got everything out for dinner.
“Yeah, well this bubble bath comes special with a cute little blonde chick that’s promised to call out my name, too.” Logan smirked as he walked backwards out the door, waggling his eyebrows a bit at the insinuation.
“Dinner will be done in an hour, hour and a half tops. Make sure you’re down here.” Mac called out as Logan turned around and walked towards the stairs, his cereal still tucked under his right arm.
“Logan!” Wallace called out, jogging up behind him.
“I thought you were going to help with dinner. I mean after locking us out for ten minutes it is the least you could do. Especially since we bought everyone road trip snacks.” Logan pointed out, turning around at the base of the stairs.
“Yeah, I’m gonna help and stuff, but I thought you should know…” Wallace trailed off, looking around as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. “There were a couple of fights while you were gone.”
“Fights?” Logan questioned, disbelieving. Wallace merely nodded. “Like you threw a punch and hit someone? I doubt that, since everyone left behind is semi-peaceful. Except for Weevil, and unless Piz pissed him off I can’t imagine him beating any of the girls or you, not if he didn’t want Veronica to kill him.”
“No, I mean there were a couple screaming matches. And, oddly enough, one of them did involve Weevil.” Wallace corrected.
“And Lilly, right? If there was anyone Weevil could have a screaming match with, it’s Lilly.” Logan sighed, thinking of Veronica upstairs in the bathtub, waiting for him.
“Yeah, they yelled at each other a bit and in the end, he kind of stormed out. Came through the house like he was on a mission. Went upstairs and got his wallet, when I asked him where he was going he said he was going into town and to mind my own fucking business.” Wallace told him, rolling his eyes a little at it. Logan understood completely, Wallace was in the middle of all the drama but not really a part of it.
“Okay, and what happened with Lilly? Is she okay?” Logan asked, a little shocked at the concern he felt over Lilly’s wellbeing. Of course, Wallace was telling him this and making him feel more and more like the responsible guy.
“She shrugged it off and played some video games with me and Piz for a while, although I don’t think she really likes him all that much. That’s not really the fight I wanted to talk to you about though.” Wallace suddenly became interested in his shoes at this point. It seemed that Wallace didn’t really want to tell him about the fight he wanted to ‘talk to him about’.
“Okay, the second fight. Who was that between?” Logan was a little nervous at Wallace’s hedging.
“Duncan and Veronica. It got kind of intense, pretty messy. They blamed each other for a lot of things. He accused her of stepping out on him and she accused him of cheating on her with Kendal. Then he said she was relieved about that and she called him selfish or something. I don’t know everything they said, could only hear them over the game. But she went upstairs and he threw a bottle of wine across the kitchen and stormed out.
“Piz and I went and cleaned it up while Lilly went upstairs to check on the baby. I don’t know exactly where Parker ran off to, she might have been up in her room stud-napping.” Wallace reported, accidentally letting it slip that Parker had been studying.
Logan rolled his eyes momentarily at him trying to cover it up, like Logan didn’t know that first day when he ran up to get his cell phone and came back a moment too soon and saw them all repacking the luggage. Or when Wallace and Piz went out later that night to get something from the car and circled back to use the back door so Logan couldn’t see them bringing everyone’s book bags in.
“How’s Veronica? As much as she likes to fight with me, she’s never really fought with Duncan or Lilly.” Logan start slowly up the stairs, waiting for Wallace’s response before going all the way up.
“She went upstairs right after, about twenty minutes ago. Haven’t heard from her since.” Wallace said, starting back towards the kitchen. “Just go up there and make sure she’s okay. Okay?”
“Yeah.” Logan replied, his response low and probably unheard by Wallace as he took the steps two at a time until he got to the second floor landing.
“Now, which room are you in?” He asked himself under his breath, standing before his own bedroom door but looking at hers. He had a fifty-fifty shot of getting it on the first try. He turned the knob to his own door and pushed it open.
And there she was, sitting on the edge of his bed, looking so sad that it made his own heart ache.
“What’s the matter baby?” Logan asked gently, walking to her slowly.
“I want to go home Logan, I don’t want to be here anymore.” She looked up to him, her eyes filled with tears and her mouth turned down in a little pout. She looked so cute and so sad, he sat on the bed next to her and held out his arms. She snuggled into him and he felt her take a deep breath.
“You want to go home?” Logan asked, a little disappointed at her wanting to end their time together away from her father, but he understood. She’d been so stressed out during this entire trip, worrying about Lilly, avoiding Duncan, playing peacemaker and go-between with all of the different people here. But most of all, she’d been surrounded in drama, and he of all people knew how tiring that could be.
“Neither of us have to be back in classes until Tuesday, that’s two days from now. Can we just leaving tomorrow morning, and find a hotel on the way to Neptune and stay there for the rest of the time? We’ll just barricade ourselves in the hotel room and we won’t come out until we have to.” She asked, her hand curling into his stomach to brush against his skin.
He smiled at the touch and the suggestion, it could work. He didn’t have any classes that he had to be in until Tuesday afternoon and neither did she, they could get up and head home Tuesday morning.
“You know, if you’re serious about this, we could technically stay until Tuesday morning. Neither of us have a class until around two that afternoon. It could work, and I’m definitely up for the alone time.” Logan squeezed her a little more tightly to his chest. “You want to tell me about the fight?”
Veronica sighed, a deep sigh that spoke volumes of how much she did not want to discuss ‘the fight’.
“He just, he kept pushing, asking me why I was avoiding him. I didn’t really want to fight with him, you know. I mean, I know how to fight with you, that’s easy. But Duncan is hard to fight with. He’s just so passive all the time and then suddenly he’s not and he’s in your face. But it’s always the same problem with him and he never knows what he did wrong. He always thinks he’s so completely in the right, that he did the right thing.” Veronica leaned back to look at him.
Logan raised an eyebrow, a little shocked that Veronica was pointing out this particular habit of Duncan’s. Then again, they say you often hate the qualities in others that remind you of yourself.
“I know, I do the same thing. But deep down, or maybe not even deep down all the time, I know when I’m wrong. I just don’t admit it. Duncan, he honestly thinks that not telling me that Meg was pregnant was the right decision, that it was truly none of my business. That him sleeping with Kendall was okay since I apparently was ‘relieved’ by it, or something. That he was justified in everything he did because I was never truly invested in the relationship.” Veronica was getting visibly upset again, at the thought of Duncan’s blind naïveté. It annoyed him, too. It always had.
“You’d think I’d be used to it by now, though. Right?” Veronica asked, falling back on the mattress and Logan followed suit.
“What do you mean?” Logan asked, turning on his left side lifting his right hand to run his finger tips over her face, caressing in a loving and soothing gesture.
“You’d think I would be used to the way the Kanes justify their actions. The way they think that their way is the right way and they can run all over us in the process. After all, I’ve been getting screwed over by Jake and Celeste pretty much annually for the last four years and before that I had Lilly to do it.” Veronica leaned her face into Logan’s palm for a moment before turning onto her own right side in order to face him properly.
“You’d think we would both be used to it then, but I don’t think it’s something we ever really will get over. You don’t get accustomed to the most important people in your life taking advantage and screwing you over. It just never happens, no matter how much you expect them to do it and how prepared you are, it’s still a shock every time, somehow.” Logan tried to keep himself from sounding too dejected, even though he was pretty sure it didn’t work.
If anyone knew about getting screwed over by people, it was him.
“I should know.” Logan whispered, his eyes darting away from hers and looking off to a wall in order to avoid her gaze. He felt ashamed, as if he wasn’t good enough to love and this just proved. He just admitted that the people that were supposed to love him didn’t, what did that say about him?
~Veronica~
“Logan,” she whispered, the sorrow in his voice tearing at her. Logan knew better than anyone that the people that were supposed to love you and swore to always love you didn’t always do what they promised. His mom, his dad, Lilly, Duncan and even her at one point had said they loved him and then walked away. Or screwed him over. Lilly and Duncan were good at that.
“It’s okay, whatever. I’ve got you, and that’s really all I need. Right?” Logan asked, his voice caring a false tone of happiness. He’s going to brush this under the rug, let it be one of the many things that we never talk about and he never has to face.
“It’s not okay. It isn’t fine or whatever that you got stuck with a rotten deal. Your parents were selfish, and your dad was psychotic. Trina is vapid and self-centered and not worth getting upset about.” Logan’s eyes finally found their way back to her own, and she wished for a moment that they hadn’t The intensity of emotion in them was almost too much to bear, pain, happiness, love, guilt, regret and hurt. Logan was drowning in a sea of emotions and she was the only thing to keep him from being sucked under again.
“Lilly and Duncan were, are, a product of Jake and Celeste, two of the most self-centered people in the world. His company is all that matters to Jake. That and his reputation. All he wanted for Duncan was for him to become president one day, but he was too blind to see what a horrible idea that would be. And Lilly? They barely noticed her except when she was acting out and doing things she shouldn’t be. Lilly and Duncan had everything in the world at their fingertips and that left them no respect for anyone else.”
“You give really good pep talks, you know?” Logan asked, his voice holding that tone of happiness again, but this time it didn’t ring as false.
“Sometimes I do, but not usually. I just don’t want you thinking that because all these people around you didn’t know how to love you, that you couldn’t be loved. That you shouldn’t be, because that isn’t true. You should be loved, and you are.” Veronica scooted over the space between on the bed and hooked her arms around the back of his neck. “You know that, right?”
~Logan~
“Yeah,” Logan whispered, staring into her eyes and feeling his heart stutter at the sheer love in them. How did he miss that? He had always believed that she loved him, but never really known for sure. He’d asked her if she did and she had replied yes, but without the actual words it had stayed a belief instead of a known fact. But now, looking into her eyes he saw a look that told him she loved him, and he realized that it had always been there, he’d just been too scared to admit it was love. “I do.”
Logan’s mouth came crashing down on Veronica’s a moment later, and she almost immediately pulled away, gasping for air.
“What?” Logan asked, a panic rising in him. I hurt her. I misread the signs. She’s not ready for this right now, after everything that happened today, with Duncan. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just…” Veronica’s voice cracked, his emotions swirling and confusing and overwhelming, and oh god she was crying.
“What, baby? What’s wrong?” Logan was instantly more attentive and worried. She was crying and he’d caused it. He’d kissed her and she’d started crying and this was a first, he’d never experienced anything like the simple act of a kiss causing her to cry. “Just tell me and we’ll fix it.”
“Nothing is wrong, I just… I don’t really know why I’m crying. The day has been so weird and so many things have happened in the last couple of days that I don’t really know. I can’t seem to catch up with myself, with my emotions and I just… I don’t know.” Veronica’s voice caught and hiccupped and cracked as she cried and buried her head in his chest.
Logan let her cry, holding her until he felt her heaving sobs go from long and hiccupped to short and stuttered. She wasn’t crying any longer, but laughing silently into his chest. He held back his own laughs, at least until he knew why she was laughing.
“What are you- Are you laughing now?” Logan’s voice was incredulous.
“This is so ridiculous, you know? And I’m crying and you’re here comforting me and kissing me and I’m crying?” She was almost asking herself, seemingly shocked at herself.
“Well, I was wondering…” Logan played along, his voice light and teasing as he smirked playfully.
“Come here.” Veronica looked at him, beckoning him closer. Beckoning him closer? Now I sound like a freaking romance novel. He thought to himself as he leaned into her.
Logan’s lips pressed against hers, and he reached up with his hand to grasp her chin, forcing it down with his thumb, opening her lips in the process. Veronica giggled at the move and leaned backwards, falling to the mattress, and taking him down with her.
~Wallace~
“You know, I’m a little peeved that we’re making dinner for eleven people and everyone else is upstairs. How is it fair that the three of us are stuck with this?” Wallace griped as he chopped onions. “Logan and V are upstairs, relaxing in a bath tub. No matter how much that disturbs be, that’s what they’re doing. Duncan and Lilly are in their rooms, wallowing. And I have no idea where Piz and Parker are.”
“Ten. And I’m right here.” Parker said, coming into the room and picking up a slice of red pepper that sat in a bowl on the counter.
“What? Ten what?” Wallace questioned, looking grumpily at her, still intent on throwing a fit that he was cooking. And putting up with Dick and Mac, and Dick and Mac and their incessant PDAs. If they ‘snuck’ one more frigging kiss he was going to going to throw a temper tantrum. Complete with kicking and screaming on the floor.
“Ten people. Weevil still isn’t home yet, and I kind of doubt he’ll be back for dinner by the sounds of it.” Parker told him, leaning over the counter to sneak a couple pea pods while Mac’s back was turned. Dick caught her and slapped her hand away, lifting the bowl of fresh vegetables even further out of her reach.
“What do you mean ‘by the sounds of it’? When did you talk to Weevil?” Wallace questioned, setting his knife down and swiping at his eyes and the tears that had leaked out the corners.
“A couple of minutes ago, he called the land line from the bar. He hitch hiked into town and decided to go for a few beers.” Parker tried to sneak another piece of red pepper before the bowl was moved, but was too late. Mac spied her roommates hand sliding sneakily across the counter towards the bowl, and snatched it up moments before Parker’s fingertips reached out to brush the rim. Parker huffed out a frustrated breath of air and leaned back onto the stool she was sitting on, propping her elbows on the counter and cradling her chin in both hands.
“He hitch hiked?” Wallace asked, sliding a few carrot sticks into Parker’s hand while Mac’s eyes scanned the counter for anything close enough for her to reach. Parker sent him a grateful look before continuing.
“Yeah. He was a little pissed, he said you guys just drove right past him in the rover.” Parker bit into the carrot stick with a loud and crisp snap causing Mac’s head to whip around so fast that it made Wallace wince. Someone is either going to whiplash or backhanded, he thought as he lifted to the knife to at least pretend to still be chopping.
“I think those are chopped enough, Wallace. And if you don’t stop eating dinner there won’t be enough for everyone and you’ll be too full to eat.” Mac scolded as she reached for the cutting tray that help the pile of chopped onions that Wallace had been working so diligently on.
“How is he gonna get back?” Wallace asked, still curious about Weevil.
“Don’t know. Said he might hitch back or something. He said he was at the Town and Country Bar, though.” Parker was no longer interested in telling Wallace the rest of the story, instead she was trying to give Mac some very Veronica-esque puppy dog eyes, complete with a rather amateur head tilt.
Looking for table scraps. Wallace chuckled a little to himself before saying aloud, “After dinner, I think we should go into town and have a couple of beers with good ole Weevil. See what’s so great about this Town and Country Bar.” Wallace now sat, idle, gazing longingly as Mac dumped the bowls of different vegetables into the wok on the stove. His stomach rumbled.
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“So then they’re yelling about something and some chick named Kendal and how relieved she was. And then it’s something about him getting out of trouble and not knowing how. She called him a sinner and he called Logan a saint or something, then she stormed out of the kitchen. She stomped all the way to the stairs, thought there was some sort of earthquake. Then Duncan threw something and there was this huge crash and he went storming off too, upstairs. But he went to his room and Veronica was in hers. Or Logan’s. I’m not really sure.” Parker chattered on, relaying the fight she’d heard between her new friend and Veronica.
Wallace rolled his eyes as she told the story. It was beyond inaccurate and full of plot holes. She’d told a story without telling the actual story.
“How do you know what happened? You were upstairs.” Wallace countered, leaning his arms on the counter as he shifted on his stool and watched Mac as she started putting the vegetable stir fry, tofu, rice and the beef that Dick had insisted on frying up, into serving bowls. Dick was behind him and Parker as they sat at the counter, setting the table in a decidedly bizarre picture of domesticity.
“No I wasn’t. I was in the living room.” Parker countered excitedly, shaking her head wildly.
“No, I was in the living room. With Piz and Lilly. You weren’t there.” Wallace pointed out.
“No, you were in the living room with all the gaming stuff, I was in the living room with the piano and books, the one without the TV.” Parker told him, glancing over her shoulder as Dick started filling water glasses and Mac began placing dishes of food on the table.
“Wallace? Why don’t you call everyone down for dinner.” Mac said, turning to the counter again to grab more plates of food.
“Sure mom.” Wallace chirped, but was off his stool and out of the kitchen before Mac could even swat at him.
Bounding up the stairs, his stomach rumbling again in the anticipation of food, he started yelling out: “Dinner!” Repeatedly.
He saw both Lilly and Duncan poke their heads out of their respective rooms, looking at him quizzically. Piz’s voice could barely be heard from one floor up, shouting that he heard and rudely telling Wallace to shut up already.
There were two people who probably hadn’t heard him though, since they were insulated by a room and another door. Wallace popped open the door to Veronica’s room and saw the door to her bathroom open and the light off, no sound coming from it. To be honest, Wallace hadn’t really thought she’d be in her own bathroom. Logan’s had a bigger tub.
Wallace bounced the five extra strides to Logan’s closed door, excited that he’d finally be able to eat after all the torture of having to watch Mac cook.
Twisting the knob and throwing open the door, Wallace took a step inside and froze.
“OH MY GOD!” His hand slapped over his eyes as he stumbled backwards and slammed into the door jam before launching himself out of the door and nearly falling down the stairs in the process.
He could hear Veronica laughing. Logan too. In fact, Logan was nearly hysterical and the sound of a thump probably meant that he’d fallen off the bed in his delight at the situation.
“Wallace? Wallace!” Veronica was shouting at him as he hurriedly went down the stairs. “Could you at least shut the door?”
Wallace was already down the stairs and pacing at their base, shaking his head and almost convulsively rubbing at his eyes. No matter how much shock therapy he got, he would never get the image of a naked Veronica out of his head.
Or Logan’s bare ass.
20: Dinner
Rating: R (sexual situations, swearing, and anything else)
Word Count: 4,259
Characters/Pairings: Logan, Wallace, Dick, Mac, Veronica, Parker (mentions of: Lilly the first, Weevil, Duncan, Piz) Logan/Veronica and Mac/Dick
Spoilers: All episodes (from 1.01: Pilot to 3.20: The Bitch Is Back. Just to be sure) Although this is obviously AU and there are obviously going to be some alterations to events and especially some in the last couple of episodes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Literally, nothing. So don’t sue me over this, because you won’t get anything. It all belongs to Rob Thomas and if I had owned it when it was still on the last season would have been way different.
Chapter 1: Awake/ Chapter 2: Homecoming/ Chapter 3: Forgive/ Chapter 4: Arrival/ Chapter 5: Reconnect/ Chapter 6: Belong/ Chapter 7: Bets/ Chapter 8: Fight/ Chapter 9: Battle/ Chapter 10: Retreat/ Chapter 11: Push/ Chapter 12: Sound/ Chapter 13: Potential/ Chapter 14: More/ Chapter 15: Storytime/ Chapter 16: Understanding/ Chapter 17: Piggyback/ Chapter 18: Sinners
The Return
19
Drama
~Logan~
“Come on, just open the door already.” Logan shouted from behind Dick and Mac, juggling his share of the groceries.
“What’s the password?” Wallace asked, laughing, from the other side of the front door.
“The password is: Open the damn door, Wallace, before I just drop all this food and beat your ass!” Logan yelled back, getting more annoyed by the minute.
“Can’t beat my ass unless you can get in the house.” Wallace pointed out, sounding embarrassingly unafraid.
“I’ve got a key, remember?” Logan replied, trying to adjust the his bags to reach into his pocket for his car keys again.
The front door swung open, revealing a grinning Wallace in a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and socks. “Oddly enough, that was the password.”
Wallace reached out and relieved Mac of a good portion of her load.
“Thanks, Wallace.” Mac sighed in obvious relief, Logan hadn’t realized she’d taken so much out of the back of the Rover.
In a line, all four of the walked to the kitchen, setting their bags on the counter. Digging into the bags, they all began putting the food away. Logan pulled two boxes of Lucky Charms out of one of the bags, grabbing a Sharpie he walked back to the counter and laid them down.
“What are you doing?” Wallace asked, leaning around Logan’s side to try and see what he was writing on the cereal boxes.
“I am making it clear which one the moochers can eat out of and which one is mine. The pancakes were good but, but I wanted my cereal.” Logan pulled the cap off with his teeth and held it there as he wrote in big black letters on the front of the boxes.
‘LOGAN’S CEREAL. DO NOT TOUCH UNDER PAIN OF DEATH!’
‘PUBLIC CEREAL.’
“Nice, Logan.” Wallace said sarcastically as he took the boxes out of Logan’s hands, but Logan wouldn’t let go of his box so easily.
“Uh-uh, mine is going in my room. I’m not taking any chances with the people that can’t seem to keep their hands off my cereal.” Logan said, tugging it out of Wallace’s hands and tucking it under his arm. “Now if you will all excuse me, there’s a bubble bath upstairs calling my name.” Logan turned to the door.
“A bubble bath? That sounds a little gay, Logan.” Dick commented, still putting the last of the groceries away while Mac got everything out for dinner.
“Yeah, well this bubble bath comes special with a cute little blonde chick that’s promised to call out my name, too.” Logan smirked as he walked backwards out the door, waggling his eyebrows a bit at the insinuation.
“Dinner will be done in an hour, hour and a half tops. Make sure you’re down here.” Mac called out as Logan turned around and walked towards the stairs, his cereal still tucked under his right arm.
“Logan!” Wallace called out, jogging up behind him.
“I thought you were going to help with dinner. I mean after locking us out for ten minutes it is the least you could do. Especially since we bought everyone road trip snacks.” Logan pointed out, turning around at the base of the stairs.
“Yeah, I’m gonna help and stuff, but I thought you should know…” Wallace trailed off, looking around as if he didn’t want anyone to hear. “There were a couple of fights while you were gone.”
“Fights?” Logan questioned, disbelieving. Wallace merely nodded. “Like you threw a punch and hit someone? I doubt that, since everyone left behind is semi-peaceful. Except for Weevil, and unless Piz pissed him off I can’t imagine him beating any of the girls or you, not if he didn’t want Veronica to kill him.”
“No, I mean there were a couple screaming matches. And, oddly enough, one of them did involve Weevil.” Wallace corrected.
“And Lilly, right? If there was anyone Weevil could have a screaming match with, it’s Lilly.” Logan sighed, thinking of Veronica upstairs in the bathtub, waiting for him.
“Yeah, they yelled at each other a bit and in the end, he kind of stormed out. Came through the house like he was on a mission. Went upstairs and got his wallet, when I asked him where he was going he said he was going into town and to mind my own fucking business.” Wallace told him, rolling his eyes a little at it. Logan understood completely, Wallace was in the middle of all the drama but not really a part of it.
“Okay, and what happened with Lilly? Is she okay?” Logan asked, a little shocked at the concern he felt over Lilly’s wellbeing. Of course, Wallace was telling him this and making him feel more and more like the responsible guy.
“She shrugged it off and played some video games with me and Piz for a while, although I don’t think she really likes him all that much. That’s not really the fight I wanted to talk to you about though.” Wallace suddenly became interested in his shoes at this point. It seemed that Wallace didn’t really want to tell him about the fight he wanted to ‘talk to him about’.
“Okay, the second fight. Who was that between?” Logan was a little nervous at Wallace’s hedging.
“Duncan and Veronica. It got kind of intense, pretty messy. They blamed each other for a lot of things. He accused her of stepping out on him and she accused him of cheating on her with Kendal. Then he said she was relieved about that and she called him selfish or something. I don’t know everything they said, could only hear them over the game. But she went upstairs and he threw a bottle of wine across the kitchen and stormed out.
“Piz and I went and cleaned it up while Lilly went upstairs to check on the baby. I don’t know exactly where Parker ran off to, she might have been up in her room stud-napping.” Wallace reported, accidentally letting it slip that Parker had been studying.
Logan rolled his eyes momentarily at him trying to cover it up, like Logan didn’t know that first day when he ran up to get his cell phone and came back a moment too soon and saw them all repacking the luggage. Or when Wallace and Piz went out later that night to get something from the car and circled back to use the back door so Logan couldn’t see them bringing everyone’s book bags in.
“How’s Veronica? As much as she likes to fight with me, she’s never really fought with Duncan or Lilly.” Logan start slowly up the stairs, waiting for Wallace’s response before going all the way up.
“She went upstairs right after, about twenty minutes ago. Haven’t heard from her since.” Wallace said, starting back towards the kitchen. “Just go up there and make sure she’s okay. Okay?”
“Yeah.” Logan replied, his response low and probably unheard by Wallace as he took the steps two at a time until he got to the second floor landing.
“Now, which room are you in?” He asked himself under his breath, standing before his own bedroom door but looking at hers. He had a fifty-fifty shot of getting it on the first try. He turned the knob to his own door and pushed it open.
And there she was, sitting on the edge of his bed, looking so sad that it made his own heart ache.
“What’s the matter baby?” Logan asked gently, walking to her slowly.
“I want to go home Logan, I don’t want to be here anymore.” She looked up to him, her eyes filled with tears and her mouth turned down in a little pout. She looked so cute and so sad, he sat on the bed next to her and held out his arms. She snuggled into him and he felt her take a deep breath.
“You want to go home?” Logan asked, a little disappointed at her wanting to end their time together away from her father, but he understood. She’d been so stressed out during this entire trip, worrying about Lilly, avoiding Duncan, playing peacemaker and go-between with all of the different people here. But most of all, she’d been surrounded in drama, and he of all people knew how tiring that could be.
“Neither of us have to be back in classes until Tuesday, that’s two days from now. Can we just leaving tomorrow morning, and find a hotel on the way to Neptune and stay there for the rest of the time? We’ll just barricade ourselves in the hotel room and we won’t come out until we have to.” She asked, her hand curling into his stomach to brush against his skin.
He smiled at the touch and the suggestion, it could work. He didn’t have any classes that he had to be in until Tuesday afternoon and neither did she, they could get up and head home Tuesday morning.
“You know, if you’re serious about this, we could technically stay until Tuesday morning. Neither of us have a class until around two that afternoon. It could work, and I’m definitely up for the alone time.” Logan squeezed her a little more tightly to his chest. “You want to tell me about the fight?”
Veronica sighed, a deep sigh that spoke volumes of how much she did not want to discuss ‘the fight’.
“He just, he kept pushing, asking me why I was avoiding him. I didn’t really want to fight with him, you know. I mean, I know how to fight with you, that’s easy. But Duncan is hard to fight with. He’s just so passive all the time and then suddenly he’s not and he’s in your face. But it’s always the same problem with him and he never knows what he did wrong. He always thinks he’s so completely in the right, that he did the right thing.” Veronica leaned back to look at him.
Logan raised an eyebrow, a little shocked that Veronica was pointing out this particular habit of Duncan’s. Then again, they say you often hate the qualities in others that remind you of yourself.
“I know, I do the same thing. But deep down, or maybe not even deep down all the time, I know when I’m wrong. I just don’t admit it. Duncan, he honestly thinks that not telling me that Meg was pregnant was the right decision, that it was truly none of my business. That him sleeping with Kendall was okay since I apparently was ‘relieved’ by it, or something. That he was justified in everything he did because I was never truly invested in the relationship.” Veronica was getting visibly upset again, at the thought of Duncan’s blind naïveté. It annoyed him, too. It always had.
“You’d think I’d be used to it by now, though. Right?” Veronica asked, falling back on the mattress and Logan followed suit.
“What do you mean?” Logan asked, turning on his left side lifting his right hand to run his finger tips over her face, caressing in a loving and soothing gesture.
“You’d think I would be used to the way the Kanes justify their actions. The way they think that their way is the right way and they can run all over us in the process. After all, I’ve been getting screwed over by Jake and Celeste pretty much annually for the last four years and before that I had Lilly to do it.” Veronica leaned her face into Logan’s palm for a moment before turning onto her own right side in order to face him properly.
“You’d think we would both be used to it then, but I don’t think it’s something we ever really will get over. You don’t get accustomed to the most important people in your life taking advantage and screwing you over. It just never happens, no matter how much you expect them to do it and how prepared you are, it’s still a shock every time, somehow.” Logan tried to keep himself from sounding too dejected, even though he was pretty sure it didn’t work.
If anyone knew about getting screwed over by people, it was him.
“I should know.” Logan whispered, his eyes darting away from hers and looking off to a wall in order to avoid her gaze. He felt ashamed, as if he wasn’t good enough to love and this just proved. He just admitted that the people that were supposed to love him didn’t, what did that say about him?
~Veronica~
“Logan,” she whispered, the sorrow in his voice tearing at her. Logan knew better than anyone that the people that were supposed to love you and swore to always love you didn’t always do what they promised. His mom, his dad, Lilly, Duncan and even her at one point had said they loved him and then walked away. Or screwed him over. Lilly and Duncan were good at that.
“It’s okay, whatever. I’ve got you, and that’s really all I need. Right?” Logan asked, his voice caring a false tone of happiness. He’s going to brush this under the rug, let it be one of the many things that we never talk about and he never has to face.
“It’s not okay. It isn’t fine or whatever that you got stuck with a rotten deal. Your parents were selfish, and your dad was psychotic. Trina is vapid and self-centered and not worth getting upset about.” Logan’s eyes finally found their way back to her own, and she wished for a moment that they hadn’t The intensity of emotion in them was almost too much to bear, pain, happiness, love, guilt, regret and hurt. Logan was drowning in a sea of emotions and she was the only thing to keep him from being sucked under again.
“Lilly and Duncan were, are, a product of Jake and Celeste, two of the most self-centered people in the world. His company is all that matters to Jake. That and his reputation. All he wanted for Duncan was for him to become president one day, but he was too blind to see what a horrible idea that would be. And Lilly? They barely noticed her except when she was acting out and doing things she shouldn’t be. Lilly and Duncan had everything in the world at their fingertips and that left them no respect for anyone else.”
“You give really good pep talks, you know?” Logan asked, his voice holding that tone of happiness again, but this time it didn’t ring as false.
“Sometimes I do, but not usually. I just don’t want you thinking that because all these people around you didn’t know how to love you, that you couldn’t be loved. That you shouldn’t be, because that isn’t true. You should be loved, and you are.” Veronica scooted over the space between on the bed and hooked her arms around the back of his neck. “You know that, right?”
~Logan~
“Yeah,” Logan whispered, staring into her eyes and feeling his heart stutter at the sheer love in them. How did he miss that? He had always believed that she loved him, but never really known for sure. He’d asked her if she did and she had replied yes, but without the actual words it had stayed a belief instead of a known fact. But now, looking into her eyes he saw a look that told him she loved him, and he realized that it had always been there, he’d just been too scared to admit it was love. “I do.”
Logan’s mouth came crashing down on Veronica’s a moment later, and she almost immediately pulled away, gasping for air.
“What?” Logan asked, a panic rising in him. I hurt her. I misread the signs. She’s not ready for this right now, after everything that happened today, with Duncan. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just…” Veronica’s voice cracked, his emotions swirling and confusing and overwhelming, and oh god she was crying.
“What, baby? What’s wrong?” Logan was instantly more attentive and worried. She was crying and he’d caused it. He’d kissed her and she’d started crying and this was a first, he’d never experienced anything like the simple act of a kiss causing her to cry. “Just tell me and we’ll fix it.”
“Nothing is wrong, I just… I don’t really know why I’m crying. The day has been so weird and so many things have happened in the last couple of days that I don’t really know. I can’t seem to catch up with myself, with my emotions and I just… I don’t know.” Veronica’s voice caught and hiccupped and cracked as she cried and buried her head in his chest.
Logan let her cry, holding her until he felt her heaving sobs go from long and hiccupped to short and stuttered. She wasn’t crying any longer, but laughing silently into his chest. He held back his own laughs, at least until he knew why she was laughing.
“What are you- Are you laughing now?” Logan’s voice was incredulous.
“This is so ridiculous, you know? And I’m crying and you’re here comforting me and kissing me and I’m crying?” She was almost asking herself, seemingly shocked at herself.
“Well, I was wondering…” Logan played along, his voice light and teasing as he smirked playfully.
“Come here.” Veronica looked at him, beckoning him closer. Beckoning him closer? Now I sound like a freaking romance novel. He thought to himself as he leaned into her.
Logan’s lips pressed against hers, and he reached up with his hand to grasp her chin, forcing it down with his thumb, opening her lips in the process. Veronica giggled at the move and leaned backwards, falling to the mattress, and taking him down with her.
~Wallace~
“You know, I’m a little peeved that we’re making dinner for eleven people and everyone else is upstairs. How is it fair that the three of us are stuck with this?” Wallace griped as he chopped onions. “Logan and V are upstairs, relaxing in a bath tub. No matter how much that disturbs be, that’s what they’re doing. Duncan and Lilly are in their rooms, wallowing. And I have no idea where Piz and Parker are.”
“Ten. And I’m right here.” Parker said, coming into the room and picking up a slice of red pepper that sat in a bowl on the counter.
“What? Ten what?” Wallace questioned, looking grumpily at her, still intent on throwing a fit that he was cooking. And putting up with Dick and Mac, and Dick and Mac and their incessant PDAs. If they ‘snuck’ one more frigging kiss he was going to going to throw a temper tantrum. Complete with kicking and screaming on the floor.
“Ten people. Weevil still isn’t home yet, and I kind of doubt he’ll be back for dinner by the sounds of it.” Parker told him, leaning over the counter to sneak a couple pea pods while Mac’s back was turned. Dick caught her and slapped her hand away, lifting the bowl of fresh vegetables even further out of her reach.
“What do you mean ‘by the sounds of it’? When did you talk to Weevil?” Wallace questioned, setting his knife down and swiping at his eyes and the tears that had leaked out the corners.
“A couple of minutes ago, he called the land line from the bar. He hitch hiked into town and decided to go for a few beers.” Parker tried to sneak another piece of red pepper before the bowl was moved, but was too late. Mac spied her roommates hand sliding sneakily across the counter towards the bowl, and snatched it up moments before Parker’s fingertips reached out to brush the rim. Parker huffed out a frustrated breath of air and leaned back onto the stool she was sitting on, propping her elbows on the counter and cradling her chin in both hands.
“He hitch hiked?” Wallace asked, sliding a few carrot sticks into Parker’s hand while Mac’s eyes scanned the counter for anything close enough for her to reach. Parker sent him a grateful look before continuing.
“Yeah. He was a little pissed, he said you guys just drove right past him in the rover.” Parker bit into the carrot stick with a loud and crisp snap causing Mac’s head to whip around so fast that it made Wallace wince. Someone is either going to whiplash or backhanded, he thought as he lifted to the knife to at least pretend to still be chopping.
“I think those are chopped enough, Wallace. And if you don’t stop eating dinner there won’t be enough for everyone and you’ll be too full to eat.” Mac scolded as she reached for the cutting tray that help the pile of chopped onions that Wallace had been working so diligently on.
“How is he gonna get back?” Wallace asked, still curious about Weevil.
“Don’t know. Said he might hitch back or something. He said he was at the Town and Country Bar, though.” Parker was no longer interested in telling Wallace the rest of the story, instead she was trying to give Mac some very Veronica-esque puppy dog eyes, complete with a rather amateur head tilt.
Looking for table scraps. Wallace chuckled a little to himself before saying aloud, “After dinner, I think we should go into town and have a couple of beers with good ole Weevil. See what’s so great about this Town and Country Bar.” Wallace now sat, idle, gazing longingly as Mac dumped the bowls of different vegetables into the wok on the stove. His stomach rumbled.
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“So then they’re yelling about something and some chick named Kendal and how relieved she was. And then it’s something about him getting out of trouble and not knowing how. She called him a sinner and he called Logan a saint or something, then she stormed out of the kitchen. She stomped all the way to the stairs, thought there was some sort of earthquake. Then Duncan threw something and there was this huge crash and he went storming off too, upstairs. But he went to his room and Veronica was in hers. Or Logan’s. I’m not really sure.” Parker chattered on, relaying the fight she’d heard between her new friend and Veronica.
Wallace rolled his eyes as she told the story. It was beyond inaccurate and full of plot holes. She’d told a story without telling the actual story.
“How do you know what happened? You were upstairs.” Wallace countered, leaning his arms on the counter as he shifted on his stool and watched Mac as she started putting the vegetable stir fry, tofu, rice and the beef that Dick had insisted on frying up, into serving bowls. Dick was behind him and Parker as they sat at the counter, setting the table in a decidedly bizarre picture of domesticity.
“No I wasn’t. I was in the living room.” Parker countered excitedly, shaking her head wildly.
“No, I was in the living room. With Piz and Lilly. You weren’t there.” Wallace pointed out.
“No, you were in the living room with all the gaming stuff, I was in the living room with the piano and books, the one without the TV.” Parker told him, glancing over her shoulder as Dick started filling water glasses and Mac began placing dishes of food on the table.
“Wallace? Why don’t you call everyone down for dinner.” Mac said, turning to the counter again to grab more plates of food.
“Sure mom.” Wallace chirped, but was off his stool and out of the kitchen before Mac could even swat at him.
Bounding up the stairs, his stomach rumbling again in the anticipation of food, he started yelling out: “Dinner!” Repeatedly.
He saw both Lilly and Duncan poke their heads out of their respective rooms, looking at him quizzically. Piz’s voice could barely be heard from one floor up, shouting that he heard and rudely telling Wallace to shut up already.
There were two people who probably hadn’t heard him though, since they were insulated by a room and another door. Wallace popped open the door to Veronica’s room and saw the door to her bathroom open and the light off, no sound coming from it. To be honest, Wallace hadn’t really thought she’d be in her own bathroom. Logan’s had a bigger tub.
Wallace bounced the five extra strides to Logan’s closed door, excited that he’d finally be able to eat after all the torture of having to watch Mac cook.
Twisting the knob and throwing open the door, Wallace took a step inside and froze.
“OH MY GOD!” His hand slapped over his eyes as he stumbled backwards and slammed into the door jam before launching himself out of the door and nearly falling down the stairs in the process.
He could hear Veronica laughing. Logan too. In fact, Logan was nearly hysterical and the sound of a thump probably meant that he’d fallen off the bed in his delight at the situation.
“Wallace? Wallace!” Veronica was shouting at him as he hurriedly went down the stairs. “Could you at least shut the door?”
Wallace was already down the stairs and pacing at their base, shaking his head and almost convulsively rubbing at his eyes. No matter how much shock therapy he got, he would never get the image of a naked Veronica out of his head.
Or Logan’s bare ass.
20: Dinner