Final gift for cinaminsweet
Title: What are Best Friends For
Characters: Veronica, Wallace, Backup; mentions of Logan, Piz, Cliff, and Keith
Word Count: 2,303
Summary: Wallace tries to cheer up Veronica after her breakup with Logan. Set after 3.09
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Rating: PG-13
Note: Sorry I was kinda late.
Wallace found her sitting on the beach, staring off into space, with Backup laying next to her, looking, if possible, sadder than Veronica. She glanced over at him as he sat down next to her and quietly said, “Hey.”
“Come on girl, is that the best you can do? One sad little ‘hey’?” Wallace teasingly responded. Growing more serious, he added, “Come on Veronica, it’s been a couple of weeks since the breakup. You gotta start to cheer up and move on.” He grinned again and continued, “If not for yourself, do it for Backup. Look at this poor dog. It looks like you’ve given him a terminal case of depression.”
“I’m fine, really.” Veronica replied, trying to reassure both herself and Wallace and failing miserably.
“No you’re not. I know I’m not a crack detective like yourself, but I’ve picked up some skills over the years, and I can see that you’re still upset,” Wallace said. “However, lucky for you, you have a BFF who has the magical cure you need at his fingertips.”
“And what might that be?” Veronica inquired as she started to smile.
“We are taking a trip to the happiest place on earth.” Wallace responded.
“Disneyland?!” Veronica squealed with faux excitement and clapped her hands. “All right, I’ll go, but only if I get a pony too.”
“Disneyland? Come on, Veronica, I’m talking about real fun. I’m talking about Vegas.” Wallace corrected her.
Veronica groaned. “You’re not serious, Wallace.”
“Think of the fun, Veronica. The hookers, the strippers, the gambling, the bad Elvis impersonators, and the pirate ship battles at Treasure Island. How can you pass all of that up?” Wallace grinned.
“Well, when you put it like that... And while we’re there, I can show off some of my new strip tease moves I learned at the Seventh Veil. Dad’s always wanted me to be a stripper, and Vegas is where I can hit it big. He’ll be so proud.” Veronica joked.
“It makes perfect sense, Veronica,” Wallace continued. “You’re in a post breakup funk, made worse by the fact that you have nothing to work on-no cases and no school work. Christmas is over, and we have a week and a half before we go back to school. I know your dad left town this morning on a case and won’t be back for several days. We can’t have you sitting around the house moping and further depressing Backup during that time can we? Look at poor Backup. This dog used to be carefree and full of fun. He used to run and play. Look at what you have reduced him to.” Wallace intoned, rather melodramatically. Seemingly on cue, Backup turned to Veronica and managed to look even sadder than before.
“Okay, okay! I can’t fight both of you. I’m all on board for a fun trip out of Neptune, but seriously, Vegas?” Veronica looked skeptical. “We’re not even twenty-one.”
“And who needs to be twenty-one when they’ve been hooked up with a professionally made fake i.d., courtesy of the amazing Veronica Mars?”
Veronica laughed, “Yeah, I see your point. But we’re not going to get up to anything too crazy while we’re there, are we?”
“Hey, I never even mentioned the word ‘crazy.’ Besides, as much as your dad likes me and has never been less than civil to me, I still know that he’s one scary dude and I’m not doing anything to piss him off.” Wallace replied.
“You are one smart cookie, you know that Wallace?”
“Well of course.”
* * * * *
The next morning, the two loaded their luggage into Veronica’s Saturn and hit the road. As they pulled out of Wallace’s driveway, Wallace put a CD in the stereo and turned up the sound. “This song is just for you,” he told Veronica as Gloria Gaynor began belting out I Will Survive.
Veronica just stared at Wallace like he was crazy. Wallace simply grinned in response and started singing along. “Come on, Veronica, give in, you know you want to.” He cajoled her. “My mom told me this is mandatory post-breakup listening for women.”
Shaking her head in response, but unable to hold back her smile, Veronica couldn’t help herself. Laughing, Veronica said, “Wallace you’re the best friend a gal could ask for,” and then she joined in the singing.
After the song was over, Wallace turned to Veronica and inquired, “So I know this breakup with Logan is relatively recent and you’re still dealing it, but I think you might feel better if you talked about it -”
“I’m fine,” Veronica interrupted.
“Okay, well then if you are so incredibly fine with all that, when are you going to give poor Piz a chance? The boy is totally smitten with you.”
“What are you talking about, Wallace? He is not.”
“Damn, girl. And here I was taking you for a first rate private investigator.” Wallace shook his head. “I guess I’ll have to stop recommending you to people in trouble when you can’t even tell when a guy likes you.”
“Wallace, I think you’ve been hit in the head by one too many basketballs,” Veronica countered.
“Now those are fighting words. Calling a known basketball star’s skills into question like that. You know nothing gets by me on the basketball court.”
Veronica laughed, “Well something must have to cause those delusions.”
“Yeah, cause I must have been suffering from delusions when Piz asked you on a bowling date.”
“It wasn’t meant to be a date; he said a bunch of people were coming.” Veronica replied.
“And that bunch of people consisted of Piz.”
Veronica couldn’t argue with Wallace’s reasoning. “Okay, valid point. Maybe he does like me, but…” Veronica trailed off, not really wanting to talk about guys or relationships.
“But what?” Wallace asked. “I know you’ve got a thing for tortured, angsty rich boys, but wouldn’t a nice, normal guy be a good change of pace?”
“I do not have a thing for tortured rich boys.” Veronica protested.
“Well let’s see, there was Duncan, Troy, and the king of the tortured, angst-filled rich boys, Logan Echolls.”
Not really liking where this conversation was heading, and realizing Wallace’s list did kind of establish a pattern, Veronica countered by asking, “Well what about Leo? He definitely doesn’t fit the profile of tortured rich boy.”
“That was a pure anomaly on your part.” Wallace responded matter-of-factly. “But I bet it was nice to have a normal boyfriend for that short time and not have to worry about things like kidnapping babies, murder charges, and smuggling steroids.”
Staring out the window for a minute, Veronica thought about it, and she had to admit that it had been nice to have a normal boyfriend without all those other problems. However, she wasn’t going to admit to Wallace that he was right, at least not yet. Instead she looked at him and said, “How about another chorus of I Will Survive?”
* * * * *
It wasn’t even until they got to Vegas that Wallace started to think about the practical aspects of the trip, like where they were going to stay.
“Don’t worry,” Veronica responded to Wallace’s inquiry. “I used some of my sordid connections to get us a great place.”
“Meaning…”
“Meaning Cliff knows quite a lot of hookers who work in Vegas, so he recommended me a hotel that wasn’t too frequented by his clientele but wasn’t too expensive either.” Veronica replied.
After they checked in and got their stuff settled, Veronica looked at Wallace and said, “Okay, Mr. Vegas, now what?”
“That is entirely up to you. Since the point of the trip is to cheer you up, you get to choose what we do.”
“Okay, well do you know if Celine Dion is still in town?” Veronica asked in her most serious voice.
“Don’t even joke about something like that, Veronica.”
“What? I thought it might be nice to see her show after our drunken drive-thru wedding I have planned for later tonight.”
“Silly me, it all makes perfect sense now. For real, please tell me we’re hitting the casinos.”
“Of course we are. What else would a card shark such as myself do in this city?” Veronica responded as she wiggled her fingers like a magician. “I will have them all at my mercy, and as a bonus, we’ll get free drinks.”
* * * * *
Wallace and Veronica left their hotel and started wandering along the strip, checking out the sites and trying to decide what casino they’d hit first.
“Don’t look now, Wallace. Solicitation straight ahead.” Veronica pointed out as they headed toward three guys who were standing in a row holding out cards and flyers advertising escorts, complete with pictures, to those passing by.
As Veronica took the cards handed to her, Wallace looked on in disbelief and asked, “Now what exactly are you planning to do with those?”
“Well I promised Cliff I’d bring him back a souvenir.” Veronica grinned. “I can’t imagine anything he’d like better.”
* * * * *
After wandering for a while on the strip, they finally decided to make the Mirage their first stop. “Now it’s time for you to be amazed by my mad card shark skills.” Veronica told Wallace as she headed toward a blackjack table.
* * * * *
Several hours later the two stumbled back into their hotel room. “You know, Wallace, I think those free drinks got me just a little tipsy.” Veronica giggled as the flopped onto the bed.
“Yeah, I’d say so.” Wallace crashed onto the bed next to Veronica. “But somehow you still managed to clean up at the blackjack table.”
“Hey, nothing gets past me at the card table.” Veronica said, echoing Wallace’s earlier assertion about his basketball skills.
Growing serious, Veronica rolled over onto her stomach and looked at Wallace. “Wallace, can I ask you something? Was I a bad girlfriend? Is that why I lost Logan?”
Finally, Wallace thought. After two weeks of insisting that she was fine and refusing to talk about the breakup, Veronica was ready to open up.
“Because I just keep thinking about everything that happened between us.” Veronica rushed on. “And I don’t know that I’d do anything differently if I had the chance to go back and do everything over. I couldn’t just drop the rapist case. Who knows how many people would have gotten hurt if I had. But I ended up really hurting Logan and screwing up our relationship. I feel like a terrible person.”
“Veronica, you have your faults, but being a terrible person isn’t one of them. You never intended to hurt Logan. It just doesn’t seem to me that you two are right for each other at this time in your lives.”
“But why not?”
“Because you’re not done healing from everything that has happened over the last few years. You’ve built this tough exterior around yourself. You find it hard to trust people and open up about your feelings or let anyone know exactly what is going on with you. And I get that. I understand where you’re coming from. A person can’t go through everything you have and not come out scarred. That’s why I never push you to tell me what’s going on or why you want me to do a favor for you. I know that when you’re upset, it might take a while, but you’ll talk to me when you’re ready.”
“As for Logan,” Wallace continued, “He wants to be involved in your life and for you to completely trust him, and let him take care of you. You, however, are go-it-alone girl and have trust problems. I think you feel like the only person you can truly depend on is yourself because you’ve been let down by others so many times. And that’s why I think you two aren’t compatible right now. You’re at different places and you need different things.”
“I wanted to trust Logan. I wanted things to work out. I just don’t know how to start trusting people again.”
“You will. It’ll just take time.”
Veronica rolled closer to Wallace and hugged him. “Thanks. You know you’re the best friend I could ever ask for. And you’re wrong about me not trusting anyone but myself. I trust you too, Wallace.”
* * * * *
The next morning, Veronica groaned and started to wake up as the sun started shining in through the window straight into her eyes. “Ugh, my head is killing me,” she groaned as she looked over at Wallace who was asleep next to her. Shaking him awake, Veronica moaned, “You are the worst friend ever.”
“Huh?” Wallace asked, still groggy. “What happened to me being the best friend you could ever ask for?”
“That was before I woke up with a hangover. Why did you let me drink so much?”
“Yeah, like there was any getting between you and your drinks with little umbrellas last night.”
“Mmm, those were good.”
“See, it was all your fault,” Wallace said, hopping out of bed. “Time to get moving anyway. I want to see the freaky wax people at Madame Tussaud’s today.”
“Well you run along. I’ll be with you in spirit.” Veronica buried her head under a pillow.
“I don’t think so.” Wallace drug Veronica out of bed and shoved her in the bathroom. “And don’t come out until you’ve showered and you’re ready to go.”
* * * * *
After two more days in Vegas, Veronica and Wallace headed back home to Neptune. Veronica pulled her car into Wallace’s driveway and turned to look at her friend. “Thanks for everything,” she said, as she gave Wallace a big hug.
“Hey, what else are BFFs for?” Wallace grinned.
fin
Characters: Veronica, Wallace, Backup; mentions of Logan, Piz, Cliff, and Keith
Word Count: 2,303
Summary: Wallace tries to cheer up Veronica after her breakup with Logan. Set after 3.09
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Rating: PG-13
Note: Sorry I was kinda late.
Wallace found her sitting on the beach, staring off into space, with Backup laying next to her, looking, if possible, sadder than Veronica. She glanced over at him as he sat down next to her and quietly said, “Hey.”
“Come on girl, is that the best you can do? One sad little ‘hey’?” Wallace teasingly responded. Growing more serious, he added, “Come on Veronica, it’s been a couple of weeks since the breakup. You gotta start to cheer up and move on.” He grinned again and continued, “If not for yourself, do it for Backup. Look at this poor dog. It looks like you’ve given him a terminal case of depression.”
“I’m fine, really.” Veronica replied, trying to reassure both herself and Wallace and failing miserably.
“No you’re not. I know I’m not a crack detective like yourself, but I’ve picked up some skills over the years, and I can see that you’re still upset,” Wallace said. “However, lucky for you, you have a BFF who has the magical cure you need at his fingertips.”
“And what might that be?” Veronica inquired as she started to smile.
“We are taking a trip to the happiest place on earth.” Wallace responded.
“Disneyland?!” Veronica squealed with faux excitement and clapped her hands. “All right, I’ll go, but only if I get a pony too.”
“Disneyland? Come on, Veronica, I’m talking about real fun. I’m talking about Vegas.” Wallace corrected her.
Veronica groaned. “You’re not serious, Wallace.”
“Think of the fun, Veronica. The hookers, the strippers, the gambling, the bad Elvis impersonators, and the pirate ship battles at Treasure Island. How can you pass all of that up?” Wallace grinned.
“Well, when you put it like that... And while we’re there, I can show off some of my new strip tease moves I learned at the Seventh Veil. Dad’s always wanted me to be a stripper, and Vegas is where I can hit it big. He’ll be so proud.” Veronica joked.
“It makes perfect sense, Veronica,” Wallace continued. “You’re in a post breakup funk, made worse by the fact that you have nothing to work on-no cases and no school work. Christmas is over, and we have a week and a half before we go back to school. I know your dad left town this morning on a case and won’t be back for several days. We can’t have you sitting around the house moping and further depressing Backup during that time can we? Look at poor Backup. This dog used to be carefree and full of fun. He used to run and play. Look at what you have reduced him to.” Wallace intoned, rather melodramatically. Seemingly on cue, Backup turned to Veronica and managed to look even sadder than before.
“Okay, okay! I can’t fight both of you. I’m all on board for a fun trip out of Neptune, but seriously, Vegas?” Veronica looked skeptical. “We’re not even twenty-one.”
“And who needs to be twenty-one when they’ve been hooked up with a professionally made fake i.d., courtesy of the amazing Veronica Mars?”
Veronica laughed, “Yeah, I see your point. But we’re not going to get up to anything too crazy while we’re there, are we?”
“Hey, I never even mentioned the word ‘crazy.’ Besides, as much as your dad likes me and has never been less than civil to me, I still know that he’s one scary dude and I’m not doing anything to piss him off.” Wallace replied.
“You are one smart cookie, you know that Wallace?”
“Well of course.”
* * * * *
The next morning, the two loaded their luggage into Veronica’s Saturn and hit the road. As they pulled out of Wallace’s driveway, Wallace put a CD in the stereo and turned up the sound. “This song is just for you,” he told Veronica as Gloria Gaynor began belting out I Will Survive.
Veronica just stared at Wallace like he was crazy. Wallace simply grinned in response and started singing along. “Come on, Veronica, give in, you know you want to.” He cajoled her. “My mom told me this is mandatory post-breakup listening for women.”
Shaking her head in response, but unable to hold back her smile, Veronica couldn’t help herself. Laughing, Veronica said, “Wallace you’re the best friend a gal could ask for,” and then she joined in the singing.
After the song was over, Wallace turned to Veronica and inquired, “So I know this breakup with Logan is relatively recent and you’re still dealing it, but I think you might feel better if you talked about it -”
“I’m fine,” Veronica interrupted.
“Okay, well then if you are so incredibly fine with all that, when are you going to give poor Piz a chance? The boy is totally smitten with you.”
“What are you talking about, Wallace? He is not.”
“Damn, girl. And here I was taking you for a first rate private investigator.” Wallace shook his head. “I guess I’ll have to stop recommending you to people in trouble when you can’t even tell when a guy likes you.”
“Wallace, I think you’ve been hit in the head by one too many basketballs,” Veronica countered.
“Now those are fighting words. Calling a known basketball star’s skills into question like that. You know nothing gets by me on the basketball court.”
Veronica laughed, “Well something must have to cause those delusions.”
“Yeah, cause I must have been suffering from delusions when Piz asked you on a bowling date.”
“It wasn’t meant to be a date; he said a bunch of people were coming.” Veronica replied.
“And that bunch of people consisted of Piz.”
Veronica couldn’t argue with Wallace’s reasoning. “Okay, valid point. Maybe he does like me, but…” Veronica trailed off, not really wanting to talk about guys or relationships.
“But what?” Wallace asked. “I know you’ve got a thing for tortured, angsty rich boys, but wouldn’t a nice, normal guy be a good change of pace?”
“I do not have a thing for tortured rich boys.” Veronica protested.
“Well let’s see, there was Duncan, Troy, and the king of the tortured, angst-filled rich boys, Logan Echolls.”
Not really liking where this conversation was heading, and realizing Wallace’s list did kind of establish a pattern, Veronica countered by asking, “Well what about Leo? He definitely doesn’t fit the profile of tortured rich boy.”
“That was a pure anomaly on your part.” Wallace responded matter-of-factly. “But I bet it was nice to have a normal boyfriend for that short time and not have to worry about things like kidnapping babies, murder charges, and smuggling steroids.”
Staring out the window for a minute, Veronica thought about it, and she had to admit that it had been nice to have a normal boyfriend without all those other problems. However, she wasn’t going to admit to Wallace that he was right, at least not yet. Instead she looked at him and said, “How about another chorus of I Will Survive?”
* * * * *
It wasn’t even until they got to Vegas that Wallace started to think about the practical aspects of the trip, like where they were going to stay.
“Don’t worry,” Veronica responded to Wallace’s inquiry. “I used some of my sordid connections to get us a great place.”
“Meaning…”
“Meaning Cliff knows quite a lot of hookers who work in Vegas, so he recommended me a hotel that wasn’t too frequented by his clientele but wasn’t too expensive either.” Veronica replied.
After they checked in and got their stuff settled, Veronica looked at Wallace and said, “Okay, Mr. Vegas, now what?”
“That is entirely up to you. Since the point of the trip is to cheer you up, you get to choose what we do.”
“Okay, well do you know if Celine Dion is still in town?” Veronica asked in her most serious voice.
“Don’t even joke about something like that, Veronica.”
“What? I thought it might be nice to see her show after our drunken drive-thru wedding I have planned for later tonight.”
“Silly me, it all makes perfect sense now. For real, please tell me we’re hitting the casinos.”
“Of course we are. What else would a card shark such as myself do in this city?” Veronica responded as she wiggled her fingers like a magician. “I will have them all at my mercy, and as a bonus, we’ll get free drinks.”
* * * * *
Wallace and Veronica left their hotel and started wandering along the strip, checking out the sites and trying to decide what casino they’d hit first.
“Don’t look now, Wallace. Solicitation straight ahead.” Veronica pointed out as they headed toward three guys who were standing in a row holding out cards and flyers advertising escorts, complete with pictures, to those passing by.
As Veronica took the cards handed to her, Wallace looked on in disbelief and asked, “Now what exactly are you planning to do with those?”
“Well I promised Cliff I’d bring him back a souvenir.” Veronica grinned. “I can’t imagine anything he’d like better.”
* * * * *
After wandering for a while on the strip, they finally decided to make the Mirage their first stop. “Now it’s time for you to be amazed by my mad card shark skills.” Veronica told Wallace as she headed toward a blackjack table.
* * * * *
Several hours later the two stumbled back into their hotel room. “You know, Wallace, I think those free drinks got me just a little tipsy.” Veronica giggled as the flopped onto the bed.
“Yeah, I’d say so.” Wallace crashed onto the bed next to Veronica. “But somehow you still managed to clean up at the blackjack table.”
“Hey, nothing gets past me at the card table.” Veronica said, echoing Wallace’s earlier assertion about his basketball skills.
Growing serious, Veronica rolled over onto her stomach and looked at Wallace. “Wallace, can I ask you something? Was I a bad girlfriend? Is that why I lost Logan?”
Finally, Wallace thought. After two weeks of insisting that she was fine and refusing to talk about the breakup, Veronica was ready to open up.
“Because I just keep thinking about everything that happened between us.” Veronica rushed on. “And I don’t know that I’d do anything differently if I had the chance to go back and do everything over. I couldn’t just drop the rapist case. Who knows how many people would have gotten hurt if I had. But I ended up really hurting Logan and screwing up our relationship. I feel like a terrible person.”
“Veronica, you have your faults, but being a terrible person isn’t one of them. You never intended to hurt Logan. It just doesn’t seem to me that you two are right for each other at this time in your lives.”
“But why not?”
“Because you’re not done healing from everything that has happened over the last few years. You’ve built this tough exterior around yourself. You find it hard to trust people and open up about your feelings or let anyone know exactly what is going on with you. And I get that. I understand where you’re coming from. A person can’t go through everything you have and not come out scarred. That’s why I never push you to tell me what’s going on or why you want me to do a favor for you. I know that when you’re upset, it might take a while, but you’ll talk to me when you’re ready.”
“As for Logan,” Wallace continued, “He wants to be involved in your life and for you to completely trust him, and let him take care of you. You, however, are go-it-alone girl and have trust problems. I think you feel like the only person you can truly depend on is yourself because you’ve been let down by others so many times. And that’s why I think you two aren’t compatible right now. You’re at different places and you need different things.”
“I wanted to trust Logan. I wanted things to work out. I just don’t know how to start trusting people again.”
“You will. It’ll just take time.”
Veronica rolled closer to Wallace and hugged him. “Thanks. You know you’re the best friend I could ever ask for. And you’re wrong about me not trusting anyone but myself. I trust you too, Wallace.”
* * * * *
The next morning, Veronica groaned and started to wake up as the sun started shining in through the window straight into her eyes. “Ugh, my head is killing me,” she groaned as she looked over at Wallace who was asleep next to her. Shaking him awake, Veronica moaned, “You are the worst friend ever.”
“Huh?” Wallace asked, still groggy. “What happened to me being the best friend you could ever ask for?”
“That was before I woke up with a hangover. Why did you let me drink so much?”
“Yeah, like there was any getting between you and your drinks with little umbrellas last night.”
“Mmm, those were good.”
“See, it was all your fault,” Wallace said, hopping out of bed. “Time to get moving anyway. I want to see the freaky wax people at Madame Tussaud’s today.”
“Well you run along. I’ll be with you in spirit.” Veronica buried her head under a pillow.
“I don’t think so.” Wallace drug Veronica out of bed and shoved her in the bathroom. “And don’t come out until you’ve showered and you’re ready to go.”
* * * * *
After two more days in Vegas, Veronica and Wallace headed back home to Neptune. Veronica pulled her car into Wallace’s driveway and turned to look at her friend. “Thanks for everything,” she said, as she gave Wallace a big hug.
“Hey, what else are BFFs for?” Wallace grinned.
fin