FIC: The World is Flat (Logan, Veronica) R
Title: The World is Flat
Author: StarCrossdSparrow
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan
Rating: R for language
Warning: Character death
Chapter: 1/1
Word Count: 2700
Disclaimer: RT is the master of all things Veronica Mars. I'll put everyone back when I'm done, so please don't sue.
Spoilers: 3.20 "The Bitch is Back"
Summary: Tragedy is what brings them together every time.
Author's Note: This started out so completely different... wow. It was going to be a silly fic where Logan and Xander meet. Well, it went somewhere else entirely. Happy birthday, flinkkamingo3; I'll write you a Xander-meets-Logan fic one day! Thanks erin2326, as ever, for being a brilliant beta and for the words of encouragement when I wasn't so sure.
XxX
Veronica left for the internship with the FBI about as ready to conquer the Feds as she could have been. She'd read about them endlessly, studied every book, every article, every blog she could find. She knew their history as well as she knew her own, and damn, but she was ready to bleed blue for her country.
After twelve weeks though, she arrived back in Neptune ready to defect from the country. The FBI was nothing more than a bunch of cops who were too big for their small-town britches, too lazy to get their own damn coffee, and too self-important to realize what a crap bureaucracy they worked for. Veronica was sure J. Edgar Hoover was somewhere laughing right about now.
She went back to Hearst, but she felt adrift, directionless. Without her sights set on the FBI, what was there to work toward? She held off on declaring a major, hoping that something would trigger a love for the game again. However, photographing the bread-and-butter of the PI business sleazing their way through another affair or trying to con their insurance out of beaucoup bucks no longer had the same sparkle it once had. Nothing did.
After a few months on campus, she knew Logan had gone. It wasn't a big enough place for them both to hide, and besides, why would he stay? She struggled to hold it together with Piz, but after awhile, she just let it go. Honestly, she wasn't even sure he was hurt by their break-up. He actually seemed relieved. Wallace had come back from Africa a changed man... he had a mission, he had the vigor Veronica so desperately wanted, but couldn't find. They still hung out regularly, but she could do little more than cheer him on when he decided to return to charity work in Africa for good.
She dragged through the last three years of college, hoping it would get better. It didn't. She still made good grades, eventually deciding a criminology degree was better than nothing. She dated, but only because Mac, and by extension, Max, had insisted upon it. She never found any spark with any of the guys she went out with - it was all numb, boring, blah. But she smiled and kissed and held hands and had sex. That was what people did, she guessed.
But still, through it all, she longed for something. Something to connect her to her past, something to remind her of how her life used to be before her dreams dried up.
XxX
He fled Neptune because everything reminded him of her. The stretch of beach where she'd finally given herself to him that first time (how had she manipulated him into thinking she cared?), the building where she worked (how many times had he gone to ask for her help? How many times had he let himself be a pathetic asshole for her?), that stupid little café where she pretended normalcy (why did he think he'd win?), even his own fucking suite at the Grand was imprinted with Veronica (the hallway, the couch, the counter, the wall, the balcony, the shower, his bed) - he couldn't escape her.
He'd give anything to not have to see her everywhere. Not to have to see her and that fucking Muppet she was always clinging to - Veronica had never clung to Duncan, and she certainly hadn't clung to him. It was degrading - a cheap veneer that was so beneath her, it made Logan want to retch. Instead, he played nice, walked away.
She even haunted him when he tried to live in that old Park Avenue apartment his father kept for "business trips" to the Big Apple, and Logan never stopped paying for. He always thought he might need it.
But walking through New York City was like reliving the travelogue Veronica had regaled him with when she'd returned to Neptune (and to him). The Met reminded him of her giggling story about the little girl chasing a loose dog down the steps, heedless of the gawking tourists and bemused city folk watching her. "All that grand, awe-inspiring architecture, and one little freckle-faced girl chasing a huge black poodle caught the entire crowd," she'd laughed, shaking her head. He'd never known she wanted children until then. It hadn't scared him like it should have.
Fifth Avenue sent his mind spinning out of control. Veronica would look great in that dress. Or Can people get married in Saint Patrick's? And especially That ring would suit her perfectly. He'd had to stop himself several times from going into Tiffany's just to buy her something.
He found dozens of places in Tribeca and SoHo she'd have loved. He imagined strolling through Central Park with her. He even thought of her when he was at the insanely expensive apartment - she'd have loved the view.
He didn't last long in New York. Boston either. Or Chicago. He finally gave up. There was obviously no running. Every city was a place she'd wanted to visit. Every country was a place he wanted to take her. He never missed home exactly (how can someone miss something they never had?), but he did miss the Pacific. In the end, the only thing that didn't remind him of Veronica was the damn ocean. It was his only escape, so he took it.
Oahu's Northshore - it was supposed to have the best surfing. He bought (couldn't sign another damn lease - not again) a condo overlooking the ocean in Waialua. Three years and almost eight thousand cumulative miles separated him from Neptune, California. His first time out in the water, he never thought of Veronica - not once.
XxX
Veronica had more than her share of Worst Days Ever. For most people, a Worst Day Ever constituted a bad blow out, a flat tire, and a cell phone gone missing. For Veronica, it entailed a best friend found murdered, waking up with no underwear and no memory, gang members, guns, and rooftop suicides. However, the worst of the worst started when she was in the second semester of graduate coursework at Stanford (finally), having finally pushed through her malaise and come out to carve a niche for herself amongst new friends in academia. She got a phone call from a Neptune exchange; her dad had collapsed outside their apartment.
She rushed home, of course, though he told her not to come. It was a simple surgery, they'd said, one that carried few risks. It could even be done outpatient, they'd reassured her, all smiles and confidence. She sat anxiously in the waiting room, trying not to look up every time the social worker came in to give another family the good news of success...or the bad news that something had gone wrong.
And when the social worker had come to sit with her, his first question had been, "Do you have someone you can call?"
The next hour had gone by in a blur of tears. She clutched her father's hand as she sobbed goodbye to his unconscious form as they let him die in the ICU, she wept harder as she signed the forms to release his organs to people in need, and she finally broke down, unable to speak for crying, and they'd called someone to take her home.
XxX
He had relaxed into a simple life. He knew a few people in town; no one he was close enough to tell everything to, but a couple he could have a beer with, even have over every Sunday for the 49ers games. He had a few girls he saw regularly enough that he knew he could count on them when times got too hard, but they all knew they'd never get more from him than a few good dates, a few laughs, and a few weeks of pleasure. No one really complained.
He was relaxing on his sofa after a rough morning on the waves. He surfed less and less often (he no longer had anything to escape from), but when he did he did go out, he pushed himself hard. He was half asleep when he saw the name Keith Mars on the CNN crawl. He blinked and sat up. Surely he'd been wrong. But he waited another forty-five minutes through the same five stories repeated by three different anchors until it came up again.
Keith Mars died on Wednesday following complications in a bypass surgery. Mars was the former sheriff of Balboa County, CA, and co-author of 2005's Murder in a Small Town about the death of Lilly Kane. Lilly Kane was... Logan stopped reading. He knew who Lilly Kane was, even if the rest of the CNN-viewing public had stopped caring in the intervening years since her death.
He packed hastily and booked the first flight back to the mainland.
XxX
She greeted the mourners. She shook hands with people she hardly recognized, hugged people she didn't know, made small talk with people she recognized. Veronica repeated herself a thousand times during the first viewing - Thank you for coming. Yes, I'll miss him too. Thank you for coming. Yes, I'll miss him too. Thank you for coming yes I'll miss him too. Thankyouforcomingyesi'llmisshimtoo. It was a bleeding mantra. By six o'clock, she wasn't sure she could do it again. But she did.
Mac and Cliff were a great help to her, fielding nosy neighbors and people from town who were basically sightseeing at the funeral. Wallace had called at some point; he was trying to get home. But Veronica told him to stay, there was nothing he could do. He was important where he was. She'd see him soon. Promises, promises. Alicia had appointed herself Veronica's bodyguard, scaring off those who sneaked by Mac and Cliff, and held her tight when she looked like she might fall.
But it didn't matter, nothing did. Standing at the foot of her father's coffin - his fucking coffin - was too real. It was different from when she'd thought he'd died in that airplane; this time, there was no one to blame. A goddamned heart attack had felled her fearless father. She could hardly comprehend it. She kept waiting to wake up from the dream, kept hoping for... bacon.
She felt Alicia's calming touch fade away - someone had slipped through the fortress, was standing in front of her. "Thank you for coming," she began. She swiped at a tear; even talking made her cry. When would she fucking dry up? She looked up, waiting for whatever flat condolence the person was going to recite from his Hallmark script. Logan.
She collapsed against him, fisting his shirt in her hands.
XxX
After it was over, she disappeared into her bedroom for days on end. Sometimes she'd eat what he left on the counter for her, sometimes she didn't. He only knew she was still alive when he heard her in the bathroom throwing up. He was too afraid to check on her, to ask her any questions. He just guarded her fiercely against people who called, washed the clothes and towels he occasionally found in the bathroom, and waited.
XxX
When she finally emerged from the misery she'd drowned herself in, she found Logan sprawled on her sofa. He was pale, drawn, and he looked too thin as he lay quietly reading a book. She was almost afraid to speak - she knew it'd been him that had taken care of her for the past week, but she hadn't so much as said hello to him since the... since that day.
She stood, toying with the sash from her robe, and cleared her throat. Logan scrambled into a sitting position. "Are you okay? Do you need something?" The words were out of his mouth so quickly, and he was half-standing by the time she answered.
"Hi."
XxX
They coexisted without a verbal contract. He never asked to stay, she never asked him to leave. He cooked sometimes, and sometimes she did. They never went anywhere other than the grocery store, choosing to watch Pay Per View movies and play Uno. They never talked about anything important, just the inanities of their years apart. He told her about surfing in Hawaii, and she told him about earning her law degree. Both pretended not to want more.
XxX
They went for nearly two months like that; Veronica started to feel like a leech. As she grew stronger, she swore Logan was deteriorating before her eyes. He all but lost his mischievous smirk, and he was careful of his words around her. She appreciated it, but she knew it wasn't him.
One day, she overheard him on the phone, negotiating the sale of his Hawaiian home. When she confronted him, he seemed at a loss.
"I'd give up anything for you, Veronica. You know I would. I will."
"I don't want you to. Please go home to Hawaii. You've done more than enough."
"Don't say that, Veronica. Please."
"I can't make you give up your life for me!" she came back, the vehemence in her voice surprising her. "I can't be that girl anymore, I can't be the one who keeps waiting for you to change. Because it's not you who needs to change, it's me, okay? Now, just go!"
He stepped toward her, but she held up her hand to stop him.
"Veronica," he began, his voice a plea.
"Go."
XxX
She packed up the last of the apartment fourteen weeks to the day after Keith was buried. She was a little sorry to leave it - it looked so large and unloved as the movers took the last of the boxes to the truck.
She swept up the detritus of her life into a little pile in the kitchen - everything that had missed a packing box, bag, or envelope. It didn't amount to much but a pile of crumpled paper, a few Cheerios, a couple bobby pins, a handful of lost pennies, and a whole lot of dust. Still, Veronica sat down on the floor and sifted through it - her last goodbye to the place she'd loathed, but where she and her dad had grown closer than she ever could have hoped after Lianne left them.
At the bottom of the pile, she found a Chinese fortune; she recognized it on sight.
Duncan flittered briefly through her mind - how was he? Lilly? She'd be, what? Six? Seven? - but Logan pushed those thoughts out of her mind. He'd left the apartment without an argument that last time; he'd just looked resigned.
True love stories never have endings.
She sank against the kitchen island and sobbed amongst the dust bunnies.
XxX
He went back to surfing with renewed vigor; he was in the ocean every day it wasn't hailing. Sometimes he stayed out on the water hours past midday, getting sunburnt and worn out. His fellow surfers respected him; a couple even hung around to watch long after they'd given up for the day. He was getting very good - much better than the lazy guy he'd been with Dick, paddling out into the sunrise to trash talk each other and pound a case of beer. It wasn't about that anymore.
It was almost four o'clock by the time he dragged his weary ass back up to the house. His shoulders ached, and he was bleeding from his forearm where he'd been dragged over something sharp under the water.
He'd just stripped his wetsuit to the waist and gotten the peroxide from the fridge when the doorbell chimed. Fucking timing, always.
He snatched a paper towel from the roll to staunch the blood, flowing freely now that the suit wasn't holding his wound shut. He wrenched open the door, expecting his neighbor asking to "borrow" a sixer from the cooler - the bum never bought his own beer.
Instead, it was Veronica.
"Hi."
He blinked. "Hey."
She shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the strap of her bag. "Uh, can I... you're bleeding."
Logan glanced down; the paper towel was red through. "Yeah."
"Let me fix it?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but found it was hard to talk. Instead, he just nodded and stepped back to let her in.
XxX
Author: StarCrossdSparrow
Pairing/Characters: Veronica, Logan
Rating: R for language
Warning: Character death
Chapter: 1/1
Word Count: 2700
Disclaimer: RT is the master of all things Veronica Mars. I'll put everyone back when I'm done, so please don't sue.
Spoilers: 3.20 "The Bitch is Back"
Summary: Tragedy is what brings them together every time.
Author's Note: This started out so completely different... wow. It was going to be a silly fic where Logan and Xander meet. Well, it went somewhere else entirely. Happy birthday, flinkkamingo3; I'll write you a Xander-meets-Logan fic one day! Thanks erin2326, as ever, for being a brilliant beta and for the words of encouragement when I wasn't so sure.
XxX
Veronica left for the internship with the FBI about as ready to conquer the Feds as she could have been. She'd read about them endlessly, studied every book, every article, every blog she could find. She knew their history as well as she knew her own, and damn, but she was ready to bleed blue for her country.
After twelve weeks though, she arrived back in Neptune ready to defect from the country. The FBI was nothing more than a bunch of cops who were too big for their small-town britches, too lazy to get their own damn coffee, and too self-important to realize what a crap bureaucracy they worked for. Veronica was sure J. Edgar Hoover was somewhere laughing right about now.
She went back to Hearst, but she felt adrift, directionless. Without her sights set on the FBI, what was there to work toward? She held off on declaring a major, hoping that something would trigger a love for the game again. However, photographing the bread-and-butter of the PI business sleazing their way through another affair or trying to con their insurance out of beaucoup bucks no longer had the same sparkle it once had. Nothing did.
After a few months on campus, she knew Logan had gone. It wasn't a big enough place for them both to hide, and besides, why would he stay? She struggled to hold it together with Piz, but after awhile, she just let it go. Honestly, she wasn't even sure he was hurt by their break-up. He actually seemed relieved. Wallace had come back from Africa a changed man... he had a mission, he had the vigor Veronica so desperately wanted, but couldn't find. They still hung out regularly, but she could do little more than cheer him on when he decided to return to charity work in Africa for good.
She dragged through the last three years of college, hoping it would get better. It didn't. She still made good grades, eventually deciding a criminology degree was better than nothing. She dated, but only because Mac, and by extension, Max, had insisted upon it. She never found any spark with any of the guys she went out with - it was all numb, boring, blah. But she smiled and kissed and held hands and had sex. That was what people did, she guessed.
But still, through it all, she longed for something. Something to connect her to her past, something to remind her of how her life used to be before her dreams dried up.
XxX
He fled Neptune because everything reminded him of her. The stretch of beach where she'd finally given herself to him that first time (how had she manipulated him into thinking she cared?), the building where she worked (how many times had he gone to ask for her help? How many times had he let himself be a pathetic asshole for her?), that stupid little café where she pretended normalcy (why did he think he'd win?), even his own fucking suite at the Grand was imprinted with Veronica (the hallway, the couch, the counter, the wall, the balcony, the shower, his bed) - he couldn't escape her.
He'd give anything to not have to see her everywhere. Not to have to see her and that fucking Muppet she was always clinging to - Veronica had never clung to Duncan, and she certainly hadn't clung to him. It was degrading - a cheap veneer that was so beneath her, it made Logan want to retch. Instead, he played nice, walked away.
She even haunted him when he tried to live in that old Park Avenue apartment his father kept for "business trips" to the Big Apple, and Logan never stopped paying for. He always thought he might need it.
But walking through New York City was like reliving the travelogue Veronica had regaled him with when she'd returned to Neptune (and to him). The Met reminded him of her giggling story about the little girl chasing a loose dog down the steps, heedless of the gawking tourists and bemused city folk watching her. "All that grand, awe-inspiring architecture, and one little freckle-faced girl chasing a huge black poodle caught the entire crowd," she'd laughed, shaking her head. He'd never known she wanted children until then. It hadn't scared him like it should have.
Fifth Avenue sent his mind spinning out of control. Veronica would look great in that dress. Or Can people get married in Saint Patrick's? And especially That ring would suit her perfectly. He'd had to stop himself several times from going into Tiffany's just to buy her something.
He found dozens of places in Tribeca and SoHo she'd have loved. He imagined strolling through Central Park with her. He even thought of her when he was at the insanely expensive apartment - she'd have loved the view.
He didn't last long in New York. Boston either. Or Chicago. He finally gave up. There was obviously no running. Every city was a place she'd wanted to visit. Every country was a place he wanted to take her. He never missed home exactly (how can someone miss something they never had?), but he did miss the Pacific. In the end, the only thing that didn't remind him of Veronica was the damn ocean. It was his only escape, so he took it.
Oahu's Northshore - it was supposed to have the best surfing. He bought (couldn't sign another damn lease - not again) a condo overlooking the ocean in Waialua. Three years and almost eight thousand cumulative miles separated him from Neptune, California. His first time out in the water, he never thought of Veronica - not once.
XxX
Veronica had more than her share of Worst Days Ever. For most people, a Worst Day Ever constituted a bad blow out, a flat tire, and a cell phone gone missing. For Veronica, it entailed a best friend found murdered, waking up with no underwear and no memory, gang members, guns, and rooftop suicides. However, the worst of the worst started when she was in the second semester of graduate coursework at Stanford (finally), having finally pushed through her malaise and come out to carve a niche for herself amongst new friends in academia. She got a phone call from a Neptune exchange; her dad had collapsed outside their apartment.
She rushed home, of course, though he told her not to come. It was a simple surgery, they'd said, one that carried few risks. It could even be done outpatient, they'd reassured her, all smiles and confidence. She sat anxiously in the waiting room, trying not to look up every time the social worker came in to give another family the good news of success...or the bad news that something had gone wrong.
And when the social worker had come to sit with her, his first question had been, "Do you have someone you can call?"
The next hour had gone by in a blur of tears. She clutched her father's hand as she sobbed goodbye to his unconscious form as they let him die in the ICU, she wept harder as she signed the forms to release his organs to people in need, and she finally broke down, unable to speak for crying, and they'd called someone to take her home.
XxX
He had relaxed into a simple life. He knew a few people in town; no one he was close enough to tell everything to, but a couple he could have a beer with, even have over every Sunday for the 49ers games. He had a few girls he saw regularly enough that he knew he could count on them when times got too hard, but they all knew they'd never get more from him than a few good dates, a few laughs, and a few weeks of pleasure. No one really complained.
He was relaxing on his sofa after a rough morning on the waves. He surfed less and less often (he no longer had anything to escape from), but when he did he did go out, he pushed himself hard. He was half asleep when he saw the name Keith Mars on the CNN crawl. He blinked and sat up. Surely he'd been wrong. But he waited another forty-five minutes through the same five stories repeated by three different anchors until it came up again.
Keith Mars died on Wednesday following complications in a bypass surgery. Mars was the former sheriff of Balboa County, CA, and co-author of 2005's Murder in a Small Town about the death of Lilly Kane. Lilly Kane was... Logan stopped reading. He knew who Lilly Kane was, even if the rest of the CNN-viewing public had stopped caring in the intervening years since her death.
He packed hastily and booked the first flight back to the mainland.
XxX
She greeted the mourners. She shook hands with people she hardly recognized, hugged people she didn't know, made small talk with people she recognized. Veronica repeated herself a thousand times during the first viewing - Thank you for coming. Yes, I'll miss him too. Thank you for coming. Yes, I'll miss him too. Thank you for coming yes I'll miss him too. Thankyouforcomingyesi'llmisshimtoo. It was a bleeding mantra. By six o'clock, she wasn't sure she could do it again. But she did.
Mac and Cliff were a great help to her, fielding nosy neighbors and people from town who were basically sightseeing at the funeral. Wallace had called at some point; he was trying to get home. But Veronica told him to stay, there was nothing he could do. He was important where he was. She'd see him soon. Promises, promises. Alicia had appointed herself Veronica's bodyguard, scaring off those who sneaked by Mac and Cliff, and held her tight when she looked like she might fall.
But it didn't matter, nothing did. Standing at the foot of her father's coffin - his fucking coffin - was too real. It was different from when she'd thought he'd died in that airplane; this time, there was no one to blame. A goddamned heart attack had felled her fearless father. She could hardly comprehend it. She kept waiting to wake up from the dream, kept hoping for... bacon.
She felt Alicia's calming touch fade away - someone had slipped through the fortress, was standing in front of her. "Thank you for coming," she began. She swiped at a tear; even talking made her cry. When would she fucking dry up? She looked up, waiting for whatever flat condolence the person was going to recite from his Hallmark script. Logan.
She collapsed against him, fisting his shirt in her hands.
XxX
After it was over, she disappeared into her bedroom for days on end. Sometimes she'd eat what he left on the counter for her, sometimes she didn't. He only knew she was still alive when he heard her in the bathroom throwing up. He was too afraid to check on her, to ask her any questions. He just guarded her fiercely against people who called, washed the clothes and towels he occasionally found in the bathroom, and waited.
XxX
When she finally emerged from the misery she'd drowned herself in, she found Logan sprawled on her sofa. He was pale, drawn, and he looked too thin as he lay quietly reading a book. She was almost afraid to speak - she knew it'd been him that had taken care of her for the past week, but she hadn't so much as said hello to him since the... since that day.
She stood, toying with the sash from her robe, and cleared her throat. Logan scrambled into a sitting position. "Are you okay? Do you need something?" The words were out of his mouth so quickly, and he was half-standing by the time she answered.
"Hi."
XxX
They coexisted without a verbal contract. He never asked to stay, she never asked him to leave. He cooked sometimes, and sometimes she did. They never went anywhere other than the grocery store, choosing to watch Pay Per View movies and play Uno. They never talked about anything important, just the inanities of their years apart. He told her about surfing in Hawaii, and she told him about earning her law degree. Both pretended not to want more.
XxX
They went for nearly two months like that; Veronica started to feel like a leech. As she grew stronger, she swore Logan was deteriorating before her eyes. He all but lost his mischievous smirk, and he was careful of his words around her. She appreciated it, but she knew it wasn't him.
One day, she overheard him on the phone, negotiating the sale of his Hawaiian home. When she confronted him, he seemed at a loss.
"I'd give up anything for you, Veronica. You know I would. I will."
"I don't want you to. Please go home to Hawaii. You've done more than enough."
"Don't say that, Veronica. Please."
"I can't make you give up your life for me!" she came back, the vehemence in her voice surprising her. "I can't be that girl anymore, I can't be the one who keeps waiting for you to change. Because it's not you who needs to change, it's me, okay? Now, just go!"
He stepped toward her, but she held up her hand to stop him.
"Veronica," he began, his voice a plea.
"Go."
XxX
She packed up the last of the apartment fourteen weeks to the day after Keith was buried. She was a little sorry to leave it - it looked so large and unloved as the movers took the last of the boxes to the truck.
She swept up the detritus of her life into a little pile in the kitchen - everything that had missed a packing box, bag, or envelope. It didn't amount to much but a pile of crumpled paper, a few Cheerios, a couple bobby pins, a handful of lost pennies, and a whole lot of dust. Still, Veronica sat down on the floor and sifted through it - her last goodbye to the place she'd loathed, but where she and her dad had grown closer than she ever could have hoped after Lianne left them.
At the bottom of the pile, she found a Chinese fortune; she recognized it on sight.
Duncan flittered briefly through her mind - how was he? Lilly? She'd be, what? Six? Seven? - but Logan pushed those thoughts out of her mind. He'd left the apartment without an argument that last time; he'd just looked resigned.
True love stories never have endings.
She sank against the kitchen island and sobbed amongst the dust bunnies.
XxX
He went back to surfing with renewed vigor; he was in the ocean every day it wasn't hailing. Sometimes he stayed out on the water hours past midday, getting sunburnt and worn out. His fellow surfers respected him; a couple even hung around to watch long after they'd given up for the day. He was getting very good - much better than the lazy guy he'd been with Dick, paddling out into the sunrise to trash talk each other and pound a case of beer. It wasn't about that anymore.
It was almost four o'clock by the time he dragged his weary ass back up to the house. His shoulders ached, and he was bleeding from his forearm where he'd been dragged over something sharp under the water.
He'd just stripped his wetsuit to the waist and gotten the peroxide from the fridge when the doorbell chimed. Fucking timing, always.
He snatched a paper towel from the roll to staunch the blood, flowing freely now that the suit wasn't holding his wound shut. He wrenched open the door, expecting his neighbor asking to "borrow" a sixer from the cooler - the bum never bought his own beer.
Instead, it was Veronica.
"Hi."
He blinked. "Hey."
She shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the strap of her bag. "Uh, can I... you're bleeding."
Logan glanced down; the paper towel was red through. "Yeah."
"Let me fix it?"
He opened his mouth to answer, but found it was hard to talk. Instead, he just nodded and stepped back to let her in.
XxX