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buffyxTitle: A Rose Grows From Concrete. (1/1)
Author: BuffyX
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan.
Rating: Light NC-17. Sex happens, people.
Spoilers/Warnings: All of season one. Really self-indulgent. Also, this is long. Like twenty pages long.
It is blistering hot when she arrives, the kind of heat where the air shimmers like liquid and if you stare long enough, you can almost see the steam rising off the paved streets. The air conditioning in the Le Baron has been busted for ages, so she drives with the windows rolled down and stops at a gas station to stock up on some overpriced water bottles. She uses one to pour over her head and the other to replenish Backup’s water dish, which he quickly gulps down and slobbers all over her backseat in return.
Approximately seventy-two miles are stretched out between Neptune and Solana Beach, and Veronica’s pretty sure she could come up with more than seventy-two reasons as to why she shouldn’t be doing this. That thought alone is almost enough to send her driving back home, but once she passes through the city limits, she knows she’s gone too far to turn back now.
So instead of thinking she fiddles the radio knob until she finds a decent station and blares the music to drown out her thoughts as she zooms down the road. The directions are scribbled down on the back of an old grocery list stained with coffee rings—Veronica glances at it again to make sure she’s headed the right way. She is, and after a few more turns and ten more minutes driving by the edge of the ocean, she’s there.
At first glance she thinks she must be mistaken. The bungalow sits back, hidden behind some bushes, modest and discrete. The Logan Echolls she knows is neither of those things. Still, it has to be right, going by the same old blazing yellow X-Terra parked haphazardly in the drive. Amid the overgrown grass and brush, it’s barely visible. Veronica backs up a little further down the road and cuts the engine in the middle of Pat Benetar warbling on about love and battlefields and heartaches.
It takes her another ten minutes for her to gather her nerve and leave the car, walk up to the front step, and pull back the screen to knock on the wooden door. There’s a lengthy pause before she hears a dull thud, the pad of footsteps, a chain being undone. When the doors opens, it’s him: shirtless, unshaven and barefoot, wearing low-slung ragged jeans, eating peanut butter with a spoon straight from the jar.
A moment passes between them, the tension almost palpable. Her throat hitches with the words she cannot bear to say, the distance between them stretched out like the miles she has just driven. They stand there, gazing at one another, and she feels something between them, something strong, big and important. She says his name, softly, and watches the way his eyes flicker over her face.
Veronica doesn’t know what she expected to happen, but Logan rolling his eyes, grumbling “Oh, fuck me” just before slamming the door in her face isn’t exactly what she had in mind.
She’s pretty sure his words are not a suggestion. Still, she swallows her pride and raps on the door again.
“I’m not leaving,” she calls, and waits.
A few more seconds pass before she hears the turning of a lock, and the door cracks open just a bit. Veronica takes it as an invitation to come inside. She looks up just in time to see him disappearing into the kitchen. Following, she takes notice of her surroundings—the floor, littered with empty bottles and old newspapers, all kinds of random junk. In the kitchen, the sink is stacked full of dirty dishes, food containers left open on the counters. She cringes.
“Nice set-up you’ve got here,” she tells him with an edge of sarcasm.
He stares at her coldly. “Look, I know you didn’t come for the small talk. So just tell me, what the hell are you doing here?” Logan’s matter-of-fact, no-bullshitting catches her off-guard, something that she hates.
“I--” Veronica stops for a moment, mind scrambling as she tries to find some kind of answer. “Um. Love is a battlefield?”
“What?” It’s his turn to look caught off-guard. “Whatever. Just go away, okay? Okay.”
**
Aaron Echolls died on Father’s Day. Logan is pretty sure there’s some kind of irony in that fact if he cared to examine it at all, but he doesn’t, so who knows.
He became a free man two weeks after his father was arrested; it was unbelievable to him, the ease in which he acquired emancipation, gained access to his mother’s inheritance and bought himself a new abode. He was surprised at how quickly his father relented and signed the papers for his lawyer. Trina, on the other hand, did not want to relent. Trina threw a fit. Trina was desperate. Trina begged him to stay, profusely.
When Logan took the family albums into the backyard and set them on fire, Trina stopped begging.
So it came to be that Logan packed the X-Terra with the little shit he cared to keep, drove down to Solana Beach and shacked up in the rundown, beachside bungalow. He’d been spending his summer on the beach, on the boardwalk, catching waves and getting pseudo-laid and not getting laid at all and fighting off queers and using queers (non-sexually, if you’d buy it). In short, he is trying to rebuild what he can from the scraps he’s salvaged. Also in trying to squeeze out the sense of it all, drunk and stoned on his mattress, he has realized that the second tragedy is over, you begin to heal or you begin to die. He’s pretty sure that what he’s been doing is the latter.
In the midst of all his drowning-of-sorrows, it had become nearly possible to forget that the rest of the world existed. Nearly. Even after finding out from a lawyer’s phone call that last week his father was mowed down outside the courthouse by a gun-wielding insane fan who then offed herself right there, it had been shockingly easy to avoid that particular reality.
It is, however, much harder to do so when Veronica Mars is standing in his kitchen.
“You know, it’s the darndest thing,” he says with false cheer. “I don’t appear to be on any hallucinogenics, and yet, here you are. Standing in front of me. Not leaving.”
He expects her to lash out, to get pissed or annoyed. To at least frown or something. But she doesn’t.
Veronica just looks at him. “I heard about your father.”
Logan can tell by her expression that she probably thinks he’s mourning, in pain. Conflicted, at the very least. He isn’t. He is only glad. Frighteningly, savagely glad.
“Congratulations,” he sneers. “You’re not living under a rock. So if that’s what you came for—”
“I didn’t come for that, I came for you,” she says quickly, then blushes a little. “I mean, I came to see you—how you are.”
“How very noble of you,” he comments dryly.
“Look,” she tells him, straightening herself and jutting her chin up defiantly, “I get that you’re pissed, okay?”
“To say that that is an understatement would be an insult to both statements and prefixes.”
She ignores him and continues. “You hate me and I get it. I do. But if you want me to throw myself at your feet begging for your forgiveness, you can forget about it right now. I’m not saying I’m blameless in what happened, but neither are you. We both made mistakes, and we could stand around apologizing for an eternity and it wouldn’t change anything. So why not just save yourself the trouble and let it go.”
“‘Let it go,’” he echoes with a humorless laugh. “You know, Veronica Mars, you’re really something. You can’t just come here and—” He stops, trying to collect himself. “It isn’t that easy. This is my life now, and you? Are not in it. So just leave me the hell alone, will you?”
Veronica looks him up and down once more, silent. Without another word, she spins on her heel and leaves, the screen door clattering shut behind her. Something floods through him at the sound. It must be relief, he thinks. This is what he wanted, to be left alone.
But that doesn’t explain his sudden urge to hurl an empty beer can at the wall.
**
“So that was pretty much a disaster,” Veronica mutters to Backup as they head off to find the nearest motel. She really isn’t up for the drive home; since she just got here, she might as well enjoy the sights. But first, she needs to check into a motel room and unwind a little. The sun is setting on the horizon and there isn’t much else to do at this point. Oh, yeah, and there’s that little detail of needing to inform her father of her whereabouts. That’ll need taking care of, too.
Fifteen miles down the main road she finds a motel with vacancy that is on the dumpy side, maybe, but a motel is a motel is a—well, you get the idea. She parks in the near-empty lot and tells Backup to behave as she walks into the lobby. There’s a short, stocky Mexican man standing at the front counter. He regards her with a slight nod, surveying her up and down almost suspiciously.
“I need a room,” Veronica says, setting her purse on the counter. “How much do you charge?”
“Forty-five a night,” he replies with a thick accent. “You got cash? Don’t take credit cards here.”
“I’ve got forty on me,” she offers, hoping he’s willing to haggle a little.
“It’s forty-five.” He frowns and glances out the window. “That your dog, lady? We don’t allow dogs.”
“He’s housetrained.”
“Don’t matter. Not allowed.”
She sighs, desperate now. “What if he stays in the car?”
“You got a hearing problem?” he retorts sharply. “Mutts. Not. Allowed.”
“Fine,” she says, aggravated. “I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
The man laughs. “Lady, there ain’t no other places around here that take pets. ’Specially not for forty bucks.”
Veronica thanks him coldly and leaves.
She drives around for awhile, not sure where to go. Backup snuffles the back of her neck, almost apologetically, and she gives him a good ear scratch and promises him it isn’t his fault.
“We’ll find somewhere to go,” she vows, and they do.
**
Logan orders pizza a lot, since it means he can avoid the public and be as lazy as he wants; this has kept him from being recognized, except for once by a chick on the boardwalk selling jewelry. But he just kept on walking and pretended like he hadn’t heard, and that was that.
Tonight there’s a knock on the door not long after he calls. He’s surprised at their expediency. Hadn't he just ordered minutes ago? Whatever, he figures. He is pretty drunk by now and has probably just lost track of time. Like that one night a month or so back when he got so wasted he passed out for eighteen hours and woke up in a pool of his own vomit, not remembering where he was.
It takes him more time than usual to stumble to the front door. Finally he gets his eyesight to focus long enough to unlock the chain and twist the knob. As soon as the door opens, instead of seeing a pizza delivery boy, Logan is greeted by a hundred pounds of pure dog. Backup nearly tackles him straight to the floor. Logan staggers back, shoulder bumping against the wall, wondering what the fuck is going on. Suddenly Veronica pops her head in with a cheery smile.
“Hi there!” she says brightly. “So, turns out that none of the motels around here allow dogs, and no way am I sleeping in the car. Guess that means we’re stuck with you tonight.”
He is dazed. He is confused. He has no idea what is happening. At the same time, he is too damn drunk to give a shit this late at night.
“Whatever,” he sighs, making his way back to the kitchen. “Make yourself at home. Or something.”
And that is how Logan and Veronica (and her trusty sidekick Backup, too, of course) come to live together over the summer.
**
Keith was not pleased about this when she called that night. Keith thought Logan was too unstable (which, she secretly believed, was not exactly far from the truth). Keith said, “Get your scrawny ass back home now, Veronica. I’m serious.”
Veronica was serious, too, serious enough to even ignore his comment about her being scrawny. She told him as much. “I’m serious, too. Dad, it’s just for a few days, okay? I’ll be fine. Life will not end if I am away from Neptune for awhile.”
“Veronica…” he said, warningly, but she could tell he was relenting. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“I have Backup. I have a car with a taser in the dashboard compartment. I have health insurance. I have a debit card. I think I’ll somehow survive.”
“Honey, I just wish you’d have talked to me about this rather than just running off. You know, if you wanted a vacation, we could’ve done that. Just you and me.”
“I know,” she said, voice softening. “This was just something that I needed to do, okay?”
There is a long pause on the other end. “You call me every day. I mean it.”
“Cross my heart, hope to die, all that good stuff.” She smiled into the phone. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Now it is morning, and Veronica is fixing herself some toast when Logan comes trudging into the kitchen. He looks at her, down at Backup who is sitting at her feet, and then back up at her again. She pretends not to notice as she spreads jelly across the crisp slice of bread. When she finishes, she sets the knife in the cluttered sink, twists the jar top back on and turns to him with an appraising look.
“You look like crap,” she remarks, then opens the cupboard and puts the jelly jar away.
“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine,” he mutters. Scratches the top of his head and yanks open the refrigerator, extracting a bottle of Corona. He holds it up for her to see. “You want?”
“Ew.” Veronica frowns, nose wrinkling. “That’s disgusting. Besides, isn’t it a little early?”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he replies, “or so your mother always says.”
It’s a baiting comment, and she almost bites, but opts to ignore it instead. She really isn’t up for a round of Whose Parents Are More Insult-Worthy.
“You need to go grocery shopping,” Veronica informs him. “There is no food in this house.”
Logan grunts in response and walks into the living room. She follows, Backup trailing after her. The room is nearly empty, aside from the old, lumpy couch with foldout cot that she’d spent the previous night on and an old television set with lopsided antennas sticking out on top. The carpet is caked with dirt and beer stains.
“You’re living in a dump,” she says as he plops down on the sofa and switches on the television.
“That’s funny—I can’t remember asking for your opinion,” he states flatly, flipping the channel. The picture is fuzzy and the sound mostly static. “Really, Veronica, why are you even here? Go home. I’m sure Duncan is waiting for you with bated breath and open arms.”
Veronica positions herself in front of the television, blocking his view, her arms crossed as she glares. “You’re seriously jealous? You think Duncan and I—” She breaks off, cheeks reddening a little. “It isn’t like that. We’re just friends. And hardly that, anymore.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“I’m here because—” She isn’t sure how to respond to that. She doesn’t know why she is here, really. All she knows is that when she was poking through her father’s files while working on a low-profile case, and came across information on Logan’s current address, something in her told her to get in her car and drive. To escape, to go find him. “Things have been insane since, well, you know. And you bailed. And maybe… maybe I needed to bail, too.”
Logan blinks at her but doesn’t say anything. Without a word, she seats herself next to him on the old couch, breaks her toast in two, offers him half. He accepts. They sit in silence and watch the fuzzy tv and feed their crusts to a begging Backup, an understanding passing between them. Their knees touch and neither move away.
**
They go grocery shopping that night. At first Logan comes out of his room with a baseball cap and sunglasses on, but Veronica laughs at the sight of him, pushing the hat off his head and sliding the glasses off his face.
“We’re not going undercover,” she teases.
“And here I thought you were dressed up as a street hooker. My mistake.” He scowls a little. “I just don’t want—”
“What? To be recognized?” Veronica tousles his hair, in an (almost) affectionate manner. “Stop giving yourself so much importance, Logan. I’m surprised that hat could even fit on your head.”
They drive over to the twenty-four hour Quickie Mart in the X-Terra and stroll the near-empty aisles under bright fluorescent lights. Logan steers the cart over to the produce section as Veronica trails behind him, scribbling out a list of needed items on a small yellow notepad as she walks. While she is brainstorming up what to add to the list, Logan wanders over to the fruit display and begins to juggle two oranges in his hands.
“Stop it,” Veronica reprimands without looking up.
“Then hurry up.” He catches the oranges, waves them around in a magician’s gesture. “I’m bored to tears, here.”
“Poor baby,” she comments sarcastically, stealing the cart and commandeering it around the corner.
They pick up all kinds of odds and ends—sponges, dish soap, crackers, pickles, frozen tv dinners, paper towels. By the time they reach the checkout lane, the cart is brimming with all of it. Veronica catches herself scanning the tabloid headings out of habit, almost half-expecting to see someone she knows on one or more of the covers. It wouldn’t be the first time. However, the magazines have seemingly moved on from the Echolls courtroom drama, for good.
Logan swipes his credit card through the small black machine and pays for the items. Veronica lets him, knowing he can afford it more than she can; though, to be fair, the Mars family isn’t quite as strapped for cash these days. Even while her mother bailed out of town with the Kane payoff, apparently solving the legendary Lilly Kane murder case had been enough for business at Mars Investigations to skyrocket. Not to mention that her father had gotten himself a book deal. Things had been looking up in that sense.
The drive home is ominously quiet. For some reason, the hush between them unnerves her, such a departure from the norm. This Logan, with his dark stubble and guarded eyes and quiet demeanor, seems so different from the boy she knew, the one who smashed her headlights in with a smirk and stole kisses from her in school bathrooms and reached for her hand in defiance of rigid social circles. He had risked all that for her—risked things that seemed unimportant, maybe, but hadn’t been in his eyes. And in turn, what had she done?
Overall, Veronica would not have changed her actions given the choice, even if that meant betraying him. She knows this. How could she, when it helped her discover the truth? But there are still things—things she regrets. Things she wishes she could have spared him. She understands his anger. That doesn’t stop her from wishing it would dissolve.
“So, how long do you plan on bumming off me?” he asks, and it’s impossible to tell whether he’s pissed or not.
She steals a sideways glance at him. “That depends on how long I’m welcome.”
A beat between them, and then he replies, without taking his eyes off the road, “It’s not so bad—having someone around to continually piss off.” He pauses, then looks over at her. “You don’t have to go. Yet.”
The words surprise her.
“Oh,” she says, slowly. “Okay.”
As they weave down the road, she has the sudden impulse to put her palm over the top of his hand. She suppresses the urge and stares out the window instead.
**
There are two surfboards propped up against the wall in the back porch. After Veronica takes Backup for a morning walk along the strip of private beach behind the bungalow, she takes note of this, steps back inside and finds Logan on the couch again, reading the newspaper and gulping down a beer. He always starts early in the day and doesn’t seem to stop until he goes to bed.
“Where’d you get the surfboards?” she questions as she unsnaps the leash from Backup’s collar.
Backup promptly leaps onto the couch and rests his head on Logan’s lap. Logan doesn’t push him away. He readjusts the comics page, scratching the dog behind the ears, and goes back to reading.
“They were here when I moved in,” he explains, eyes still on the page. “Same with the furniture.”
Well, that explained the crappy quality. Everything in the house looked like it’d been bought from a flea market.
“Then lets go surfing,” Veronica urges.
Now he meets her level gaze, eyebrows raised in curiosity. “You know how to surf?”
“No.” She shrugs. “Teach me, then.”
So he does. Veronica wears her one-piece, Logan changes into his board shorts, and then they’re carrying—well, okay, she’s more like dragging hers—the surfboards to the water’s edge. They paddle out, side-by-side, flat on their stomachs. The water is a perfect turquoise, the color usually found on the fronts of postcards, and fairly warm.
Logan is fearless in the water; the blue-green waves crest, rising to meet them like the Towers of Oz. He flashes her a quick grin.
“Off to meet the wizard,” he calls out, and then he’s off.
Veronica sits up and watches as he rides the wave in, riding into the curl, up to the lip until the momentum sends him flying off the board. She sees the leash around his ankle grow taut as he falls into the ocean. For a moment she’s holding her breath, waiting anxiously, and then his head pops above the surface.
The lessons become a routine. Every day, they go out to the water for a few hours; he teaches her the right standing position, puts her board flat on the sand and stands behind her, hands wrapped around her waist to show her the right posture. In the water, he shows her how to pop up off the board and ride the waves all the way in. She isn’t very good, but it’s still fun, anyway. Most of all she enjoys paddling out and just straddling the board, feeling the waves swell and fall beneath her.
Every day, they swim for a few hours. Every day, they sit around and play poker, betting with pretzels and Oreos rather than actual money, and every day she kicks his ass at the game. Every day they grow more comfortable around each other. Every day, her father calls and asks when she is coming back, and every day she assures him she’ll return soon.
Every day, she thinks more and more that she isn’t ready to leave.
**
It isn’t long before the bungalow starts to look different. Veronica goes out and buys a mini-vacuum, spends an entire day cleaning the carpet in every room and all of the couch cushions. When Logan raises his voice over the loud sound to tell her he likes that she’s figured out women belong in the house, she presses the suction to his cheek until it leaves a mark. They end up wrestling on the floor, biting each other's necks and elbows and knees, laughing until they can’t breathe.
The truth is that he does his fair share of housework, too. Every night in the kitchen, he puts on his favorite Lou Reed album and does the dishes. When Veronica walks by, swinging her hips in time to the music, he flicks a spray of water her way. She retaliates by snatching the sponge from his hand and throwing it at him. He snaps the dish towel at her ass as she scoots away.
It’s strange, this sudden bout of domestic bliss. Logan knows that it shouldn’t be this easy. They should be screaming, yelling, hating each other. Maybe they’re just too tired to hate anymore. Maybe it’s too hard to work up the energy. It’s easier to pretend the conflict doesn’t exist, to pretend that this is their own little world.
Both of his parents are dead. His sister doesn’t call him anymore. He is seventeen, and he has no one. He doesn’t know what he is supposed to do with his life. He only knows that having Veronica here gives him purpose, makes him feel less alone. He needs that more than he cares to admit.
One rainy night, Logan watches her slip onto the back porch, her cell phone pressed to her ear. He slinks against the wall, leans toward the door to eavesdrop. She is speaking in hushed tones, just loud enough for him to hear her side of the conversation over the sheets of rain drumming against the roof.
“Dad, I know,” Veronica says, leaning against the wall and bowing her head down. “Listen, I just—Yes, I hear you. I know. I told you, I’m fine.” There is a pause as she listens to whatever her father is saying. “Logan and I are not—it isn’t like that. It isn’t going to be. He just needs someone, okay? I’m not going to hide forever.” She bites down on her lip. “I don’t know. Soon. I promise. Look, I should go.” Another pause. “Love you, too. Bye.”
Veronica disconnects the call with a heavy sigh, her slender shoulders sagging. Her eyes turn upward as she presses her palm to her forehead. He sees the conflicting emotions in her stance, and it dawns on him: she shouldn’t be here. She should not be apart of his fucked-up existence. When she turns to the doorway, Logan doesn’t attempt to conceal his presence.
She jumps, startled, and frowns. “What are you doing? Were you--?”
“You should go,” he tells her with his hands in his pockets. “Back home. To Neptune. Or wherever that is.”
“Logan—” she starts, but he doesn’t give her a chance to finish.
“Look, you shouldn’t have even come in the first place,” he continues. “You don’t belong here. So just… go. All right? And that isn’t a suggestion, by the way.”
Veronica’s expression hardens as she straightens her shoulders. “You were the one who said I could stay.”
“I was wrong.” Logan shrugs and doesn’t meet her eyes. “About a lot of things.”
He turns and heads back into the bungalow before she can say another word.
**
That night, Veronica drifts in and out of sleep restlessly. She tosses and turns until the sheets are tangled around her legs. Backup isn’t resting soundly either; he makes strangled sounds, kicks his legs in his dreams, wakes up and nudges his nose into her stomach. Veronica pets him until he falls back asleep and stares up at the ceiling, lit up by the periodic flashes of lightning.
Maybe her father is right. Maybe this was a stupid, crazy idea; maybe Logan will never be okay with her again. The past few weeks had made her think that things could work out between them. But maybe that entire time they had just been masking the real problems, playing pretend.
Veronica finally rises from the cot and wanders to his room. The door is halfway open, and when she peers her head in, she sees his sheets kicked back, and by the candlelight she can tell he isn’t in bed. She goes to the front door and sees that his car is still in the driveway. Backup follows her to the back porch, whining at the deafening clap of thunder. She flicks the dim overhead light on and realizes that one of the surfboards is missing.
Panic clenches her gut, and she rushes out the door into the driving rain. She runs toward the shore, Backup at her heels, calling Logan’s name aloud only to have the wind snatch up her words. The storm is raging, the ocean swelling. It’s too dark to see anything. He could be anywhere.
She orders Backup to stay on the beach and plunges into the water, not daring to go out further than her chest; the waves are too high, the riptides threatening to pull her into the undertow. Oh god, she thinks, he’s going to die, he’s going to die. She realizes that that is why he is here.
And then she sees it: the surfboard, rocketing above the surface and rolling into the waves, just in her reach. Veronica snatches it, turns her gaze back to the surging sea. She screams his name again and again, all in vain, until her throat is hoarse. A wave crashes over her, pulling her under, the metallic sound of the swirling water singing in her ears.
Suddenly she feels a hand gripping her arm, drawing her up to the surface. Veronica gasps for breath, flailing, and when her eyes focus again she blinks and sees Logan. He is holding onto her and the surfboard, pulling them both to the shore.
As soon as she can find her footing, she wrenches her arm away from him.
“Let go of me!” Veronica screams, fury unlike anything she’s ever felt ripping through her entire body. It pulses through her like a living thing. “You bastard, you fucking bastard.”
She is shaking from the fatigue and from her anger. Her head is buzzing like hoards of bees are rattling around in her skull.
“You could have killed yourself!” she shouts at him. “Do you even care?”
Logan throws the surfboard down on the sand and balls his fists at his sides. “Why, do you? Have you ever cared? Or is this just another game of yours? I’m sick of the runaround. I’m sick of being your punching bag and your pawn. So fuck you, Veronica. For everything.”
“No, fuck you,” she seethes evenly. “Fuck you and your stupid death wish. You really think that low of yourself? You really think you have nothing to live for? Open your eyes, Logan. If you really feel that way, you are more pathetic than I ever bothered to give you credit for.”
Veronica turns to storm away, but he seizes her upper arm and spins her back to face him.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demands.
“Figure it out yourself,” she retorts, her eyes wet with something that isn’t the rain.
There is no other way to resolve this climax that either one of them can possibly see, so he kisses her then. He crushes his lips hard against hers, palms holding the balls of her shoulders as if he wants to break them into splinters. Her mouth yields to his, and she curls her fingers around his back. The waves break over them as he lifts her in his arms, carries her toward shore, their mouths never parting. She kisses him back, desperate and urgent, the blood all caught up in her heart. He tastes of salt and the sea.
That night, she sits on the edge of his mattress as he undresses her, his touch nervous and tender, fingers trembling slightly. She pulls his shirt over his head and falls back onto the bed beneath him. The room is pitch dark, save for the few lit candles on the dresser and nightstand, flickering and throwing shadows against the walls. With one hand she fumbles for the bedside drawer, rummages through blindly until her hand closes around a shiny red wrapper.
“Wear this,” she tells him firmly, and when he pauses briefly, she doesn’t give him a moment to react. “Wear this, or get the fuck off of me. Got it?”
He tears open the wrapper with a grin and a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
When she rolls the condom over him and rubs on the lube tentatively, he gasps at her contact, buries his face against the bare of her shoulder. Their mouths meet again, hot and moist, his hands caught up in her still-damp hair, the strands spread out across the pillow like spun gold. Slides his hands down her back, over sharp shoulder blades and graceful, girlish muscle; the small of her back is so smooth and soft, and when he strokes the skin there, she makes a tight gasping sound into his mouth.
Logan’s hips slide down between her open thighs. She’s already slick and wet, ready for him. He presses kisses to her breasts like soft silk, mouth sliding over each nipple. His teeth graze the skin lightly, sending ripples of warmth through her gut. Her narrow girl hips thrust up to meet his, her slender calves hitching over his own as he kisses her furtively. The tips of their tongues meet, softer than they used to be, the way first kisses should have been. Should have been, could have been. But weren’t.
It doesn’t have to be urgent. It should be slow, not rushed, her first time—her first real time, anyway. There is something awkward in the way their elbows and legs link, and when he lowers himself into her, she holds her breath tight in her chest. It hurts, some, but as he moves against her, it hurts less and feels good in ways she hasn’t felt good before.
They both shudder, and he dips his head down, kisses a line up between her breasts. Veronica is still shivering around him, her fingers curled around his shoulders, her eyes shut tight. She feels him press his forehead to hers as they rock together.
“You sure this is--?” He doesn’t finish the question, his breath stirring in her hair.
“Yes,” she says, looking at him open-eyed and direct. “I’m good.”
Veronica wishes the words were more firm, but this feeling is so new, blooming inside of her, leaving her short of breath as she gulps in air. His hand slides down to the side of her thigh, and she gasps again. He doesn’t look away. His hair is wet, still, his stubble slightly scratchy as he kisses her once more. She likes this way of kissing—the way that it doesn’t feel like they’re battling for control, the kind of kisses people don’t run away from afterwards.
There are things she wants to say to him. To share with him how terrified she was tonight, when she was sure she’d lost him to the sea. She knows he thinks he’s lost everything, but she’s lost a lot, too, and even though this—what they’re doing—it doesn’t mean love, exactly, it still makes her scared to think of what could have happened. Scared of how he stands on a knife’s edge, ready to fall head over feet into death.
“I want you to be okay,” she tells him quietly, shakily, raising one hand and pressing it to his forehead, smoothing the hair there back with the heel of her palm. “I need you to be okay, okay?”
Logan’s eyes widen, and he nods slightly. He looks so young, like a little boy. Like someone who suddenly has a lot to lose.
He kisses her once more, deeply, before he comes.
**
When he opens his eyes again, sunlight is filtering through the curtains. Logan pulls the comforter up over his head and stretches, one hand reaching for the space to his right. Instead of feeling Veronica beside him, his fingers grab at empty air. Confused, he blinks a few times, sitting up. Sure enough, she isn’t there.
Logan rubs his face with one hand and stands. Wanders out of the room, and when he crosses into the kitchen, Backup comes up to him, tail wagging happily. He pats the top of the dog’s head absentmindedly before looking up and seeing Veronica. She’s standing in front of the stove, dressed in nothing but one of oversized, wrinkled white button-down shirts, her hair pinned messily to the top of her head.
She looks over her shoulder at him and smiles, her skin flushed and berry-bright. “Hey there, sleepyhead. Thought you’d never wake up.”
With a grin, Logan sidles up behind her, slides her arms around her middle. Presses a kiss to her neck and gently bites her shoulder as she laughs and writhes away from him. “Some of us require beauty sleep, you know.”
“Beauty sleep? Right.” Veronica turns to face him, still smiling, spatula in one hand, and grabs his chin with the other. “Look at this face. You need a shave, like, yesterday.”
“Mmm.” He turns his head out of her reach and cranes his neck to peer at the pan on the stove. “Whatcha up to?”
“Pancakes,” she explains. “You know, you have a lot to learn. Sure, you may know how to surf and use a credit card and even not totally blow a poker hand once in awhile—”
“—not to mention charm the ladies with my dashing good looks and razor-sharp wit,” he interjects with a smirk.
She pointedly ignores him. “But you still have a lot to learn, if you are ever going to make it on your own. Like, how to load a dishwasher. And not leave your dirty towels on the floor. And how to do laundry. And how to cook your own meals. And, you know, basically take care of yourself like a normal person.”
“So show me,” he replies as he brushes a loose lock of hair from her face, keeping his palm cradled behind her head. “All of it.”
**
After Veronica teaches Logan how to successfully make his own pancakes (which takes a few tries, since he keeps waiting too long to flip them over and ends up burning them), they decide to clean up in the shower. He goes in first, and while he’s under the spray, she undresses and slips in with him. She’s a little shy about him viewing her body this way, under bright lighting, but the second his eyes land on her, her modesty quickly melts away.
In between wet, hot kisses, they rub soap onto one another and shampoo their hair. He presses her up against the glass door as they rinse off and kisses her until they’re both laughing and breathless. When they finally step out of the shower, they wrap towels around their bodies, and she takes the shaving cream and massages it onto his cheeks and chin. Gently slides the razor across the slopes of his face.
“You know, this makes me think you have another secret boyfriend,” he jokes as she taps the razor into the sink. “You done this before?”
“Yes,” she says, voice a little tight. “My dad. When he was in the hospital.”
They both grow quiet. Veronica thinks of her dad, of how she took care of him in the weeks of his recovery, shaving his face for him, fixing his food, doling out his pain meds. Every time she’d looked at him, it had been a reminder of what had happened. Aaron Echolls, the refrigerator, the fire. The horrifying nightmares that still plague her on some nights. How for those few, terrifying, heart-stopping moments she thought she had lost the most important person in her entire life forever.
Her heart suddenly aches; she misses her father terribly.
Logan looks away, something like shame flickering in his eyes. Veronica touches his chin and tilts it up so she can drag the razor down at a good angle.
“I don’t blame you,” she says, quietly. An offering.
He looks at her quickly, his gaze like steel. “Well, you shouldn’t. I’m not him.”
“I know,” Veronica agrees. “That’s why…”
That’s why, what? Why she came after him? Why even as she condemned him to his face, and pushed him away in her head, her heart told her otherwise? He isn’t his father. He isn’t his mother. He’s better than that; she honestly believes it. Maybe someday she’ll say as much to him.
Right now, she just finishes shaving his upper lip and then takes a wet rag, wipes the excess foam from his face before running her palms across the newly sleek, smooth skin.
“It’s why I’m here.”
It’s enough.
**
The light bulb in his room has been burned out for over a week. He usually just keeps the candles lit, and it doesn’t matter, since the only time he spends in there is when he’s sleeping or with Veronica, and neither of those activities require proper lighting.
One afternoon he walks in after a quick dip in the ocean to find Veronica standing on a stepladder, stringing cheap, tacky pink flamingo lights over the bed with duck tape. She’s stretched up on her tippy toes, face scrunched with concentration as she works. He leans against the doorway with a grin, his arms crossed, until she finally notices him.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she explains. “I thought I’d have it done before you came in.” He just stares at her, unable to suppress a wide smile, and she turns sheepish, then indignant. “What? Why are you smiling like that?”
“It’s just—you.” Logan strides up to her, scoops her off the ladder as she lets out a surprised squeal, and they both collapse on his bed. “You. You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” she says with a grin, a grin he can’t help but kiss off of her face.
**
The Laundromat is pretty much empty when they arrive, carting in three baskets of dirty laundry. Logan has never been inside of one before, which she finds amusing. It’d be almost cute, the way he has zero idea of how to work a washing appliance, if it wasn’t so pathetic. He mock-pouts when she tells him that.
She teaches him how to separate colors, how to measure out the laundry soap, how much bleach to add to a load of whites, what the Mountain Fresh fabric sheets are used for. It’s a bit difficult to get him to embrace the learning, since he has the attention span of a crack baby, but he gets it. Eventually.
They sit at one of the tables and play Five Card Stud, using spare change for the pool.
“What is that smell? Could it be… victory?” he taunts, tossing in a nickel.
Veronica sees his nickel and raises him a dime. “Don’t you think that’s a tad premature?”
“Premature?” Logan pretends to consider the thought. “No, but now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure that’s how you were conceived.”
“Shut up and play, Echolls.”
Veronica’s full house beats his three of a kind. By that time, the first load is ready to be shuffled into the dryer. Once that gets going, she hops on top of the rumbling machine, her legs swinging like a kid’s as he leans over her with a mischievous smirk.
“You’re a tease, Veronica Mars,” he teases, one hand inching up her thigh. “How am I supposed to not have my way with you right here?”
She wraps her hands around his neck and pulls him into a quick kiss. “Patience, Logan. All things improve with patience.”
**
Weeks melt into months. August has sprung on them, and she finds herself facing the calendar with dread, knowing her days are numbered. Veronica doesn’t want to think about the future, but at the same time, she can’t help but think that this isn’t going to last. School starts at the end of the month, and even if it didn’t… she misses her dad. Wallace. Her own room. She is going to have to go back, eventually.
“Logan,” she starts one evening, in the afterglow of sex, lounging under the faint pink glow of the flamingo lights. “What are you going to do?”
“Well,” he responds, pausing to kiss her stomach, “I was thinking of eating the rest of the leftover curry, and then maybe a swim. And then…” Another kiss, lower this time. “Maybe more of this. If you’re up for it.”
“No.” Veronica pulls him up by the collar of his shirt, looking him seriously in the eyes. “I mean. In general.”
Logan shifts away from her, eyes narrowing a little. “What?”
“I can’t stay here forever,” she says, one hand smoothing her hair back. “School starts soon, and—I miss my dad. He needs me around.”
“Yeah, so?” he asks, annoyed.
“So--” She stops and sighs in frustration, knowing he is being difficult on purpose. “We should start making plans. For going back to Neptune.”
“Who says I’m going back?”
Veronica looks at him carefully. “Logan, what about school? What about--”
“I’m almost eighteen,” he shoots back. “I don’t need school. I can get a job around here.”
“But Logan,” she says, “you can’t honestly just stay here.”
“Why not?” He rises off the bed, pulling back the curtains and gesturing out the window to the autumn gold dusk. “I’ve got all I need. Good surf, plenty of sun. What else could I need?”
Veronica bites back the automatic reply: What about me?
“Why do you care so much about what they think?” she questions. “Does it really matter? Logan, I…” Her voice trails off, and when Logan stays silent, she swallows the rest of that sentence. “Fine,” she continues sharply. “If you’re too much of a coward to face Neptune, then that’s fine by me.”
She doesn’t give him a chance to say anything else and instead rushes to the living room. Finds her duffel bags and begins stuffing them full of clothes and belongings. Backup lifts his head from the couch and gives her a curious look.
“Come on, boy,” she says to him. “We’re getting out of here.”
It doesn’t take long to get her things together. As she’s carrying her last bag out to the car, Logan catches her by the elbow.
“Hey,” he says to her hastily, “Veronica, wait—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She raises her chin and stares him directly in the eyes. “When you decide to grow up, you know where to find me.”
And with that, Veronica leaves the bungalow she had been calling home for nearly two months. Her last sight of it is a glimpse of Logan in the rearview mirror, his silhouette in the doorway as he watches her drive off.
**
If it were possible to die from death by hugs, Veronica would be certainly dead by the time Keith is done with her. He hugs her until she can’t breathe, and then he hugs her some more. She doesn’t mind. She’s missed him, too.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” he tells her, his hand cupping her cheek.
She smiles and says sincerely, “I am, too.”
Wallace comes over and catches her up on all of the happenings that have occurred since her mysterious absence. They sit on her bed and she realizes how much she missed her best friend. After he’s done sharing, he asks her about a million questions about her own adventures, all of which she avoids like the plague.
“I’m really not up for talking about it,” she finally tells him, and thankfully he seems to understand. Doesn’t push.
“It’s cool,” he says, and he puts on a Tupac CD and they just lay there, listening to the music for awhile.
“You happy to be back in Neptune?” Wallace asks after a long silence.
“Yes,” Veronica tells him. “I am.”
And she is. Really. It feels nice and everything, seeing everyone and being around the familiar. But that doesn’t explain why her heart hurts so much, or why she cried so hard she had to pull over when she passed into Neptune city limits.
**
It’s not too hard to get back into the swing of things. Five days before school starts, she decides to drive Backup down to the dog park. These days he deserves to be spoiled.
However, her plans come to a grinding halt when Veronica pulls out of the driveway and almost crashes into a garbage can.
Logan Echolls is standing ten feet down the road.
She slams on the brake, doing a double take before shutting the car off quickly. Backup begins barking like crazy, then worms his way through the open window and runs to Logan at full speed. He’s standing next to the X-Terra and staring in her direction as he pets the dog. When she walks over to him, her legs are like jelly.
“Logan,” she says, breathless. “What are you--?”
“Well, I had a destination, you know, before your man-killer dog attacked me,” he explains, waving one hand airily. “And also… car trouble.”
He gestures to the front left wheel. The tire is flat.
She cracks a smile despite herself. “Need some help?”
It doesn’t take long for her to put the spare on; she’s had experience. Logan hands her the tools and watches her work. Backup sits, panting, nuzzling his nose into Logan's crotch in a way that makes Veronica nearly burst into laughter. She holds back her grin and keeps working. When she stands up, finished, he gives her an impressed look as she wipes her hands on her jeans.
“You’re back in town,” she finally states, a lame attempt at casual conversation. Her heart is racing just being in his vicinity.
“Yeah,” he confirms with a shrug. “So, I met this girl. Amazing. Totally hot. The sex was great. But I realized I was really crazy about her when it turned out the conversation was even better.”
Veronica cocks her head at him. “Oh, really?”
“Mmm.” He reaches down to scratch the side of Backup's face before looking up at her again. “Turns out this chick, you know, told me to basically get over myself and get my ass in gear. Grow the fuck up already. I decided that, hey, maybe I shouldn't lose the best thing that ever happened to me. So I’m renting an apartment around here. Figured I’d need a place to crash at least until I graduate. Maybe longer.”
“So you’re staying?” she asks. “For good?”
Logan’s eyes meet hers. “For good.”
Unexpectedly, he leans down and pecks her on the cheek. It is chaste, and uncertain, and when she looks at him, he appears vaguely nervous, like he doesn’t know if he should’ve made such a bold move.
“You know,” Veronica says suddenly, “most men would at least buy me coffee for changing their tires. Some would even offer sex.”
He grins. “Veronica Mars. What would I do without you?”
She hopes that neither of them will ever find out.
++end
A/N: Okay. So this is what I imagined the bungalow to look like, for the most part. The title, if you hadn't noticed already, comes from Tupac's poem, "The Rose That Grew From Concrete," which you can read here. Blah blah, the idea of something beautiful growing somewhere so unexpected, blah blah.
Feedback is cherished/adored/etc.
Author: BuffyX
Pairing/Character: Veronica/Logan.
Rating: Light NC-17. Sex happens, people.
Spoilers/Warnings: All of season one. Really self-indulgent. Also, this is long. Like twenty pages long.
It is blistering hot when she arrives, the kind of heat where the air shimmers like liquid and if you stare long enough, you can almost see the steam rising off the paved streets. The air conditioning in the Le Baron has been busted for ages, so she drives with the windows rolled down and stops at a gas station to stock up on some overpriced water bottles. She uses one to pour over her head and the other to replenish Backup’s water dish, which he quickly gulps down and slobbers all over her backseat in return.
Approximately seventy-two miles are stretched out between Neptune and Solana Beach, and Veronica’s pretty sure she could come up with more than seventy-two reasons as to why she shouldn’t be doing this. That thought alone is almost enough to send her driving back home, but once she passes through the city limits, she knows she’s gone too far to turn back now.
So instead of thinking she fiddles the radio knob until she finds a decent station and blares the music to drown out her thoughts as she zooms down the road. The directions are scribbled down on the back of an old grocery list stained with coffee rings—Veronica glances at it again to make sure she’s headed the right way. She is, and after a few more turns and ten more minutes driving by the edge of the ocean, she’s there.
At first glance she thinks she must be mistaken. The bungalow sits back, hidden behind some bushes, modest and discrete. The Logan Echolls she knows is neither of those things. Still, it has to be right, going by the same old blazing yellow X-Terra parked haphazardly in the drive. Amid the overgrown grass and brush, it’s barely visible. Veronica backs up a little further down the road and cuts the engine in the middle of Pat Benetar warbling on about love and battlefields and heartaches.
It takes her another ten minutes for her to gather her nerve and leave the car, walk up to the front step, and pull back the screen to knock on the wooden door. There’s a lengthy pause before she hears a dull thud, the pad of footsteps, a chain being undone. When the doors opens, it’s him: shirtless, unshaven and barefoot, wearing low-slung ragged jeans, eating peanut butter with a spoon straight from the jar.
A moment passes between them, the tension almost palpable. Her throat hitches with the words she cannot bear to say, the distance between them stretched out like the miles she has just driven. They stand there, gazing at one another, and she feels something between them, something strong, big and important. She says his name, softly, and watches the way his eyes flicker over her face.
Veronica doesn’t know what she expected to happen, but Logan rolling his eyes, grumbling “Oh, fuck me” just before slamming the door in her face isn’t exactly what she had in mind.
She’s pretty sure his words are not a suggestion. Still, she swallows her pride and raps on the door again.
“I’m not leaving,” she calls, and waits.
A few more seconds pass before she hears the turning of a lock, and the door cracks open just a bit. Veronica takes it as an invitation to come inside. She looks up just in time to see him disappearing into the kitchen. Following, she takes notice of her surroundings—the floor, littered with empty bottles and old newspapers, all kinds of random junk. In the kitchen, the sink is stacked full of dirty dishes, food containers left open on the counters. She cringes.
“Nice set-up you’ve got here,” she tells him with an edge of sarcasm.
He stares at her coldly. “Look, I know you didn’t come for the small talk. So just tell me, what the hell are you doing here?” Logan’s matter-of-fact, no-bullshitting catches her off-guard, something that she hates.
“I--” Veronica stops for a moment, mind scrambling as she tries to find some kind of answer. “Um. Love is a battlefield?”
“What?” It’s his turn to look caught off-guard. “Whatever. Just go away, okay? Okay.”
**
Aaron Echolls died on Father’s Day. Logan is pretty sure there’s some kind of irony in that fact if he cared to examine it at all, but he doesn’t, so who knows.
He became a free man two weeks after his father was arrested; it was unbelievable to him, the ease in which he acquired emancipation, gained access to his mother’s inheritance and bought himself a new abode. He was surprised at how quickly his father relented and signed the papers for his lawyer. Trina, on the other hand, did not want to relent. Trina threw a fit. Trina was desperate. Trina begged him to stay, profusely.
When Logan took the family albums into the backyard and set them on fire, Trina stopped begging.
So it came to be that Logan packed the X-Terra with the little shit he cared to keep, drove down to Solana Beach and shacked up in the rundown, beachside bungalow. He’d been spending his summer on the beach, on the boardwalk, catching waves and getting pseudo-laid and not getting laid at all and fighting off queers and using queers (non-sexually, if you’d buy it). In short, he is trying to rebuild what he can from the scraps he’s salvaged. Also in trying to squeeze out the sense of it all, drunk and stoned on his mattress, he has realized that the second tragedy is over, you begin to heal or you begin to die. He’s pretty sure that what he’s been doing is the latter.
In the midst of all his drowning-of-sorrows, it had become nearly possible to forget that the rest of the world existed. Nearly. Even after finding out from a lawyer’s phone call that last week his father was mowed down outside the courthouse by a gun-wielding insane fan who then offed herself right there, it had been shockingly easy to avoid that particular reality.
It is, however, much harder to do so when Veronica Mars is standing in his kitchen.
“You know, it’s the darndest thing,” he says with false cheer. “I don’t appear to be on any hallucinogenics, and yet, here you are. Standing in front of me. Not leaving.”
He expects her to lash out, to get pissed or annoyed. To at least frown or something. But she doesn’t.
Veronica just looks at him. “I heard about your father.”
Logan can tell by her expression that she probably thinks he’s mourning, in pain. Conflicted, at the very least. He isn’t. He is only glad. Frighteningly, savagely glad.
“Congratulations,” he sneers. “You’re not living under a rock. So if that’s what you came for—”
“I didn’t come for that, I came for you,” she says quickly, then blushes a little. “I mean, I came to see you—how you are.”
“How very noble of you,” he comments dryly.
“Look,” she tells him, straightening herself and jutting her chin up defiantly, “I get that you’re pissed, okay?”
“To say that that is an understatement would be an insult to both statements and prefixes.”
She ignores him and continues. “You hate me and I get it. I do. But if you want me to throw myself at your feet begging for your forgiveness, you can forget about it right now. I’m not saying I’m blameless in what happened, but neither are you. We both made mistakes, and we could stand around apologizing for an eternity and it wouldn’t change anything. So why not just save yourself the trouble and let it go.”
“‘Let it go,’” he echoes with a humorless laugh. “You know, Veronica Mars, you’re really something. You can’t just come here and—” He stops, trying to collect himself. “It isn’t that easy. This is my life now, and you? Are not in it. So just leave me the hell alone, will you?”
Veronica looks him up and down once more, silent. Without another word, she spins on her heel and leaves, the screen door clattering shut behind her. Something floods through him at the sound. It must be relief, he thinks. This is what he wanted, to be left alone.
But that doesn’t explain his sudden urge to hurl an empty beer can at the wall.
**
“So that was pretty much a disaster,” Veronica mutters to Backup as they head off to find the nearest motel. She really isn’t up for the drive home; since she just got here, she might as well enjoy the sights. But first, she needs to check into a motel room and unwind a little. The sun is setting on the horizon and there isn’t much else to do at this point. Oh, yeah, and there’s that little detail of needing to inform her father of her whereabouts. That’ll need taking care of, too.
Fifteen miles down the main road she finds a motel with vacancy that is on the dumpy side, maybe, but a motel is a motel is a—well, you get the idea. She parks in the near-empty lot and tells Backup to behave as she walks into the lobby. There’s a short, stocky Mexican man standing at the front counter. He regards her with a slight nod, surveying her up and down almost suspiciously.
“I need a room,” Veronica says, setting her purse on the counter. “How much do you charge?”
“Forty-five a night,” he replies with a thick accent. “You got cash? Don’t take credit cards here.”
“I’ve got forty on me,” she offers, hoping he’s willing to haggle a little.
“It’s forty-five.” He frowns and glances out the window. “That your dog, lady? We don’t allow dogs.”
“He’s housetrained.”
“Don’t matter. Not allowed.”
She sighs, desperate now. “What if he stays in the car?”
“You got a hearing problem?” he retorts sharply. “Mutts. Not. Allowed.”
“Fine,” she says, aggravated. “I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
The man laughs. “Lady, there ain’t no other places around here that take pets. ’Specially not for forty bucks.”
Veronica thanks him coldly and leaves.
She drives around for awhile, not sure where to go. Backup snuffles the back of her neck, almost apologetically, and she gives him a good ear scratch and promises him it isn’t his fault.
“We’ll find somewhere to go,” she vows, and they do.
**
Logan orders pizza a lot, since it means he can avoid the public and be as lazy as he wants; this has kept him from being recognized, except for once by a chick on the boardwalk selling jewelry. But he just kept on walking and pretended like he hadn’t heard, and that was that.
Tonight there’s a knock on the door not long after he calls. He’s surprised at their expediency. Hadn't he just ordered minutes ago? Whatever, he figures. He is pretty drunk by now and has probably just lost track of time. Like that one night a month or so back when he got so wasted he passed out for eighteen hours and woke up in a pool of his own vomit, not remembering where he was.
It takes him more time than usual to stumble to the front door. Finally he gets his eyesight to focus long enough to unlock the chain and twist the knob. As soon as the door opens, instead of seeing a pizza delivery boy, Logan is greeted by a hundred pounds of pure dog. Backup nearly tackles him straight to the floor. Logan staggers back, shoulder bumping against the wall, wondering what the fuck is going on. Suddenly Veronica pops her head in with a cheery smile.
“Hi there!” she says brightly. “So, turns out that none of the motels around here allow dogs, and no way am I sleeping in the car. Guess that means we’re stuck with you tonight.”
He is dazed. He is confused. He has no idea what is happening. At the same time, he is too damn drunk to give a shit this late at night.
“Whatever,” he sighs, making his way back to the kitchen. “Make yourself at home. Or something.”
And that is how Logan and Veronica (and her trusty sidekick Backup, too, of course) come to live together over the summer.
**
Keith was not pleased about this when she called that night. Keith thought Logan was too unstable (which, she secretly believed, was not exactly far from the truth). Keith said, “Get your scrawny ass back home now, Veronica. I’m serious.”
Veronica was serious, too, serious enough to even ignore his comment about her being scrawny. She told him as much. “I’m serious, too. Dad, it’s just for a few days, okay? I’ll be fine. Life will not end if I am away from Neptune for awhile.”
“Veronica…” he said, warningly, but she could tell he was relenting. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
“I have Backup. I have a car with a taser in the dashboard compartment. I have health insurance. I have a debit card. I think I’ll somehow survive.”
“Honey, I just wish you’d have talked to me about this rather than just running off. You know, if you wanted a vacation, we could’ve done that. Just you and me.”
“I know,” she said, voice softening. “This was just something that I needed to do, okay?”
There is a long pause on the other end. “You call me every day. I mean it.”
“Cross my heart, hope to die, all that good stuff.” She smiled into the phone. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Now it is morning, and Veronica is fixing herself some toast when Logan comes trudging into the kitchen. He looks at her, down at Backup who is sitting at her feet, and then back up at her again. She pretends not to notice as she spreads jelly across the crisp slice of bread. When she finishes, she sets the knife in the cluttered sink, twists the jar top back on and turns to him with an appraising look.
“You look like crap,” she remarks, then opens the cupboard and puts the jelly jar away.
“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine,” he mutters. Scratches the top of his head and yanks open the refrigerator, extracting a bottle of Corona. He holds it up for her to see. “You want?”
“Ew.” Veronica frowns, nose wrinkling. “That’s disgusting. Besides, isn’t it a little early?”
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he replies, “or so your mother always says.”
It’s a baiting comment, and she almost bites, but opts to ignore it instead. She really isn’t up for a round of Whose Parents Are More Insult-Worthy.
“You need to go grocery shopping,” Veronica informs him. “There is no food in this house.”
Logan grunts in response and walks into the living room. She follows, Backup trailing after her. The room is nearly empty, aside from the old, lumpy couch with foldout cot that she’d spent the previous night on and an old television set with lopsided antennas sticking out on top. The carpet is caked with dirt and beer stains.
“You’re living in a dump,” she says as he plops down on the sofa and switches on the television.
“That’s funny—I can’t remember asking for your opinion,” he states flatly, flipping the channel. The picture is fuzzy and the sound mostly static. “Really, Veronica, why are you even here? Go home. I’m sure Duncan is waiting for you with bated breath and open arms.”
Veronica positions herself in front of the television, blocking his view, her arms crossed as she glares. “You’re seriously jealous? You think Duncan and I—” She breaks off, cheeks reddening a little. “It isn’t like that. We’re just friends. And hardly that, anymore.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“I’m here because—” She isn’t sure how to respond to that. She doesn’t know why she is here, really. All she knows is that when she was poking through her father’s files while working on a low-profile case, and came across information on Logan’s current address, something in her told her to get in her car and drive. To escape, to go find him. “Things have been insane since, well, you know. And you bailed. And maybe… maybe I needed to bail, too.”
Logan blinks at her but doesn’t say anything. Without a word, she seats herself next to him on the old couch, breaks her toast in two, offers him half. He accepts. They sit in silence and watch the fuzzy tv and feed their crusts to a begging Backup, an understanding passing between them. Their knees touch and neither move away.
**
They go grocery shopping that night. At first Logan comes out of his room with a baseball cap and sunglasses on, but Veronica laughs at the sight of him, pushing the hat off his head and sliding the glasses off his face.
“We’re not going undercover,” she teases.
“And here I thought you were dressed up as a street hooker. My mistake.” He scowls a little. “I just don’t want—”
“What? To be recognized?” Veronica tousles his hair, in an (almost) affectionate manner. “Stop giving yourself so much importance, Logan. I’m surprised that hat could even fit on your head.”
They drive over to the twenty-four hour Quickie Mart in the X-Terra and stroll the near-empty aisles under bright fluorescent lights. Logan steers the cart over to the produce section as Veronica trails behind him, scribbling out a list of needed items on a small yellow notepad as she walks. While she is brainstorming up what to add to the list, Logan wanders over to the fruit display and begins to juggle two oranges in his hands.
“Stop it,” Veronica reprimands without looking up.
“Then hurry up.” He catches the oranges, waves them around in a magician’s gesture. “I’m bored to tears, here.”
“Poor baby,” she comments sarcastically, stealing the cart and commandeering it around the corner.
They pick up all kinds of odds and ends—sponges, dish soap, crackers, pickles, frozen tv dinners, paper towels. By the time they reach the checkout lane, the cart is brimming with all of it. Veronica catches herself scanning the tabloid headings out of habit, almost half-expecting to see someone she knows on one or more of the covers. It wouldn’t be the first time. However, the magazines have seemingly moved on from the Echolls courtroom drama, for good.
Logan swipes his credit card through the small black machine and pays for the items. Veronica lets him, knowing he can afford it more than she can; though, to be fair, the Mars family isn’t quite as strapped for cash these days. Even while her mother bailed out of town with the Kane payoff, apparently solving the legendary Lilly Kane murder case had been enough for business at Mars Investigations to skyrocket. Not to mention that her father had gotten himself a book deal. Things had been looking up in that sense.
The drive home is ominously quiet. For some reason, the hush between them unnerves her, such a departure from the norm. This Logan, with his dark stubble and guarded eyes and quiet demeanor, seems so different from the boy she knew, the one who smashed her headlights in with a smirk and stole kisses from her in school bathrooms and reached for her hand in defiance of rigid social circles. He had risked all that for her—risked things that seemed unimportant, maybe, but hadn’t been in his eyes. And in turn, what had she done?
Overall, Veronica would not have changed her actions given the choice, even if that meant betraying him. She knows this. How could she, when it helped her discover the truth? But there are still things—things she regrets. Things she wishes she could have spared him. She understands his anger. That doesn’t stop her from wishing it would dissolve.
“So, how long do you plan on bumming off me?” he asks, and it’s impossible to tell whether he’s pissed or not.
She steals a sideways glance at him. “That depends on how long I’m welcome.”
A beat between them, and then he replies, without taking his eyes off the road, “It’s not so bad—having someone around to continually piss off.” He pauses, then looks over at her. “You don’t have to go. Yet.”
The words surprise her.
“Oh,” she says, slowly. “Okay.”
As they weave down the road, she has the sudden impulse to put her palm over the top of his hand. She suppresses the urge and stares out the window instead.
**
There are two surfboards propped up against the wall in the back porch. After Veronica takes Backup for a morning walk along the strip of private beach behind the bungalow, she takes note of this, steps back inside and finds Logan on the couch again, reading the newspaper and gulping down a beer. He always starts early in the day and doesn’t seem to stop until he goes to bed.
“Where’d you get the surfboards?” she questions as she unsnaps the leash from Backup’s collar.
Backup promptly leaps onto the couch and rests his head on Logan’s lap. Logan doesn’t push him away. He readjusts the comics page, scratching the dog behind the ears, and goes back to reading.
“They were here when I moved in,” he explains, eyes still on the page. “Same with the furniture.”
Well, that explained the crappy quality. Everything in the house looked like it’d been bought from a flea market.
“Then lets go surfing,” Veronica urges.
Now he meets her level gaze, eyebrows raised in curiosity. “You know how to surf?”
“No.” She shrugs. “Teach me, then.”
So he does. Veronica wears her one-piece, Logan changes into his board shorts, and then they’re carrying—well, okay, she’s more like dragging hers—the surfboards to the water’s edge. They paddle out, side-by-side, flat on their stomachs. The water is a perfect turquoise, the color usually found on the fronts of postcards, and fairly warm.
Logan is fearless in the water; the blue-green waves crest, rising to meet them like the Towers of Oz. He flashes her a quick grin.
“Off to meet the wizard,” he calls out, and then he’s off.
Veronica sits up and watches as he rides the wave in, riding into the curl, up to the lip until the momentum sends him flying off the board. She sees the leash around his ankle grow taut as he falls into the ocean. For a moment she’s holding her breath, waiting anxiously, and then his head pops above the surface.
The lessons become a routine. Every day, they go out to the water for a few hours; he teaches her the right standing position, puts her board flat on the sand and stands behind her, hands wrapped around her waist to show her the right posture. In the water, he shows her how to pop up off the board and ride the waves all the way in. She isn’t very good, but it’s still fun, anyway. Most of all she enjoys paddling out and just straddling the board, feeling the waves swell and fall beneath her.
Every day, they swim for a few hours. Every day, they sit around and play poker, betting with pretzels and Oreos rather than actual money, and every day she kicks his ass at the game. Every day they grow more comfortable around each other. Every day, her father calls and asks when she is coming back, and every day she assures him she’ll return soon.
Every day, she thinks more and more that she isn’t ready to leave.
**
It isn’t long before the bungalow starts to look different. Veronica goes out and buys a mini-vacuum, spends an entire day cleaning the carpet in every room and all of the couch cushions. When Logan raises his voice over the loud sound to tell her he likes that she’s figured out women belong in the house, she presses the suction to his cheek until it leaves a mark. They end up wrestling on the floor, biting each other's necks and elbows and knees, laughing until they can’t breathe.
The truth is that he does his fair share of housework, too. Every night in the kitchen, he puts on his favorite Lou Reed album and does the dishes. When Veronica walks by, swinging her hips in time to the music, he flicks a spray of water her way. She retaliates by snatching the sponge from his hand and throwing it at him. He snaps the dish towel at her ass as she scoots away.
It’s strange, this sudden bout of domestic bliss. Logan knows that it shouldn’t be this easy. They should be screaming, yelling, hating each other. Maybe they’re just too tired to hate anymore. Maybe it’s too hard to work up the energy. It’s easier to pretend the conflict doesn’t exist, to pretend that this is their own little world.
Both of his parents are dead. His sister doesn’t call him anymore. He is seventeen, and he has no one. He doesn’t know what he is supposed to do with his life. He only knows that having Veronica here gives him purpose, makes him feel less alone. He needs that more than he cares to admit.
One rainy night, Logan watches her slip onto the back porch, her cell phone pressed to her ear. He slinks against the wall, leans toward the door to eavesdrop. She is speaking in hushed tones, just loud enough for him to hear her side of the conversation over the sheets of rain drumming against the roof.
“Dad, I know,” Veronica says, leaning against the wall and bowing her head down. “Listen, I just—Yes, I hear you. I know. I told you, I’m fine.” There is a pause as she listens to whatever her father is saying. “Logan and I are not—it isn’t like that. It isn’t going to be. He just needs someone, okay? I’m not going to hide forever.” She bites down on her lip. “I don’t know. Soon. I promise. Look, I should go.” Another pause. “Love you, too. Bye.”
Veronica disconnects the call with a heavy sigh, her slender shoulders sagging. Her eyes turn upward as she presses her palm to her forehead. He sees the conflicting emotions in her stance, and it dawns on him: she shouldn’t be here. She should not be apart of his fucked-up existence. When she turns to the doorway, Logan doesn’t attempt to conceal his presence.
She jumps, startled, and frowns. “What are you doing? Were you--?”
“You should go,” he tells her with his hands in his pockets. “Back home. To Neptune. Or wherever that is.”
“Logan—” she starts, but he doesn’t give her a chance to finish.
“Look, you shouldn’t have even come in the first place,” he continues. “You don’t belong here. So just… go. All right? And that isn’t a suggestion, by the way.”
Veronica’s expression hardens as she straightens her shoulders. “You were the one who said I could stay.”
“I was wrong.” Logan shrugs and doesn’t meet her eyes. “About a lot of things.”
He turns and heads back into the bungalow before she can say another word.
**
That night, Veronica drifts in and out of sleep restlessly. She tosses and turns until the sheets are tangled around her legs. Backup isn’t resting soundly either; he makes strangled sounds, kicks his legs in his dreams, wakes up and nudges his nose into her stomach. Veronica pets him until he falls back asleep and stares up at the ceiling, lit up by the periodic flashes of lightning.
Maybe her father is right. Maybe this was a stupid, crazy idea; maybe Logan will never be okay with her again. The past few weeks had made her think that things could work out between them. But maybe that entire time they had just been masking the real problems, playing pretend.
Veronica finally rises from the cot and wanders to his room. The door is halfway open, and when she peers her head in, she sees his sheets kicked back, and by the candlelight she can tell he isn’t in bed. She goes to the front door and sees that his car is still in the driveway. Backup follows her to the back porch, whining at the deafening clap of thunder. She flicks the dim overhead light on and realizes that one of the surfboards is missing.
Panic clenches her gut, and she rushes out the door into the driving rain. She runs toward the shore, Backup at her heels, calling Logan’s name aloud only to have the wind snatch up her words. The storm is raging, the ocean swelling. It’s too dark to see anything. He could be anywhere.
She orders Backup to stay on the beach and plunges into the water, not daring to go out further than her chest; the waves are too high, the riptides threatening to pull her into the undertow. Oh god, she thinks, he’s going to die, he’s going to die. She realizes that that is why he is here.
And then she sees it: the surfboard, rocketing above the surface and rolling into the waves, just in her reach. Veronica snatches it, turns her gaze back to the surging sea. She screams his name again and again, all in vain, until her throat is hoarse. A wave crashes over her, pulling her under, the metallic sound of the swirling water singing in her ears.
Suddenly she feels a hand gripping her arm, drawing her up to the surface. Veronica gasps for breath, flailing, and when her eyes focus again she blinks and sees Logan. He is holding onto her and the surfboard, pulling them both to the shore.
As soon as she can find her footing, she wrenches her arm away from him.
“Let go of me!” Veronica screams, fury unlike anything she’s ever felt ripping through her entire body. It pulses through her like a living thing. “You bastard, you fucking bastard.”
She is shaking from the fatigue and from her anger. Her head is buzzing like hoards of bees are rattling around in her skull.
“You could have killed yourself!” she shouts at him. “Do you even care?”
Logan throws the surfboard down on the sand and balls his fists at his sides. “Why, do you? Have you ever cared? Or is this just another game of yours? I’m sick of the runaround. I’m sick of being your punching bag and your pawn. So fuck you, Veronica. For everything.”
“No, fuck you,” she seethes evenly. “Fuck you and your stupid death wish. You really think that low of yourself? You really think you have nothing to live for? Open your eyes, Logan. If you really feel that way, you are more pathetic than I ever bothered to give you credit for.”
Veronica turns to storm away, but he seizes her upper arm and spins her back to face him.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he demands.
“Figure it out yourself,” she retorts, her eyes wet with something that isn’t the rain.
There is no other way to resolve this climax that either one of them can possibly see, so he kisses her then. He crushes his lips hard against hers, palms holding the balls of her shoulders as if he wants to break them into splinters. Her mouth yields to his, and she curls her fingers around his back. The waves break over them as he lifts her in his arms, carries her toward shore, their mouths never parting. She kisses him back, desperate and urgent, the blood all caught up in her heart. He tastes of salt and the sea.
That night, she sits on the edge of his mattress as he undresses her, his touch nervous and tender, fingers trembling slightly. She pulls his shirt over his head and falls back onto the bed beneath him. The room is pitch dark, save for the few lit candles on the dresser and nightstand, flickering and throwing shadows against the walls. With one hand she fumbles for the bedside drawer, rummages through blindly until her hand closes around a shiny red wrapper.
“Wear this,” she tells him firmly, and when he pauses briefly, she doesn’t give him a moment to react. “Wear this, or get the fuck off of me. Got it?”
He tears open the wrapper with a grin and a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
When she rolls the condom over him and rubs on the lube tentatively, he gasps at her contact, buries his face against the bare of her shoulder. Their mouths meet again, hot and moist, his hands caught up in her still-damp hair, the strands spread out across the pillow like spun gold. Slides his hands down her back, over sharp shoulder blades and graceful, girlish muscle; the small of her back is so smooth and soft, and when he strokes the skin there, she makes a tight gasping sound into his mouth.
Logan’s hips slide down between her open thighs. She’s already slick and wet, ready for him. He presses kisses to her breasts like soft silk, mouth sliding over each nipple. His teeth graze the skin lightly, sending ripples of warmth through her gut. Her narrow girl hips thrust up to meet his, her slender calves hitching over his own as he kisses her furtively. The tips of their tongues meet, softer than they used to be, the way first kisses should have been. Should have been, could have been. But weren’t.
It doesn’t have to be urgent. It should be slow, not rushed, her first time—her first real time, anyway. There is something awkward in the way their elbows and legs link, and when he lowers himself into her, she holds her breath tight in her chest. It hurts, some, but as he moves against her, it hurts less and feels good in ways she hasn’t felt good before.
They both shudder, and he dips his head down, kisses a line up between her breasts. Veronica is still shivering around him, her fingers curled around his shoulders, her eyes shut tight. She feels him press his forehead to hers as they rock together.
“You sure this is--?” He doesn’t finish the question, his breath stirring in her hair.
“Yes,” she says, looking at him open-eyed and direct. “I’m good.”
Veronica wishes the words were more firm, but this feeling is so new, blooming inside of her, leaving her short of breath as she gulps in air. His hand slides down to the side of her thigh, and she gasps again. He doesn’t look away. His hair is wet, still, his stubble slightly scratchy as he kisses her once more. She likes this way of kissing—the way that it doesn’t feel like they’re battling for control, the kind of kisses people don’t run away from afterwards.
There are things she wants to say to him. To share with him how terrified she was tonight, when she was sure she’d lost him to the sea. She knows he thinks he’s lost everything, but she’s lost a lot, too, and even though this—what they’re doing—it doesn’t mean love, exactly, it still makes her scared to think of what could have happened. Scared of how he stands on a knife’s edge, ready to fall head over feet into death.
“I want you to be okay,” she tells him quietly, shakily, raising one hand and pressing it to his forehead, smoothing the hair there back with the heel of her palm. “I need you to be okay, okay?”
Logan’s eyes widen, and he nods slightly. He looks so young, like a little boy. Like someone who suddenly has a lot to lose.
He kisses her once more, deeply, before he comes.
**
When he opens his eyes again, sunlight is filtering through the curtains. Logan pulls the comforter up over his head and stretches, one hand reaching for the space to his right. Instead of feeling Veronica beside him, his fingers grab at empty air. Confused, he blinks a few times, sitting up. Sure enough, she isn’t there.
Logan rubs his face with one hand and stands. Wanders out of the room, and when he crosses into the kitchen, Backup comes up to him, tail wagging happily. He pats the top of the dog’s head absentmindedly before looking up and seeing Veronica. She’s standing in front of the stove, dressed in nothing but one of oversized, wrinkled white button-down shirts, her hair pinned messily to the top of her head.
She looks over her shoulder at him and smiles, her skin flushed and berry-bright. “Hey there, sleepyhead. Thought you’d never wake up.”
With a grin, Logan sidles up behind her, slides her arms around her middle. Presses a kiss to her neck and gently bites her shoulder as she laughs and writhes away from him. “Some of us require beauty sleep, you know.”
“Beauty sleep? Right.” Veronica turns to face him, still smiling, spatula in one hand, and grabs his chin with the other. “Look at this face. You need a shave, like, yesterday.”
“Mmm.” He turns his head out of her reach and cranes his neck to peer at the pan on the stove. “Whatcha up to?”
“Pancakes,” she explains. “You know, you have a lot to learn. Sure, you may know how to surf and use a credit card and even not totally blow a poker hand once in awhile—”
“—not to mention charm the ladies with my dashing good looks and razor-sharp wit,” he interjects with a smirk.
She pointedly ignores him. “But you still have a lot to learn, if you are ever going to make it on your own. Like, how to load a dishwasher. And not leave your dirty towels on the floor. And how to do laundry. And how to cook your own meals. And, you know, basically take care of yourself like a normal person.”
“So show me,” he replies as he brushes a loose lock of hair from her face, keeping his palm cradled behind her head. “All of it.”
**
After Veronica teaches Logan how to successfully make his own pancakes (which takes a few tries, since he keeps waiting too long to flip them over and ends up burning them), they decide to clean up in the shower. He goes in first, and while he’s under the spray, she undresses and slips in with him. She’s a little shy about him viewing her body this way, under bright lighting, but the second his eyes land on her, her modesty quickly melts away.
In between wet, hot kisses, they rub soap onto one another and shampoo their hair. He presses her up against the glass door as they rinse off and kisses her until they’re both laughing and breathless. When they finally step out of the shower, they wrap towels around their bodies, and she takes the shaving cream and massages it onto his cheeks and chin. Gently slides the razor across the slopes of his face.
“You know, this makes me think you have another secret boyfriend,” he jokes as she taps the razor into the sink. “You done this before?”
“Yes,” she says, voice a little tight. “My dad. When he was in the hospital.”
They both grow quiet. Veronica thinks of her dad, of how she took care of him in the weeks of his recovery, shaving his face for him, fixing his food, doling out his pain meds. Every time she’d looked at him, it had been a reminder of what had happened. Aaron Echolls, the refrigerator, the fire. The horrifying nightmares that still plague her on some nights. How for those few, terrifying, heart-stopping moments she thought she had lost the most important person in her entire life forever.
Her heart suddenly aches; she misses her father terribly.
Logan looks away, something like shame flickering in his eyes. Veronica touches his chin and tilts it up so she can drag the razor down at a good angle.
“I don’t blame you,” she says, quietly. An offering.
He looks at her quickly, his gaze like steel. “Well, you shouldn’t. I’m not him.”
“I know,” Veronica agrees. “That’s why…”
That’s why, what? Why she came after him? Why even as she condemned him to his face, and pushed him away in her head, her heart told her otherwise? He isn’t his father. He isn’t his mother. He’s better than that; she honestly believes it. Maybe someday she’ll say as much to him.
Right now, she just finishes shaving his upper lip and then takes a wet rag, wipes the excess foam from his face before running her palms across the newly sleek, smooth skin.
“It’s why I’m here.”
It’s enough.
**
The light bulb in his room has been burned out for over a week. He usually just keeps the candles lit, and it doesn’t matter, since the only time he spends in there is when he’s sleeping or with Veronica, and neither of those activities require proper lighting.
One afternoon he walks in after a quick dip in the ocean to find Veronica standing on a stepladder, stringing cheap, tacky pink flamingo lights over the bed with duck tape. She’s stretched up on her tippy toes, face scrunched with concentration as she works. He leans against the doorway with a grin, his arms crossed, until she finally notices him.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she explains. “I thought I’d have it done before you came in.” He just stares at her, unable to suppress a wide smile, and she turns sheepish, then indignant. “What? Why are you smiling like that?”
“It’s just—you.” Logan strides up to her, scoops her off the ladder as she lets out a surprised squeal, and they both collapse on his bed. “You. You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” she says with a grin, a grin he can’t help but kiss off of her face.
**
The Laundromat is pretty much empty when they arrive, carting in three baskets of dirty laundry. Logan has never been inside of one before, which she finds amusing. It’d be almost cute, the way he has zero idea of how to work a washing appliance, if it wasn’t so pathetic. He mock-pouts when she tells him that.
She teaches him how to separate colors, how to measure out the laundry soap, how much bleach to add to a load of whites, what the Mountain Fresh fabric sheets are used for. It’s a bit difficult to get him to embrace the learning, since he has the attention span of a crack baby, but he gets it. Eventually.
They sit at one of the tables and play Five Card Stud, using spare change for the pool.
“What is that smell? Could it be… victory?” he taunts, tossing in a nickel.
Veronica sees his nickel and raises him a dime. “Don’t you think that’s a tad premature?”
“Premature?” Logan pretends to consider the thought. “No, but now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure that’s how you were conceived.”
“Shut up and play, Echolls.”
Veronica’s full house beats his three of a kind. By that time, the first load is ready to be shuffled into the dryer. Once that gets going, she hops on top of the rumbling machine, her legs swinging like a kid’s as he leans over her with a mischievous smirk.
“You’re a tease, Veronica Mars,” he teases, one hand inching up her thigh. “How am I supposed to not have my way with you right here?”
She wraps her hands around his neck and pulls him into a quick kiss. “Patience, Logan. All things improve with patience.”
**
Weeks melt into months. August has sprung on them, and she finds herself facing the calendar with dread, knowing her days are numbered. Veronica doesn’t want to think about the future, but at the same time, she can’t help but think that this isn’t going to last. School starts at the end of the month, and even if it didn’t… she misses her dad. Wallace. Her own room. She is going to have to go back, eventually.
“Logan,” she starts one evening, in the afterglow of sex, lounging under the faint pink glow of the flamingo lights. “What are you going to do?”
“Well,” he responds, pausing to kiss her stomach, “I was thinking of eating the rest of the leftover curry, and then maybe a swim. And then…” Another kiss, lower this time. “Maybe more of this. If you’re up for it.”
“No.” Veronica pulls him up by the collar of his shirt, looking him seriously in the eyes. “I mean. In general.”
Logan shifts away from her, eyes narrowing a little. “What?”
“I can’t stay here forever,” she says, one hand smoothing her hair back. “School starts soon, and—I miss my dad. He needs me around.”
“Yeah, so?” he asks, annoyed.
“So--” She stops and sighs in frustration, knowing he is being difficult on purpose. “We should start making plans. For going back to Neptune.”
“Who says I’m going back?”
Veronica looks at him carefully. “Logan, what about school? What about--”
“I’m almost eighteen,” he shoots back. “I don’t need school. I can get a job around here.”
“But Logan,” she says, “you can’t honestly just stay here.”
“Why not?” He rises off the bed, pulling back the curtains and gesturing out the window to the autumn gold dusk. “I’ve got all I need. Good surf, plenty of sun. What else could I need?”
Veronica bites back the automatic reply: What about me?
“Why do you care so much about what they think?” she questions. “Does it really matter? Logan, I…” Her voice trails off, and when Logan stays silent, she swallows the rest of that sentence. “Fine,” she continues sharply. “If you’re too much of a coward to face Neptune, then that’s fine by me.”
She doesn’t give him a chance to say anything else and instead rushes to the living room. Finds her duffel bags and begins stuffing them full of clothes and belongings. Backup lifts his head from the couch and gives her a curious look.
“Come on, boy,” she says to him. “We’re getting out of here.”
It doesn’t take long to get her things together. As she’s carrying her last bag out to the car, Logan catches her by the elbow.
“Hey,” he says to her hastily, “Veronica, wait—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She raises her chin and stares him directly in the eyes. “When you decide to grow up, you know where to find me.”
And with that, Veronica leaves the bungalow she had been calling home for nearly two months. Her last sight of it is a glimpse of Logan in the rearview mirror, his silhouette in the doorway as he watches her drive off.
**
If it were possible to die from death by hugs, Veronica would be certainly dead by the time Keith is done with her. He hugs her until she can’t breathe, and then he hugs her some more. She doesn’t mind. She’s missed him, too.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” he tells her, his hand cupping her cheek.
She smiles and says sincerely, “I am, too.”
Wallace comes over and catches her up on all of the happenings that have occurred since her mysterious absence. They sit on her bed and she realizes how much she missed her best friend. After he’s done sharing, he asks her about a million questions about her own adventures, all of which she avoids like the plague.
“I’m really not up for talking about it,” she finally tells him, and thankfully he seems to understand. Doesn’t push.
“It’s cool,” he says, and he puts on a Tupac CD and they just lay there, listening to the music for awhile.
“You happy to be back in Neptune?” Wallace asks after a long silence.
“Yes,” Veronica tells him. “I am.”
And she is. Really. It feels nice and everything, seeing everyone and being around the familiar. But that doesn’t explain why her heart hurts so much, or why she cried so hard she had to pull over when she passed into Neptune city limits.
**
It’s not too hard to get back into the swing of things. Five days before school starts, she decides to drive Backup down to the dog park. These days he deserves to be spoiled.
However, her plans come to a grinding halt when Veronica pulls out of the driveway and almost crashes into a garbage can.
Logan Echolls is standing ten feet down the road.
She slams on the brake, doing a double take before shutting the car off quickly. Backup begins barking like crazy, then worms his way through the open window and runs to Logan at full speed. He’s standing next to the X-Terra and staring in her direction as he pets the dog. When she walks over to him, her legs are like jelly.
“Logan,” she says, breathless. “What are you--?”
“Well, I had a destination, you know, before your man-killer dog attacked me,” he explains, waving one hand airily. “And also… car trouble.”
He gestures to the front left wheel. The tire is flat.
She cracks a smile despite herself. “Need some help?”
It doesn’t take long for her to put the spare on; she’s had experience. Logan hands her the tools and watches her work. Backup sits, panting, nuzzling his nose into Logan's crotch in a way that makes Veronica nearly burst into laughter. She holds back her grin and keeps working. When she stands up, finished, he gives her an impressed look as she wipes her hands on her jeans.
“You’re back in town,” she finally states, a lame attempt at casual conversation. Her heart is racing just being in his vicinity.
“Yeah,” he confirms with a shrug. “So, I met this girl. Amazing. Totally hot. The sex was great. But I realized I was really crazy about her when it turned out the conversation was even better.”
Veronica cocks her head at him. “Oh, really?”
“Mmm.” He reaches down to scratch the side of Backup's face before looking up at her again. “Turns out this chick, you know, told me to basically get over myself and get my ass in gear. Grow the fuck up already. I decided that, hey, maybe I shouldn't lose the best thing that ever happened to me. So I’m renting an apartment around here. Figured I’d need a place to crash at least until I graduate. Maybe longer.”
“So you’re staying?” she asks. “For good?”
Logan’s eyes meet hers. “For good.”
Unexpectedly, he leans down and pecks her on the cheek. It is chaste, and uncertain, and when she looks at him, he appears vaguely nervous, like he doesn’t know if he should’ve made such a bold move.
“You know,” Veronica says suddenly, “most men would at least buy me coffee for changing their tires. Some would even offer sex.”
He grins. “Veronica Mars. What would I do without you?”
She hopes that neither of them will ever find out.
++end
A/N: Okay. So this is what I imagined the bungalow to look like, for the most part. The title, if you hadn't noticed already, comes from Tupac's poem, "The Rose That Grew From Concrete," which you can read here. Blah blah, the idea of something beautiful growing somewhere so unexpected, blah blah.
Feedback is cherished/adored/etc.
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Date: 2005-07-22 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 06:05 pm (UTC)