Hurry Up and Wait (Veronica / Logan) PG-13
Title: Hurry Up and Wait
Author: tmt_catalyst
Pairing/Character: Logan / Veronica
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,820
Summary: If someone asked her to guess, Veronica would’ve bet that she’d hear about Logan in the tabloids.
Spoilers/Warnings: First season / Minor NITW
Author’s Note: Thanks to sweetumms33 for the beta. This is being used to fill my “Choices” prompt on fanfic100.
Veronica expects a lot when she breaks up with Logan. She rummages through what she thinks she knows of him, and decides that, however he retaliates, it will be swift, lack finesse, and probably hurt everyone involved.
She spends her time planning ways to avoid him, condemning him for things she’s only imagined he’ll do, and, somehow, it makes it all hurt a little less. She has a focus, something to plan and prepare for, and the background all turns blurry.
A week passes - lulled by the tedium of work and summer - before she realizes that nothing has happened. No pipe bombs have been found in her laundry hamper, no bananas were jammed in her exhaust pipe. Both of the LeBaron’s shiny new headlights are, in fact, still shiny and new.
And she hasn’t so much as seen Logan in seven days.
. . .
Duncan’s been around all summer, fading into the bits and pieces of Veronica’s life. First it’s work, and he blurs the edges of her vision in his corner booth. Then he’s at the rental store, pacing between comedy and action. Then he’s at the movie theater, offering a practiced smile as Veronica loops her arm through Wallace’s.
It happens so slowly that she almost doesn’t notice when he stops blending and she begins to focus.
For the first time all summer, she declines Wallace’s offer of a ride to work. She’s spent weeks coaxing him into chauffeuring her around town, spending large chunks of her paychecks on crème filled bribes. When she turns him down, a full fifteen seconds of silence pass between their cell phones.
”You got plans?” he asks.
“Just work,” she answers. And she finds herself believing it. Just work. No monsters, no vengeance, no motives. Just work.
Just life. Moving on.
. . .
If someone asked her to guess, Veronica would’ve bet that she’d hear about Logan in the tabloids. Maybe, on an ambitious day, in the evening news.
Three weeks after their breakup, she would’ve expected to hear something. Logan was anything but discreet, and, with his father still awaiting trial, he was bound to be stuck under someone’s surveillance.
But there was nothing. Just a stony silence that seemed even more foreboding than her own expectant muses.
So, when she first takes her break at Duncan’s table, she tells herself that it’s harmless. He’s just a friend (used to be? could be?) and she just needs something innocent and demure to remind her that sometimes the silence can be sweet instead of sinister.
She doesn’t want to fish for clues about Logan, about where he is and what he’s doing, but she finds herself poking discreetly anyway. It’s a futile attempt, and she knows that all too well. Duncan may be the only person who actually knows less about Logan than she does.
. . .
It’s nearly August when Mac turns up on her doorstep, shoulders slumped and a fresh patch of red stained through her hair.
“Um. Hello?” Veronica offers when Mac only shifts her weight in greeting.
“I’m not antisocial, right?” Mac shifts her weight again, blurting out the words as if she’s been carrying them unsteadily along her lips for a while now. “I mean, I have friends. I. . . I do things.”
“Okay.” Veronica pulls the door open, attempting to draw Mac inside. “Can we rewind until I understand what’s going on?”
“My father called me antisocial,” she explains. “Right to my face. And then he puts two hundred dollars in my hand, and tells me to go get myself ‘ready for school.’” She steps into the Mars’ living room, but chooses to pace rather than sit.
“The last time I asked my father for money, he made me mow the lawn for three weeks, and clean my little brother’s room.” She looks up at Veronica. “For fifty bucks. Is there something wrong with me? Did I, like, break out into a deadly looking rash without noticing, or. . .?”
“Do you want me look into it?” Veronica hasn’t had a case all summer, and her fingers itch with the promise of it, but, just as quickly, Mac shoots it down.
“No, I’m sure it’s nothing.” Her gaze is skitterish as it passes over Veronica’s face, and it’s painfully obvious that she’s thinking about the last time she asked for Veronica’s help. “Actually, I just. . . came to invite you to the mall.” She pauses, grimacing noticeably before adding, “buddy.”
“Yeah. We’ll work on that.”
. . .
“Did you hear about that Echolls kid?” They’re the words Veronica has been expecting almost all summer, but somehow filtering from behind the flimsy dressing room curtain, they catch her off-guard.
“Did he kill another Mexican?” another voice asks snidely.
Veronica lowers herself to the stool, and the shirt she had been trying on falls to her lap.
“No, I heard split from his dad.” There’s a pause and Veronica hears clothes moving. “Not that I blame him or anything; his dad’s obviously a psycho. But what the hell is it with Hollywood? All the rest of us have to deal with our nut job families.”
”Whatever,” the second girl scoffs. “I heard that the whole tape thing was just, like, a scam. Who really believes that Aaron Echolls would screw with skanky Lilly Kane?”
Veronica tunes them out then, pulling her own tee shirt on and throwing everything else into the no pile.
Mac is rummaging through a rack and scowls when Veronica returns empty-handed. “How are you teaching me to shop when you turn everything down?”
Veronica shakes her head, trying to push the girls’ voices out of her head. “I think I’m a bit distracted today. Can we do this later?”
Anxious for any reason to be away from the mall, Mac agrees.
Fifteen minutes later, when it’s obvious that Veronica’s conversational skills also seem to be in need of a tune up, Mac is scrambling for something to say. “I hear your birthday’s coming up.”
Veronica jumps, as if she’d forgotten there was someone else in the car, and then nods. “Yeah. The big one-eight.”
“Doing anything special?”
A flicker of melancholy trails over her face before she answers. “Oh, you know, gambling and lots of promiscuous sex with older men. The usual.”
“Make sure it’s a rich one that knocks you up,” Mac tells her, then, at Veronica incredulous look, she adds, “It’s my aunt’s pearl of wisdom.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
. . .
Regardless of Mac’s little reminder, Veronica’s birthday still sneaks up on her. With her father on the book tour, and Wallace joining an off-season basketball team, there hadn’t been anyone to remind her. Even Mac had disappeared, making it her personal quest to prove that she does, in fact, socialize. With more than one person. Who she hasn’t met online.
Meanwhile, Duncan has become such a constant, that he doesn’t identify the days for her either. He’s just always there, and the days could’ve all been the same for all that Veronica noticed them.
On her birthday, she wakes up to the stinky tongue of a very over-eager pit bull. She groans, turning her face into the pillow to avoid him as she pushes ineffectively at his chest.
“Backup, my bed is not made for company. Get out.”
“You’ll never know how happy those words make me, Veronica. Don’t ever forget them.”
At the sound of her father’s voice, Veronica bolts up, nearly throwing her dog to the ground. Backup whimpers, then shuffles his way to the door.
“You’re home?” she asks, pulling him into a hug.
“Would I miss my daughter’s birthday?”
She furrows her brow. “Yes. Fifth grade.”
“Triple homicide,” he counters. “And I was home before the party ended.”
“Only because I had a sleepover.”
He shakes his head. “You always get so focused on the details.” He pushes her a step away from him. “Now, you should go shower, because you smell like dog, and that won’t work with the day I’ve planned for you.”
Her alarm clock chooses that moment to ring. And remind her.
“I have to work.”
“On your birthday?” her father asks. “Nonsense.”
She nods her head in a decidedly solemn fashion. “Afraid so. Only the three hour shift, though, so I’ll be done this afternoon.”
“Well, I’ll give you a ride.” He yawns, then tries to cover it with a cough. “But maybe I’ll nap while you shower.”
“You’re exhausted and jet lagged,” she tells him. “Go to bed. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”
. . .
Since the unexpected - though short - reemergence of Logan on Neptune’s gossip boards, Veronica has learned things. News of him doesn’t come easy anymore; he’s not been brash and outlandish like the memories she pictures when she feels weak or cornered. She can’t just hover in a corner beside a table of 09ers and listen. She has to work for it now.
The first thing she learns: Logan isn’t an 09er anymore. At least, not in the technical sense of the word. He’s given up residence in the most desired neighborhood in town to, from what she’s heard, move into a house the size of his old bedroom. Then again, from what she’s heard, he can jump out the window and straight into the ocean. Which, even in Neptune, is doubtful.
Also, he’s no longer under his father’s wing. She likes to believe she had a little hand in that, at least for the few moments when she can convince herself that he ever listened to her. Because she had been the one that had told him to get off his ass and file for emancipation while popular opinion believed that he was the pawn in his father’s sick and twisted world. Hollywood was fickle, and so was America. He needed every advantage he could get.
She doesn’t know where his money is coming from. Everything of his father’s is frozen, not that she really thinks he would have much access to that anyway. She doubts that Aaron would’ve refrained from canceling Logan’s AmEx after he got the emancipation papers.
From a tabloid, she learns that Trina is living off the trust fund that she had never bothered dipping into. And life was oh, so hard for her because of it.
Logan’s trust funds won’t be unlocked for months still, regardless of the emancipation. But she knows he isn’t working. Legally.
As she pulls into the parking lot of the Hut, Veronica mutters every nasty word she’s ever heard under her breath, because she knows exactly who would know if Logan had picked up a less respected trade. But Weevil hasn’t spoken to her in months. Even when two of his boys had been picked up carrying a small pharmacy on their bikes, he’d never turned up.
Yeah, the summer had been fucked up.
It wasn’t exactly news.
And it still leaves her at square one.
What the hell was Logan doing? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
. . .
Duncan isn’t the first thing that Veronica notices anymore. At first, she could feel him there, could feel when his eyes picked up from whatever he was reading and landed on her. A month ago, she would have walked into the room and picked him out, telling herself it was just so he couldn’t catch her off-guard.
She doesn’t look for him anymore. He’s simply a part of the background, and she’s hardly even watching what’s happening right in front of her.
She only mentions that it’s her birthday once, when a coworker chastises her for spilling coffee grounds across the counter.
“Give me a break; it’s my birthday. And I’m working.”
Veronica isn’t sure that Lexi has a smile that looks real, so she’s not offended by the horribly plastic recreation that the girl offers. “Really? Well, happy birthday. Do you have any fun plans? Is your boyfriend taking you somewhere?” Lexi waggles her eyebrows in Duncan’s direction in a gesture that Veronica hopes will appear more discreet at a distance.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she tells her, perching a tray on her shoulder. Her turned back effectively ends the conversation.
At first, she doesn’t notice the box Duncan leaves on the table. She’s about to sweep it into the trash when Lexi gasps over her shoulder.
“Yeah, he’s not your boyfriend,” she comments, her voice dripping venom-less sarcasm. When Veronica reaches for the boy, Lexi is still peering over her shoulder. “I bet it’s jewelry. That boy has more money than God.”
Veronica tunes her out, pulling the ribbon away and peeling back the lid of the box.
“A fortune cookie?” Lexi asks. “What the hell? Dump him; that’s lame.” And now she’s bored, drifting away to tend to the customers.
But it has to be more, and Veronica knows it. Cracking the shell, she fumbles as the fortune falls for the floor.
“Damn it, Duncan,” she mumbles, reading the words for a second time. “You couldn’t just leave it alone.”
But she’s already peeling her apron off, throwing it under the counter in a haphazard way that would infuriate her manager. She grabs Lexi by the elbow a dozen steps from the door.
“Please cover the rest of my shift for me.”
“Veronica. . . ”
“It’s my birthday,” she pleads, wearing the face that she used when she wanted to borrow Wallace’s Chapelle’s Show DVDs. “And I completely forgot that I made plans with someone already.”
“Someone? Like, a special someone?”
“Will you ever find out if I’m here working?”
It only takes Lexi a moment to consider that. “Go; it’s your birthday.” Veronica’s out the door before Lexi’s lips finish moving.
Where she walks promptly into Duncan’s pacing form.
“Oomph,” she manages, gripping the sleeve of his sweater to keep from toppling backwards.
“I thought, maybe, you didn’t like it,” Duncan tells her, his hand firmly on her elbow in an attempt to keep her steady. She steps back quickly, blinking rapidly as she tries to find her place in this conversation.
Duncan’s eyes narrow on hers. “You are here because of the fortune cookie, right?”
“Well. . .” Veronica pieces words together in her head, but, for once, her knack for fabrication fails her. If she says yes, he’ll think she’s there for him. If she says no, he’ll be crushed.
“I didn’t know what else to get you,” he explains. “It’s cheesy; I know, and you think it’s stupid. You’re not really the easiest person to shop for, though.” He pauses. “Happy birthday.”
Well, that’s a plan she hadn’t come to yet. Say nothing; let him fill in the blanks.
“So, do you want to go do something? Do you already have plans?”
“I’m actually just on my way to meet my dad,” she explains, the lies falling easily from her tongue again. “He’s got something cooked up.”
Duncan’s expression falls just a touch at that, but he masks it quickly. “Well, I’ll give you a call sometime. Maybe we can see each other somewhere where you don’t have to take my order.”
She cracks a smile. “Yeah, we’ll talk. But I’ve got to go now, or I’m going to be late.”
Because it’s time for me to walk away from you.
. . .
When she’s really trying, it’s not hard for Veronica to find him. Half an hour, and she’s parked on the curb beside his hideous yellow extravaganza of a car.
In June, she spent two hours in an airport teaching her father how to send and read text messages on his cell phone. She thought it was for him, so that he could remind her of all the stupid things he thought she would forget while he was sitting behind a table doing book signings in New York. Now, she supposes that it has other uses too.
Lexi ditched work. Gotta take her shift. Will call when relief arrives. Sorry.
Then she turns her phone on silent, straightens her back, and steps out of the car.
“Come to bring me a housewarming present.” She jumps at the sound of his voice, and turns to find him leaning on the back of her car. She must be slipping if she didn’t notice him get that close.
Irrationally, she flashes to his father’s face in her rearview mirror, and her heart pounds.
“You suck” is the best response she can find, under the circumstances.
“The soccer team says that’s your job.”
“Wow, I must’ve been driving pretty fast if I drove straight into last year.”
“Now that’s more like it,” he tells her. “And, FYI, just because it’s not gated and guarded” - he gestures to the house - “doesn’t mean that I don’t see everyone who pulls up.” His voice drops to a stage whisper and he takes a step closer. “There are cameras everywhere.”
At this proximity, she can smell the vodka on his breath.
“Good god, Logan. Are you drinking rubbing alcohol now?”
“Only if it comes in a fancy bottle.”
“Logan, if the court finds out. . .”
“Then I’m fucked,” he cuts in. “And even if they don’t, my dad still fucked my girlfriend, and you still wouldn’t fuck me.” He shrugs. “And such is life. In fact, I think I’ll be getting back to that now.” Without glancing back at her, he starts for the door.
“Damn it, Logan,” Veronica mutters, and then follows after him.
. . .
The house is small by Logan’s standards. On the PCH, it would probably house a family of four comfortably, but Logan manages to make as little use of the space as possible.
“A tornado couldn’t do damage like this,” Veronica observes, kicking a bundle of packing bubbles out of her way. Logan stumbles through the mess with his usual tact and grace, leaving a trail of crashes and mumbles for Veronica to follow. She finds that if she focuses all of her attention on the sounds she uses to follow him, her eyes have less time to focus on the paraphernalia littering the room. The situation seems much more manageable if she doesn’t really know what’s happening here.
Veronica rounds a corner, and the sounds of gunfire cover Logan’s tracks. She traces it to what was probably supposed to be the entertainment room, and finds Logan as he drops onto a beanbag chair.
“Fuck,” he complains when he looks up at the television. “Damn pause.” A moment later the game over screen flashes over his character’s corpse. Veronica stumbles toward the television, managing to reach the power button just as Logan catches the reset button on the consol.
“Veronica?” He looks confused for a second, as if he’d actually believed that she would’ve just climbed back into her car and driven away. Then his face hardens. “If you’re staying, the cooler’s running low on beer. You should probably get on that.”
“What the hell are you doing, Logan?” she asks as he attempts to angle the remote around her.
“Like, right now, or are you actually interested in the state of my being?” He manages to worm around her and get the screen back on. She clicks the power again, then flattens her palm against the remote reader.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” She pushes a row of empty bottles away, and then settles uncomfortably on the floor. “They gave you a chance, Logan. I’m fairly certain the judge didn’t grant you emancipation so that you could enjoy Halo just this side of hungover.”
“I would not be enjoying Halo if I were hungover,” he informs her. “I am pleasantly drunk. Maybe a little bit baked. Also,” - he gestures at the Xbox.- “for you to be right, I’d probably have to be playing Halo. Which I am not.”
She shakes her head, mumbling words that she doesn’t actually think he’ll understand. “God, Logan, what happened to you?” But then he bursts up from the chair in a show of energy that she hadn’t thought he was capable of.
“What happened to me?” he mimics. “What happened to me? Lilly Kane happened to me. Aaron fucking Echolls happened to me. Veronica Mars happened to me.” He spits her name like a vile taste. “But you know all that. What more do you want?”
“Logan, I didn’t do this to you.”
He shrugs, and, just like that, it’s all gone. All the emotion, all the fire, evaporates back into the musty air, and he drops back to his beanbag. “You didn’t really do much of anything, did you?”
“I didn’t want this.” Her eyes are glossy and losing focus. “Damn it, Logan, I wanted to be with you. You just have to make everything so damn hard. Why can’t you understand? I couldn’t just watch you get yourself killed! After Lilly. . . I can’t do that again. I won’t.”
“Then leave, Veronica. There’s nothing for you here.”
. . .
Ten minutes of rummaging through Logan’s sparse kitchen yields no coffee, a few chipped glasses, and a plethora of mold-eaten leftovers. Veronica twists the tap, and, when the water appears clear and unmarred by Logan’s newest low, she thrusts a glass under the faucet. When she makes her way back to the entertainment room, Logan has the television switched back on, but he’s staring at the start screen as if he doesn’t know what to do next.
Veronica shuffles her feet in the doorway, scattering papers and reminding Logan of her presence. He scoops the controller off the floor at his feet, but hasn’t even gotten to push start before Veronica takes it back. She thrusts the water into his hands in replacement, then takes him by the elbow and tries to pull him to his feet.
“Come on, Logan,” she urges when she realizes that, drunk or not, she’s not going to get him to his feet without his help.
He pulls his arm away from her, and the force makes the water slosh over the edge of the glass. “Why are you even here, Veronica? You looked like you were having plenty of fun with Duncan.”
“Duncan?” Veronica mimics. “What are you even talking - ?” She trails off, her eyes narrowing on him. “Were you watching us today?”
“Today?” The word comes out on a choked laugh. “Of course you were with him again. It was always Duncan for you, wasn’t it Veronica? I was just a little detour while you thought that he was your brother. Now that that’s out of the way. . .” He shrugs sardonically, but his eyes blaze. “I should’ve known.”
“Yeah, Logan,” Veronica deadpans. “That’s exactly right. I’m back together with Duncan. That’s why I blew him off this afternoon. That also must be why I lied to my father and ditched him on his first day back in town. All to watch you sit here and fuck up whatever chance you had at regaining your life. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, Logan. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You did?” His eyes fall back to their lifeless default, and she almost misses the anger. This replacement, the hollow, empty space that she remembers so vibrant and lively is giving her goose bumps.
“Yes, I did,” she tells him, taking his arm again. “Now, how about, as a thank you to me, you find your feet and let me walk you to your bedroom.”
“That sounds like more of a gift for me.”
“I’m not staying, Logan,” she explains. When his face shifts, she quickly adds, “not in your room, at least. You’re going to sleep off whatever it is you’ve done to yourself, and I’m going to work on turning this place back into a house. How does that sound to you?”
“Much less interesting,” he tells her. “I think I should just go back to my Xbox.”
“If you go to bed, Logan, I’ll be here when you wake up,” Veronica says, leaning against the wall as he begins to pull his arm away. “If you go back in there and throw everything you’ve gotten away, I won’t come back.”
“And you think that you mean that much to me?” His eyes glimmer again, but not in anger or resentment. Veronica realizes, a little unsettlingly, that she doesn’t know what she’s seeing. She’s not sure how to read him. “Why do you think you’re worth it, Veronica?”
“What else have you got, Logan?” she counters. “Even Dick doesn’t party like this. That leaves you with your filthy little house and your violent little games. It’s quite a life. I’m sure it’s giving you a lot.”
“I don’t know,” he tells her. “It made it a hell of lot easier to get over you.” He shrugs, finally dislodging her hand from his elbow. “Why are you even here, Veronica? I thought problems didn’t exist in that little world you created for yourself.”
“There are plenty of problems in my world, Logan. Enough to make me wary of inviting more into my life.”
“And I’m just a problem for you,” he finishes for her. “That’s all I’ve ever been to you.”
“Damn it, Logan, I don’t want you to die too!” Her voice cracks under the strain, and her face flushes a deep red in embarrassment and anger, but she doesn’t shy away. “I didn’t want to sit and watch while you practically begged the PCHers to kick your ass, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and watch you kill yourself like you just mean nothing. So can you just stop being an ass now and let me help you?”
“I don’t want your pity, Veronica.” But his voice has lost all venom, and he doesn’t pull back when she tries to take his elbow again.
“And I won’t offer it. Don’t worry.” He turns the corner, and she sees a mattress on the floor, and a few dirty blankets scattered over it.
“This is your bed?”
“I haven’t really been using it much,” he offers. She shakes her head.
“Okay. Fine.” She takes his water and puts it on the floor near what she assumes is the head. “If you can, drink the water before you fall asleep. I’ll bring you some aspirin when you wake up.” He doesn’t ask why this seems so natural for her and she doesn’t offer any explanations.
But they’re both thinking of Lianne Mars.
. . .
The first thing Logan notices when he wakes up is the quiet. It’s been weeks since he’s heard anything like silence, and the change sends his heart racing and his hands fumbling over the blankets. When he bumps the water Veronica left for him, nearly spilling it across the floor, pieces of the day start to come back to him, and slowly, his heart settles.
The second thing Logan notices is the dark. He doesn’t sleep much anymore, usually playing his Xbox for all hours into the night and only collapsing for a few hours here and there when his body simply can’t stand to be conscious anymore.
He finds himself tangled in the sheets when he tries to get up, sticky and clammy from his own sweat. He peels them away from his body, stumbling out of bed in search of Veronica. And the aspirin she had so thoughtfully promised.
He’s halfway to the kitchen when he notices that something is different. The hallways are cleared, and the faint scent of Pinesol lingers. He hasn’t stumbled over garbage and furniture because it doesn’t line the hallways anymore.
He hears the front door open and continues toward the kitchen, staggering only for a moment when the light switches on and blinds him. At the sound of his muffled groan, Veronica switches it back off, flicking on a dimmer bulb over the sink. She drops a bag of groceries on the counter and turns to Logan.
“This wasn’t really leaving,” she tells Logan, answering his unasked question. “You had no cleaning supplies, and no food that hasn’t grown its own layer of fur. Not to mention, I could not find aspirin anywhere. How do you live like this without aspirin?” The question is rhetorical, so he doesn’t bother answering.
She turns and fills a cup with tap water, then puts it on the island and rummages through the bag. By the time she grips the bottle of painkillers, he’s dropped into the chair across from her, and swallowed half the glass of water.
Several minutes pass in uncomfortable silence as Veronica busies herself with putting away the groceries before he mumbles, “Why are you here?” She stops, frozen, still holding a box of crackers between her fingers.
“I don’t know, Logan,” she says finally. Her shoulders fall a bit, and she turns back to him, staring at the counter rather than him. “I had other things to do today. Fun things, with people who wanted me around.” She shrugs. “I don’t know why I’m here, Logan, but I couldn’t not come.”
. . .
He swallows another glass and a half of water before the light starts to prickle behind his eyes, and he finds himself retreating back to his bedroom. Veronica didn’t clean it for him - she probably didn’t want to wake him, but she has shifted some of his own things. He has a new clock in the corner now, probably found in one of the many boxes he hasn’t bothered to sort through. It’s only just past nine, but he collapses back into bed as if he hasn’t slept in weeks.
Sweat is slicked across his body when he wakes, violently, from a dream he’s positive he doesn’t want to remember. The memory of it clings like a cloak to his consciousness, leaving his muscles twitching and his mind uneasy.
When he catches the scent of food thick in the air, he can’t decide at first whether his stomach growls in revolt or anticipation. The soft murmur of voices entices him toward the kitchen, though, so he hopes for the latter.
He pads down the hallway slowly, partly from stealth, partly simply from necessity. He’s gotten used to drinking and to being drunk. It’s been a while since he’s had to come back down.
Veronica’s voice is low as he leans against the walk just beyond the turn to the kitchen, and something in her tone makes him hang back, out of sight.
“No, Dad, I know.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. . . Obviously you know I wasn’t.” She pauses. “I don’t think you want to know. . . It’s not illegal. I’m not doing anything illegal.” Pause. “I just. . . I need to be here. He needs me here. . . I know you don’t. . . Alright. Yeah. Birthday festivities, first thing. I understand. I’ll be there. . . Love you too.” Her cell phone snaps closed.
And Logan feels like he’s just been hit in the chest with a brick. And it has nothing to do with his hangover.
. . .
Veronica has pasta on the stove when Logan finally drags himself into view, and the smell of marinara and meatballs is heavy in the air. She smiles, her face soft and open as she fiddles with her cooking.
“At least tell me you got a cake.” She pauses for a moment, her hand hovering over one steaming pot, before recognition dawns on her.
“You were listening to my phone call.” It isn’t a question, and he doesn’t bother denying it.
“You don’t deserve this, Veronica, especially not on your birthday.” He’s still woozy, his head still aches, and he sure as hell doesn’t want her to go, but she deserves better than this, better than everything that he can’t offer her. She doesn’t need to spend her birthday cleaning him up just so that he can screw everything up again when she isn’t looking.
She turns away from him, returning her attention to the pot before her. “I really wish people would stop telling me how I want to spend my birthday.”
“Veronica. . .” He steps toward her, taking his hand away from the wall and pausing to wait for the room to steady. Her eyes flicker to him, but he takes a deep breath and continues, crossing the room in slow, broad steps. “Veronica, you don’t need to do this. I’m not your problem anymore.”
“You keep acting like this, Logan, and you’re everyone’s problem,” she snaps, slapping her hand against the counter between them. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I’m not here because someone told me to be, and I’m sure as hell not leaving just because you tell me to. You may have a foot and a half on me, but you can barely cross the room right now. I could take you.” She pauses, dropping the stirring spoon onto the counter and turning her full attention to him. “If you want, you can try to remove me forcibly, but I really doubt that it would do much good. So, if you’re done with your little fit, do you think you can handle Italian? I bought soup, if you can’t.” She shrugs, and the glimmer of a smile touches her lips. “But it’s my birthday, and I’m having Italian.”
Logan gapes at her for a long moment, and then he has her wrist in his hand, and she’s thinking that, with reflexes like that, maybe he’s not as incapacitated as she thought. But then he’s pulling her toward the island, and the counter is pressing into her ribs, and then his lips are on hers, soft and insistent and so familiar. She’s got her arm braced on the tile, pushing her closer, and he’s got a death grip on her wrist, as if she’s the only thing holding him upright.
When he pulls back, her lips are puffy and tingling, and she brushes them softly with her released hand. He sways slightly, and she wonders if maybe she is the only thing holding him up. “Oh.”
“Thank you,” he tells her. Now that he’s released her, he seems to deflate again, dropping like dead weight into the chair beside him. She drops her finger when she catches sight of his smirk, turning back to the stove as a blush flushes across her cheeks.
“Oh, well,” she stammers. “It’s nothing.” He’s still smiling when she turns to drain the spaghetti. “Knock it off. That’s. . . that’s not why I’m here.”
He just smiles, his eyes looking more lively than she’s seen all day. She turns back to the cooking, and doesn’t notice that his eyes don’t leave hers until she hands him his plate. “Logan, why do you keep staring at me?”
“You’re amazing,” he tells her, his voice startlingly honest. “Happy birthday, Veronica.”
Author: tmt_catalyst
Pairing/Character: Logan / Veronica
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,820
Summary: If someone asked her to guess, Veronica would’ve bet that she’d hear about Logan in the tabloids.
Spoilers/Warnings: First season / Minor NITW
Author’s Note: Thanks to sweetumms33 for the beta. This is being used to fill my “Choices” prompt on fanfic100.
Veronica expects a lot when she breaks up with Logan. She rummages through what she thinks she knows of him, and decides that, however he retaliates, it will be swift, lack finesse, and probably hurt everyone involved.
She spends her time planning ways to avoid him, condemning him for things she’s only imagined he’ll do, and, somehow, it makes it all hurt a little less. She has a focus, something to plan and prepare for, and the background all turns blurry.
A week passes - lulled by the tedium of work and summer - before she realizes that nothing has happened. No pipe bombs have been found in her laundry hamper, no bananas were jammed in her exhaust pipe. Both of the LeBaron’s shiny new headlights are, in fact, still shiny and new.
And she hasn’t so much as seen Logan in seven days.
. . .
Duncan’s been around all summer, fading into the bits and pieces of Veronica’s life. First it’s work, and he blurs the edges of her vision in his corner booth. Then he’s at the rental store, pacing between comedy and action. Then he’s at the movie theater, offering a practiced smile as Veronica loops her arm through Wallace’s.
It happens so slowly that she almost doesn’t notice when he stops blending and she begins to focus.
For the first time all summer, she declines Wallace’s offer of a ride to work. She’s spent weeks coaxing him into chauffeuring her around town, spending large chunks of her paychecks on crème filled bribes. When she turns him down, a full fifteen seconds of silence pass between their cell phones.
”You got plans?” he asks.
“Just work,” she answers. And she finds herself believing it. Just work. No monsters, no vengeance, no motives. Just work.
Just life. Moving on.
. . .
If someone asked her to guess, Veronica would’ve bet that she’d hear about Logan in the tabloids. Maybe, on an ambitious day, in the evening news.
Three weeks after their breakup, she would’ve expected to hear something. Logan was anything but discreet, and, with his father still awaiting trial, he was bound to be stuck under someone’s surveillance.
But there was nothing. Just a stony silence that seemed even more foreboding than her own expectant muses.
So, when she first takes her break at Duncan’s table, she tells herself that it’s harmless. He’s just a friend (used to be? could be?) and she just needs something innocent and demure to remind her that sometimes the silence can be sweet instead of sinister.
She doesn’t want to fish for clues about Logan, about where he is and what he’s doing, but she finds herself poking discreetly anyway. It’s a futile attempt, and she knows that all too well. Duncan may be the only person who actually knows less about Logan than she does.
. . .
It’s nearly August when Mac turns up on her doorstep, shoulders slumped and a fresh patch of red stained through her hair.
“Um. Hello?” Veronica offers when Mac only shifts her weight in greeting.
“I’m not antisocial, right?” Mac shifts her weight again, blurting out the words as if she’s been carrying them unsteadily along her lips for a while now. “I mean, I have friends. I. . . I do things.”
“Okay.” Veronica pulls the door open, attempting to draw Mac inside. “Can we rewind until I understand what’s going on?”
“My father called me antisocial,” she explains. “Right to my face. And then he puts two hundred dollars in my hand, and tells me to go get myself ‘ready for school.’” She steps into the Mars’ living room, but chooses to pace rather than sit.
“The last time I asked my father for money, he made me mow the lawn for three weeks, and clean my little brother’s room.” She looks up at Veronica. “For fifty bucks. Is there something wrong with me? Did I, like, break out into a deadly looking rash without noticing, or. . .?”
“Do you want me look into it?” Veronica hasn’t had a case all summer, and her fingers itch with the promise of it, but, just as quickly, Mac shoots it down.
“No, I’m sure it’s nothing.” Her gaze is skitterish as it passes over Veronica’s face, and it’s painfully obvious that she’s thinking about the last time she asked for Veronica’s help. “Actually, I just. . . came to invite you to the mall.” She pauses, grimacing noticeably before adding, “buddy.”
“Yeah. We’ll work on that.”
. . .
“Did you hear about that Echolls kid?” They’re the words Veronica has been expecting almost all summer, but somehow filtering from behind the flimsy dressing room curtain, they catch her off-guard.
“Did he kill another Mexican?” another voice asks snidely.
Veronica lowers herself to the stool, and the shirt she had been trying on falls to her lap.
“No, I heard split from his dad.” There’s a pause and Veronica hears clothes moving. “Not that I blame him or anything; his dad’s obviously a psycho. But what the hell is it with Hollywood? All the rest of us have to deal with our nut job families.”
”Whatever,” the second girl scoffs. “I heard that the whole tape thing was just, like, a scam. Who really believes that Aaron Echolls would screw with skanky Lilly Kane?”
Veronica tunes them out then, pulling her own tee shirt on and throwing everything else into the no pile.
Mac is rummaging through a rack and scowls when Veronica returns empty-handed. “How are you teaching me to shop when you turn everything down?”
Veronica shakes her head, trying to push the girls’ voices out of her head. “I think I’m a bit distracted today. Can we do this later?”
Anxious for any reason to be away from the mall, Mac agrees.
Fifteen minutes later, when it’s obvious that Veronica’s conversational skills also seem to be in need of a tune up, Mac is scrambling for something to say. “I hear your birthday’s coming up.”
Veronica jumps, as if she’d forgotten there was someone else in the car, and then nods. “Yeah. The big one-eight.”
“Doing anything special?”
A flicker of melancholy trails over her face before she answers. “Oh, you know, gambling and lots of promiscuous sex with older men. The usual.”
“Make sure it’s a rich one that knocks you up,” Mac tells her, then, at Veronica incredulous look, she adds, “It’s my aunt’s pearl of wisdom.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
. . .
Regardless of Mac’s little reminder, Veronica’s birthday still sneaks up on her. With her father on the book tour, and Wallace joining an off-season basketball team, there hadn’t been anyone to remind her. Even Mac had disappeared, making it her personal quest to prove that she does, in fact, socialize. With more than one person. Who she hasn’t met online.
Meanwhile, Duncan has become such a constant, that he doesn’t identify the days for her either. He’s just always there, and the days could’ve all been the same for all that Veronica noticed them.
On her birthday, she wakes up to the stinky tongue of a very over-eager pit bull. She groans, turning her face into the pillow to avoid him as she pushes ineffectively at his chest.
“Backup, my bed is not made for company. Get out.”
“You’ll never know how happy those words make me, Veronica. Don’t ever forget them.”
At the sound of her father’s voice, Veronica bolts up, nearly throwing her dog to the ground. Backup whimpers, then shuffles his way to the door.
“You’re home?” she asks, pulling him into a hug.
“Would I miss my daughter’s birthday?”
She furrows her brow. “Yes. Fifth grade.”
“Triple homicide,” he counters. “And I was home before the party ended.”
“Only because I had a sleepover.”
He shakes his head. “You always get so focused on the details.” He pushes her a step away from him. “Now, you should go shower, because you smell like dog, and that won’t work with the day I’ve planned for you.”
Her alarm clock chooses that moment to ring. And remind her.
“I have to work.”
“On your birthday?” her father asks. “Nonsense.”
She nods her head in a decidedly solemn fashion. “Afraid so. Only the three hour shift, though, so I’ll be done this afternoon.”
“Well, I’ll give you a ride.” He yawns, then tries to cover it with a cough. “But maybe I’ll nap while you shower.”
“You’re exhausted and jet lagged,” she tells him. “Go to bed. I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”
. . .
Since the unexpected - though short - reemergence of Logan on Neptune’s gossip boards, Veronica has learned things. News of him doesn’t come easy anymore; he’s not been brash and outlandish like the memories she pictures when she feels weak or cornered. She can’t just hover in a corner beside a table of 09ers and listen. She has to work for it now.
The first thing she learns: Logan isn’t an 09er anymore. At least, not in the technical sense of the word. He’s given up residence in the most desired neighborhood in town to, from what she’s heard, move into a house the size of his old bedroom. Then again, from what she’s heard, he can jump out the window and straight into the ocean. Which, even in Neptune, is doubtful.
Also, he’s no longer under his father’s wing. She likes to believe she had a little hand in that, at least for the few moments when she can convince herself that he ever listened to her. Because she had been the one that had told him to get off his ass and file for emancipation while popular opinion believed that he was the pawn in his father’s sick and twisted world. Hollywood was fickle, and so was America. He needed every advantage he could get.
She doesn’t know where his money is coming from. Everything of his father’s is frozen, not that she really thinks he would have much access to that anyway. She doubts that Aaron would’ve refrained from canceling Logan’s AmEx after he got the emancipation papers.
From a tabloid, she learns that Trina is living off the trust fund that she had never bothered dipping into. And life was oh, so hard for her because of it.
Logan’s trust funds won’t be unlocked for months still, regardless of the emancipation. But she knows he isn’t working. Legally.
As she pulls into the parking lot of the Hut, Veronica mutters every nasty word she’s ever heard under her breath, because she knows exactly who would know if Logan had picked up a less respected trade. But Weevil hasn’t spoken to her in months. Even when two of his boys had been picked up carrying a small pharmacy on their bikes, he’d never turned up.
Yeah, the summer had been fucked up.
It wasn’t exactly news.
And it still leaves her at square one.
What the hell was Logan doing? And why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
. . .
Duncan isn’t the first thing that Veronica notices anymore. At first, she could feel him there, could feel when his eyes picked up from whatever he was reading and landed on her. A month ago, she would have walked into the room and picked him out, telling herself it was just so he couldn’t catch her off-guard.
She doesn’t look for him anymore. He’s simply a part of the background, and she’s hardly even watching what’s happening right in front of her.
She only mentions that it’s her birthday once, when a coworker chastises her for spilling coffee grounds across the counter.
“Give me a break; it’s my birthday. And I’m working.”
Veronica isn’t sure that Lexi has a smile that looks real, so she’s not offended by the horribly plastic recreation that the girl offers. “Really? Well, happy birthday. Do you have any fun plans? Is your boyfriend taking you somewhere?” Lexi waggles her eyebrows in Duncan’s direction in a gesture that Veronica hopes will appear more discreet at a distance.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she tells her, perching a tray on her shoulder. Her turned back effectively ends the conversation.
At first, she doesn’t notice the box Duncan leaves on the table. She’s about to sweep it into the trash when Lexi gasps over her shoulder.
“Yeah, he’s not your boyfriend,” she comments, her voice dripping venom-less sarcasm. When Veronica reaches for the boy, Lexi is still peering over her shoulder. “I bet it’s jewelry. That boy has more money than God.”
Veronica tunes her out, pulling the ribbon away and peeling back the lid of the box.
“A fortune cookie?” Lexi asks. “What the hell? Dump him; that’s lame.” And now she’s bored, drifting away to tend to the customers.
But it has to be more, and Veronica knows it. Cracking the shell, she fumbles as the fortune falls for the floor.
“Damn it, Duncan,” she mumbles, reading the words for a second time. “You couldn’t just leave it alone.”
But she’s already peeling her apron off, throwing it under the counter in a haphazard way that would infuriate her manager. She grabs Lexi by the elbow a dozen steps from the door.
“Please cover the rest of my shift for me.”
“Veronica. . . ”
“It’s my birthday,” she pleads, wearing the face that she used when she wanted to borrow Wallace’s Chapelle’s Show DVDs. “And I completely forgot that I made plans with someone already.”
“Someone? Like, a special someone?”
“Will you ever find out if I’m here working?”
It only takes Lexi a moment to consider that. “Go; it’s your birthday.” Veronica’s out the door before Lexi’s lips finish moving.
Where she walks promptly into Duncan’s pacing form.
“Oomph,” she manages, gripping the sleeve of his sweater to keep from toppling backwards.
“I thought, maybe, you didn’t like it,” Duncan tells her, his hand firmly on her elbow in an attempt to keep her steady. She steps back quickly, blinking rapidly as she tries to find her place in this conversation.
Duncan’s eyes narrow on hers. “You are here because of the fortune cookie, right?”
“Well. . .” Veronica pieces words together in her head, but, for once, her knack for fabrication fails her. If she says yes, he’ll think she’s there for him. If she says no, he’ll be crushed.
“I didn’t know what else to get you,” he explains. “It’s cheesy; I know, and you think it’s stupid. You’re not really the easiest person to shop for, though.” He pauses. “Happy birthday.”
Well, that’s a plan she hadn’t come to yet. Say nothing; let him fill in the blanks.
“So, do you want to go do something? Do you already have plans?”
“I’m actually just on my way to meet my dad,” she explains, the lies falling easily from her tongue again. “He’s got something cooked up.”
Duncan’s expression falls just a touch at that, but he masks it quickly. “Well, I’ll give you a call sometime. Maybe we can see each other somewhere where you don’t have to take my order.”
She cracks a smile. “Yeah, we’ll talk. But I’ve got to go now, or I’m going to be late.”
Because it’s time for me to walk away from you.
. . .
When she’s really trying, it’s not hard for Veronica to find him. Half an hour, and she’s parked on the curb beside his hideous yellow extravaganza of a car.
In June, she spent two hours in an airport teaching her father how to send and read text messages on his cell phone. She thought it was for him, so that he could remind her of all the stupid things he thought she would forget while he was sitting behind a table doing book signings in New York. Now, she supposes that it has other uses too.
Lexi ditched work. Gotta take her shift. Will call when relief arrives. Sorry.
Then she turns her phone on silent, straightens her back, and steps out of the car.
“Come to bring me a housewarming present.” She jumps at the sound of his voice, and turns to find him leaning on the back of her car. She must be slipping if she didn’t notice him get that close.
Irrationally, she flashes to his father’s face in her rearview mirror, and her heart pounds.
“You suck” is the best response she can find, under the circumstances.
“The soccer team says that’s your job.”
“Wow, I must’ve been driving pretty fast if I drove straight into last year.”
“Now that’s more like it,” he tells her. “And, FYI, just because it’s not gated and guarded” - he gestures to the house - “doesn’t mean that I don’t see everyone who pulls up.” His voice drops to a stage whisper and he takes a step closer. “There are cameras everywhere.”
At this proximity, she can smell the vodka on his breath.
“Good god, Logan. Are you drinking rubbing alcohol now?”
“Only if it comes in a fancy bottle.”
“Logan, if the court finds out. . .”
“Then I’m fucked,” he cuts in. “And even if they don’t, my dad still fucked my girlfriend, and you still wouldn’t fuck me.” He shrugs. “And such is life. In fact, I think I’ll be getting back to that now.” Without glancing back at her, he starts for the door.
“Damn it, Logan,” Veronica mutters, and then follows after him.
. . .
The house is small by Logan’s standards. On the PCH, it would probably house a family of four comfortably, but Logan manages to make as little use of the space as possible.
“A tornado couldn’t do damage like this,” Veronica observes, kicking a bundle of packing bubbles out of her way. Logan stumbles through the mess with his usual tact and grace, leaving a trail of crashes and mumbles for Veronica to follow. She finds that if she focuses all of her attention on the sounds she uses to follow him, her eyes have less time to focus on the paraphernalia littering the room. The situation seems much more manageable if she doesn’t really know what’s happening here.
Veronica rounds a corner, and the sounds of gunfire cover Logan’s tracks. She traces it to what was probably supposed to be the entertainment room, and finds Logan as he drops onto a beanbag chair.
“Fuck,” he complains when he looks up at the television. “Damn pause.” A moment later the game over screen flashes over his character’s corpse. Veronica stumbles toward the television, managing to reach the power button just as Logan catches the reset button on the consol.
“Veronica?” He looks confused for a second, as if he’d actually believed that she would’ve just climbed back into her car and driven away. Then his face hardens. “If you’re staying, the cooler’s running low on beer. You should probably get on that.”
“What the hell are you doing, Logan?” she asks as he attempts to angle the remote around her.
“Like, right now, or are you actually interested in the state of my being?” He manages to worm around her and get the screen back on. She clicks the power again, then flattens her palm against the remote reader.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” She pushes a row of empty bottles away, and then settles uncomfortably on the floor. “They gave you a chance, Logan. I’m fairly certain the judge didn’t grant you emancipation so that you could enjoy Halo just this side of hungover.”
“I would not be enjoying Halo if I were hungover,” he informs her. “I am pleasantly drunk. Maybe a little bit baked. Also,” - he gestures at the Xbox.- “for you to be right, I’d probably have to be playing Halo. Which I am not.”
She shakes her head, mumbling words that she doesn’t actually think he’ll understand. “God, Logan, what happened to you?” But then he bursts up from the chair in a show of energy that she hadn’t thought he was capable of.
“What happened to me?” he mimics. “What happened to me? Lilly Kane happened to me. Aaron fucking Echolls happened to me. Veronica Mars happened to me.” He spits her name like a vile taste. “But you know all that. What more do you want?”
“Logan, I didn’t do this to you.”
He shrugs, and, just like that, it’s all gone. All the emotion, all the fire, evaporates back into the musty air, and he drops back to his beanbag. “You didn’t really do much of anything, did you?”
“I didn’t want this.” Her eyes are glossy and losing focus. “Damn it, Logan, I wanted to be with you. You just have to make everything so damn hard. Why can’t you understand? I couldn’t just watch you get yourself killed! After Lilly. . . I can’t do that again. I won’t.”
“Then leave, Veronica. There’s nothing for you here.”
. . .
Ten minutes of rummaging through Logan’s sparse kitchen yields no coffee, a few chipped glasses, and a plethora of mold-eaten leftovers. Veronica twists the tap, and, when the water appears clear and unmarred by Logan’s newest low, she thrusts a glass under the faucet. When she makes her way back to the entertainment room, Logan has the television switched back on, but he’s staring at the start screen as if he doesn’t know what to do next.
Veronica shuffles her feet in the doorway, scattering papers and reminding Logan of her presence. He scoops the controller off the floor at his feet, but hasn’t even gotten to push start before Veronica takes it back. She thrusts the water into his hands in replacement, then takes him by the elbow and tries to pull him to his feet.
“Come on, Logan,” she urges when she realizes that, drunk or not, she’s not going to get him to his feet without his help.
He pulls his arm away from her, and the force makes the water slosh over the edge of the glass. “Why are you even here, Veronica? You looked like you were having plenty of fun with Duncan.”
“Duncan?” Veronica mimics. “What are you even talking - ?” She trails off, her eyes narrowing on him. “Were you watching us today?”
“Today?” The word comes out on a choked laugh. “Of course you were with him again. It was always Duncan for you, wasn’t it Veronica? I was just a little detour while you thought that he was your brother. Now that that’s out of the way. . .” He shrugs sardonically, but his eyes blaze. “I should’ve known.”
“Yeah, Logan,” Veronica deadpans. “That’s exactly right. I’m back together with Duncan. That’s why I blew him off this afternoon. That also must be why I lied to my father and ditched him on his first day back in town. All to watch you sit here and fuck up whatever chance you had at regaining your life. Yeah, that makes perfect sense, Logan. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You did?” His eyes fall back to their lifeless default, and she almost misses the anger. This replacement, the hollow, empty space that she remembers so vibrant and lively is giving her goose bumps.
“Yes, I did,” she tells him, taking his arm again. “Now, how about, as a thank you to me, you find your feet and let me walk you to your bedroom.”
“That sounds like more of a gift for me.”
“I’m not staying, Logan,” she explains. When his face shifts, she quickly adds, “not in your room, at least. You’re going to sleep off whatever it is you’ve done to yourself, and I’m going to work on turning this place back into a house. How does that sound to you?”
“Much less interesting,” he tells her. “I think I should just go back to my Xbox.”
“If you go to bed, Logan, I’ll be here when you wake up,” Veronica says, leaning against the wall as he begins to pull his arm away. “If you go back in there and throw everything you’ve gotten away, I won’t come back.”
“And you think that you mean that much to me?” His eyes glimmer again, but not in anger or resentment. Veronica realizes, a little unsettlingly, that she doesn’t know what she’s seeing. She’s not sure how to read him. “Why do you think you’re worth it, Veronica?”
“What else have you got, Logan?” she counters. “Even Dick doesn’t party like this. That leaves you with your filthy little house and your violent little games. It’s quite a life. I’m sure it’s giving you a lot.”
“I don’t know,” he tells her. “It made it a hell of lot easier to get over you.” He shrugs, finally dislodging her hand from his elbow. “Why are you even here, Veronica? I thought problems didn’t exist in that little world you created for yourself.”
“There are plenty of problems in my world, Logan. Enough to make me wary of inviting more into my life.”
“And I’m just a problem for you,” he finishes for her. “That’s all I’ve ever been to you.”
“Damn it, Logan, I don’t want you to die too!” Her voice cracks under the strain, and her face flushes a deep red in embarrassment and anger, but she doesn’t shy away. “I didn’t want to sit and watch while you practically begged the PCHers to kick your ass, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and watch you kill yourself like you just mean nothing. So can you just stop being an ass now and let me help you?”
“I don’t want your pity, Veronica.” But his voice has lost all venom, and he doesn’t pull back when she tries to take his elbow again.
“And I won’t offer it. Don’t worry.” He turns the corner, and she sees a mattress on the floor, and a few dirty blankets scattered over it.
“This is your bed?”
“I haven’t really been using it much,” he offers. She shakes her head.
“Okay. Fine.” She takes his water and puts it on the floor near what she assumes is the head. “If you can, drink the water before you fall asleep. I’ll bring you some aspirin when you wake up.” He doesn’t ask why this seems so natural for her and she doesn’t offer any explanations.
But they’re both thinking of Lianne Mars.
. . .
The first thing Logan notices when he wakes up is the quiet. It’s been weeks since he’s heard anything like silence, and the change sends his heart racing and his hands fumbling over the blankets. When he bumps the water Veronica left for him, nearly spilling it across the floor, pieces of the day start to come back to him, and slowly, his heart settles.
The second thing Logan notices is the dark. He doesn’t sleep much anymore, usually playing his Xbox for all hours into the night and only collapsing for a few hours here and there when his body simply can’t stand to be conscious anymore.
He finds himself tangled in the sheets when he tries to get up, sticky and clammy from his own sweat. He peels them away from his body, stumbling out of bed in search of Veronica. And the aspirin she had so thoughtfully promised.
He’s halfway to the kitchen when he notices that something is different. The hallways are cleared, and the faint scent of Pinesol lingers. He hasn’t stumbled over garbage and furniture because it doesn’t line the hallways anymore.
He hears the front door open and continues toward the kitchen, staggering only for a moment when the light switches on and blinds him. At the sound of his muffled groan, Veronica switches it back off, flicking on a dimmer bulb over the sink. She drops a bag of groceries on the counter and turns to Logan.
“This wasn’t really leaving,” she tells Logan, answering his unasked question. “You had no cleaning supplies, and no food that hasn’t grown its own layer of fur. Not to mention, I could not find aspirin anywhere. How do you live like this without aspirin?” The question is rhetorical, so he doesn’t bother answering.
She turns and fills a cup with tap water, then puts it on the island and rummages through the bag. By the time she grips the bottle of painkillers, he’s dropped into the chair across from her, and swallowed half the glass of water.
Several minutes pass in uncomfortable silence as Veronica busies herself with putting away the groceries before he mumbles, “Why are you here?” She stops, frozen, still holding a box of crackers between her fingers.
“I don’t know, Logan,” she says finally. Her shoulders fall a bit, and she turns back to him, staring at the counter rather than him. “I had other things to do today. Fun things, with people who wanted me around.” She shrugs. “I don’t know why I’m here, Logan, but I couldn’t not come.”
. . .
He swallows another glass and a half of water before the light starts to prickle behind his eyes, and he finds himself retreating back to his bedroom. Veronica didn’t clean it for him - she probably didn’t want to wake him, but she has shifted some of his own things. He has a new clock in the corner now, probably found in one of the many boxes he hasn’t bothered to sort through. It’s only just past nine, but he collapses back into bed as if he hasn’t slept in weeks.
Sweat is slicked across his body when he wakes, violently, from a dream he’s positive he doesn’t want to remember. The memory of it clings like a cloak to his consciousness, leaving his muscles twitching and his mind uneasy.
When he catches the scent of food thick in the air, he can’t decide at first whether his stomach growls in revolt or anticipation. The soft murmur of voices entices him toward the kitchen, though, so he hopes for the latter.
He pads down the hallway slowly, partly from stealth, partly simply from necessity. He’s gotten used to drinking and to being drunk. It’s been a while since he’s had to come back down.
Veronica’s voice is low as he leans against the walk just beyond the turn to the kitchen, and something in her tone makes him hang back, out of sight.
“No, Dad, I know.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. . . Obviously you know I wasn’t.” She pauses. “I don’t think you want to know. . . It’s not illegal. I’m not doing anything illegal.” Pause. “I just. . . I need to be here. He needs me here. . . I know you don’t. . . Alright. Yeah. Birthday festivities, first thing. I understand. I’ll be there. . . Love you too.” Her cell phone snaps closed.
And Logan feels like he’s just been hit in the chest with a brick. And it has nothing to do with his hangover.
. . .
Veronica has pasta on the stove when Logan finally drags himself into view, and the smell of marinara and meatballs is heavy in the air. She smiles, her face soft and open as she fiddles with her cooking.
“At least tell me you got a cake.” She pauses for a moment, her hand hovering over one steaming pot, before recognition dawns on her.
“You were listening to my phone call.” It isn’t a question, and he doesn’t bother denying it.
“You don’t deserve this, Veronica, especially not on your birthday.” He’s still woozy, his head still aches, and he sure as hell doesn’t want her to go, but she deserves better than this, better than everything that he can’t offer her. She doesn’t need to spend her birthday cleaning him up just so that he can screw everything up again when she isn’t looking.
She turns away from him, returning her attention to the pot before her. “I really wish people would stop telling me how I want to spend my birthday.”
“Veronica. . .” He steps toward her, taking his hand away from the wall and pausing to wait for the room to steady. Her eyes flicker to him, but he takes a deep breath and continues, crossing the room in slow, broad steps. “Veronica, you don’t need to do this. I’m not your problem anymore.”
“You keep acting like this, Logan, and you’re everyone’s problem,” she snaps, slapping her hand against the counter between them. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. I’m not here because someone told me to be, and I’m sure as hell not leaving just because you tell me to. You may have a foot and a half on me, but you can barely cross the room right now. I could take you.” She pauses, dropping the stirring spoon onto the counter and turning her full attention to him. “If you want, you can try to remove me forcibly, but I really doubt that it would do much good. So, if you’re done with your little fit, do you think you can handle Italian? I bought soup, if you can’t.” She shrugs, and the glimmer of a smile touches her lips. “But it’s my birthday, and I’m having Italian.”
Logan gapes at her for a long moment, and then he has her wrist in his hand, and she’s thinking that, with reflexes like that, maybe he’s not as incapacitated as she thought. But then he’s pulling her toward the island, and the counter is pressing into her ribs, and then his lips are on hers, soft and insistent and so familiar. She’s got her arm braced on the tile, pushing her closer, and he’s got a death grip on her wrist, as if she’s the only thing holding him upright.
When he pulls back, her lips are puffy and tingling, and she brushes them softly with her released hand. He sways slightly, and she wonders if maybe she is the only thing holding him up. “Oh.”
“Thank you,” he tells her. Now that he’s released her, he seems to deflate again, dropping like dead weight into the chair beside him. She drops her finger when she catches sight of his smirk, turning back to the stove as a blush flushes across her cheeks.
“Oh, well,” she stammers. “It’s nothing.” He’s still smiling when she turns to drain the spaghetti. “Knock it off. That’s. . . that’s not why I’m here.”
He just smiles, his eyes looking more lively than she’s seen all day. She turns back to the cooking, and doesn’t notice that his eyes don’t leave hers until she hands him his plate. “Logan, why do you keep staring at me?”
“You’re amazing,” he tells her, his voice startlingly honest. “Happy birthday, Veronica.”