Fic: Rich Dirt (Logan, Veronica) R
Title: Rich Dirt
Author: theohara
Pairing/Character: Logan, Veronica
Word Count: 3164
Rating: R
Summary: An A/U version of Shelley Pomeroy's party.
Spoilers/Warnings: Easiest understood if you've seen 1x21.
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Logan Echolls is a bastard.
And you hate yourself for not having realized that before, for having thought he was funny, for standing just behind him as he spewed ugly words like razor wire, slicing through anyone that crossed him, you, Lilly, Duncan. The smirking squire to Duncan's white knight, your second-string protector. Words are his weapon of choice, and you'd liked that just fine before you'd felt the bullets in your own flesh. You'd been his laughing accomplice, just another goon in his brute squad, perfectly willing to hate anyone just because Logan did.
That burns, now.
And when you're torturing yourself with that, sometimes you'll admit that you'd thought Logan was sexy. Not like Duncan -- Duncan was solid and handsome and good, Duncan was apple-pie and picket fences and the clean, bright future, Duncan was proper and right.
There's something about watching Logan in action that feels... dirty, in a way that makes sticky, black spirals heat in your stomach. The grace, the easy confidence of his movements, the physicality of him... he doesn't touch what he can caress, doesn't pick up what he can twirl, doesn't walk where he can dance.
You'd mentioned it to Lilly, once, and God, how she'd laughed, head thrown back, like she knew a fabulous, filthy secret that she'd tell you when you were older.
"Oh, Veronica Mars," she'd purred. "There's hope for you yet."
But Lilly is gone and Logan is a bastard and he doesn't let up for a second, your own personal tormenting Fury.
And in a horrible way, you're almost glad.
You need Logan.
Your Dad has packed up the Kane files and your Mom has split and Abel Koontz has been conveniently arrested and all around you, everyone just wants it to be over, wants to sink back into the their lives, pretend everything's normal, stoned and blind on closure.
Duncan's gone with them, glassy-eyed and silent.
But not you. And not Logan.
He's fucked-up and furious and doesn't bother to aim his mouth anymore, picking fights with anyone who'll punch him, drinking anything that burns. You're his target of choice and that's a good thing. Logan keeps you angry, keeps you charged, moving forward.
It would be so easy to sink down with the rest of them. Apologize, move on, have a life, let it go.
Logan won't let you. Every day, every minute, every second, he keeps Lilly on your mind.
You'll prove him wrong, make it hurt, find the truth. You'll be right and he'll be wrong, always and forever, and one day you'll shove it in his face and never thank him for the fuel to get there.
That's closure.
Logan's making you stronger. You've been growing a shell, these last few months... and he's found your weak spots for you, one by one.
When he's done with you, you'll be ready for anything.
You thought maybe you were, tonight; you'd looked through your closet with Lilly's ghost at your side, and for once, you'd taken her fashion advice. You'd strut into Shelley's party like you owned the place, just like Lilly would have, and you'd laugh like Lilly would have laughed, full of filthy secrets and don't-give-a-damn.
But then Duncan'd been kissing that girl, and Logan had seen you see Duncan kissing that girl, and his lips had twisted and he'd dropped you that nasty, knowing little wink, and all the psyched-up, put-on attitude in the world didn't change the fact that you were short and didn't know how to walk in heels, and people had pressed into you from all sides and knocked you off your feet and it hadn't been two minutes before you were claustrophobic and wanted to cry and get away and you can't because you have something to prove, and why is Lilly's ghost always hanging out in your bedroom and never where you need her?
And Logan wouldn't let you have anything. He'd danced over to you and smirked in your face and twirled your plastic cup right out of your hand and cooed that just because your Daddy wasn't sheriff anymore didn't give you license to break the law, and he'd acted all shocked with his hand over his mouth and he'd laughed like breaking glass and nanced off with your drink.
And you'd needed that, because Veronica 2.0 is a snarky badass who can hold her liquor.
In theory, anyway.
You'd gotten a beer instead, and tried to like it, because drinking beer was very New Veronica. And you hoped no one saw you when you poured most of it into Mrs. Pomeroy's yucca bushes.
You'd talked to Meg for a bit, before she left, but now you're bored to the bone and having ridiculously deep thoughts about Logan, pretending to drink your eighth of a warm beer and eavesdropping on conversations so stupid they make your brain ache.
Lilly's dead. This is huge and important and cataclysmic.
But behind you, Carrie Bishop and Susan Knight are talking about a sale at the Banana Republic, and next to you, Sean Freedrik's bragging to Tad Wilson about his father's new Escalade, and on the other side, Caz Truman's doing what is quite possibly the worst impression of Homer Simpson that you've ever heard.
And this is why they hate you. This is what they wanted to get back to, what they despise you for trying to keeping them from. Clearance sales and leather interiors and songs about donuts.
And you're trying to prove something to them, why? They're stupid, they're blind, they're... they're cattle.
You fish your car key out of your bra. You're leaving.
And then, you hear the first interesting thing anyone's said all night.
"Holy fuck," Dick gasps in laughter, leaning against the bar between Sean and Tad. "Logan's wasted."
"Logan's always wasted," Sean sighs in that over-enunciated, prissy little way you'd just love to punch him for.
"Not like this, dude." Dick shakes his head and reaches for another beer. "He's so out of it, man. He's babbling about Lilly and crying like a girl."
And you realize, with a sinking horror, that not every part of you hates Logan Echolls.
"Get Duncan," Tad shrugs.
"Duncan's gone, man, took off like an hour ago. Beav helped me put Logan in a guest room."
No one notices as you slide off your stool and head for the back of the house.
You don't really know what you're doing. Kicking Logan when he's down sounds attractive. Finding out just what he'd say about Lilly when he's too fucked-up to censor himself, even more so. And if a tiny part of you is worried about him, well... you're a better person than he is, and you already knew that.
You still hate Logan Echolls, but you're not prepared for the way you feel when you finally find the right guest room.
Logan isn't human to you anymore. He's black, you're white, and if you can remember a time when you thought of him in three dimensions, you've squashed it -- he's your nemesis now.
And it doesn't matter if he always fed Backup under the table when no one was looking, or passed you notes in American History that made it so hard not to laugh out loud that your ribs ached, or that every time you liked a CD he'd bought, you'd find a burned copy in your backpack the next day.
It doesn't matter that after your Mom forgot to pick you up at school a few times, the Echolls' driver had started arriving precisely twenty minutes late, every single day. Or the time he'd let Lilly put makeup on him and swanned around the poolhouse singing "I Feel Pretty" while Duncan had groaned in horror and you'd laughed in delight. Or the way you'd always split your Skittles, because he hated anything grape-flavored and you really, really loved the orange ones.
It's too hard to hate Logan and remember that stuff.
And you're trying to hate him now, but he's too real. His face is tear-stained and his eyes are red and he's wiping snot on his wrist and he's popping back into three dimensions faster than you can hate him and you never should have come here.
"Veronica," he sighs, and that's all wrong, too.
He calls you "Ronnie" now, because he knows you hate it, and he never just says it. It needs a suffix, like "my nightmare is complete" or "I thought I smelled something" or "but waiter, I ordered two whores".
You should leave. This is... sad. And makes you feel sorry for him, which you can't afford. You lost him and it ached and you cauterized it with hate. There's nothing here for you but a re-opened wound.
"Logan?" you ask, "Are you... okay?"
And God, you hate the sound of your own voice, all sweet and hesitant and old Veronica, but you can't take it back and he's staring at you.
"I don't want to be 'okay'," Logan replies. He's lying on his back, flat out against the bed, staring at the ceiling, boneless. "I refuse to be 'okay'."
You've had a lot of unpleasant epiphanies lately, but realizing that Logan Echolls is quite possibly the only person in the world who understands you may just be the worst.
"I didn't mean in the greater scheme of life," you drawl. "That was more of a do-I-need-to-call-an-ambulance query."
He smiles at the ceiling. "Well, that would be quite the perversion of justice, since I'm pretty sure I stole your roofie."
What in the hell did he just say?
Logan's head lolls back, and he flexes his hands. "Which is quite amusing. Definite Alanis song material."
"So you're not going to remember any of this tomorrow?"
"Nope," he says grandly. "If you've been harboring any secret longings for me, now would be the time to express them."
"In your dreams."
It's lame, but it's the best you can do with the blush creeping up your face.
Please don't let him notice, please don't let him notice...
He raises an eyebrow. He noticed.
"Well," he laughs. "I'd find that so much more interesting if I could move."
"Poor Logan," you chuckle, taking a brave step towards him, a pure-Lilly shrug. "Such rich dirt on me, and you're destined to forget it."
"Pure tragedy," he agrees.
"You could get years of mileage out of that."
He smiles. "Want some free advice? I'm feeling generous."
"Y'know, I really don't?"
"You're never gonna be Lilly, Veronica. You shouldn't try to be. It doesn't work for you. Drop the act."
Good. You hate him all over again.
"It's not an act."
Logan laughs again, and it's a sound you're getting really sick of. "Lilly was cruel. You can dress like her, talk like her, walk like her, Veronica, but that's the part you'll never be. Do you have any idea what Lilly would have done to me, if she'd found me like this?"
He's right, and you know he's right, and you hate him for being right, because Lilly isn't completely human anymore, any more than Logan is. You've scrubbed off her rough edges and polished her up, and he's caught you doing it.
And that makes you the one who betrayed her.
So you say "What would Lilly have done?" like you want to know, but you don't.
"If she was feeling generous? Standard prank. If she wasn't..." he grins fondly, "probably fucked me within an inch of my life, left me here, and screamed at me the next day for cheating on her."
"No, she wouldn't."
"Would and did." He twirls his finger at the ceiling. "Party, Luke's house, too many keg stands. She let me think she was mad at me for a week."
He props himself up on his elbows, grins at you. "She censored herself for you, y'know. Knew there was a limit to how much little Veronica could stand to be shocked. All kinds of naughty little details never made it to your tender ears. It's why your little vendetta in the name of Saint Lilly is so fucking funny."
You've heard of people "seeing red" before, but you never realized it was literal. "And how about you? What you're doing?"
He flops back down. "I am killing myself slowly in fitting tribute."
"You think she'd want this? You being a bastard to me?"
"That, she wouldn't like. She'd want me to seduce you. But she can't always get what she wants." He grins. "And before you contradict me on that one, too, she talked about it all... the... time."
Something in your brain has just snapped. You think you felt it break loose. You're gaping at him, and you probably look stupid, but there's nothing you can do about that at the moment.
"Miss Lillian," Logan drawls, "was of the opinion that you, young lady, were terminally repressed. And she believed that one day, you would burst forth into bloom, shed your adorable cotton-print sundresses and flame with the fire of a thousand suns."
You're not going to cry. You're not.
"So what... she thought a ride on you would be sexual Miracle-Gro?"
Logan doesn't just laugh... he explodes in laughter, real laughter, the kind you haven't heard out of him in forever, the kind that's actually kind of nice.
But you still hate him.
And he still hates you, which is why it's so shocking when the next words out of his mouth are "Kiss me."
And when you just stare at him like he's grown a second head, he gives you a teasing grin that's so much the old Logan that you don't believe in anymore that you wonder where in the hell you are.
"C'mon," he teases. "Lilly wants you to. And hey, I'm not gonna remember this, so I can't judge you for being terrible."
"Lamest use of reverse psychology, ever. Award-winning."
But the horrible thing is, now you kind of want to kiss him. Not because you like him, because you don't, but because you want to stun and awe him with your amazing technique, leave him gasping and horny and flounce out laughing at him. Because for all he thinks you don't know Lilly, there's a hell of a lot he doesn't know about you.
He's lying on the bed making clucking chicken noises and giggling. Immature asshole.
"If I kiss you, will you shut up?"
"Hey, I'm not the one from the trailer park. I don't talk with my mouth full."
Fucking. Bastard.
So you stalk over to the bed, and you drop down on it, and you straddle him and you hope like hell you locked the door because if anyone sees you like this, your life at school will be an even bigger living hell.
And you glare at him. "You just gonna lie there?"
"I'm incapacitated," he reminds you gleefully.
So you kiss him, and it's weird for about a second and a half, and then you realize that this was A Very Bad Idea.
Logan Echolls is a psychotic jackass, an immature bastard...
... and an amazing kisser.
He's not letting you kiss him angry, and after a moment, you stop trying... you're learning too much, concepts snapping into your head, sudden understandings of books you've read and conversations you've overheard and things you thought people were making up because they sounded good.
He's kissing your brain away, and that's never happened... you're a creature of the mind, always thinking, planning, evaluating your technique, deciding what to do next.
And you can't, you just can't, you're losing it, all your intentions of proving him wrong and showing him up dissolving as you can't do anything but react to him, and your next-to-last coherent thought is incapacitated my ass because he's moving just fine, his hands in your hair and his thumbs stroking down your temples.
And your last one is, you think you know why Lilly laughed like that.
Because he doesn't touch when he can glide, feather-light, with blazing palms and nimble fingers, and he doesn't kiss when he can... oh, you don't even have words for what he's doing with his teeth, his tongue, against your neck.
And you don't know when he rolled you both over, and you definitely don't know when both your legs curled around his, or when your dress ended up around your waist, or when your hands ended up in his hair, or when he started grinding his hips against yours and when you started rising to meet each thrust, and somewhere, deep beneath the red and surging thing that's occupying your entire brain at the moment, you realize that, were it not for three relatively thin layers of fabric, you would be fucking Logan Echolls.
Which is when you freeze, and a second later, his eyes open and he stares at you.
"What is it?" he whispers, all concerned and nice, like he's someone else and not him.
You push at his chest, and he lets you go, rolling off and propping himself up on an elbow. You rise from the bed, straighten your dress, straighten your hair. Procrastinating, really.
And the longer you don't talk, the more the nice look on his face falls off, something harder and meaner and more recently familiar rising to replace it.
"You're drugged," you offer, although you don't owe him anything. "This is... wrong."
"How noble of you."
You thought he'd found every weak place in your armor. But you'd never, never expected this one.
"Oh, come on, Logan," you say with every ounce of sarcasm you can muster. "You don't want to deflower your arch-nemesis when you can't savor the victory the next day."
He looks surprised, for a moment; maybe it's because you just admitted that you'd been on the verge of letting him deflower you, or maybe he's just never heard your new relationship formalized before. Then again, maybe he's just surprised you're still a virgin; you didn't think he'd actually needed to believe the rumors to spread them.
And then he smiles, and it's not the nice one. "Don't sweat it, Ronnie. I found out what I wanted to know."
Did your face just fall? God, you hope it didn't. You try a casual smile. "Oh, yeah? What was that?"
His smile spreads. "When you pour Miracle-Gro on a dead plant, nothing happens."
You blink. Try to breathe. "I'm going to destroy you, you know."
And he sighs in contentment, falling back onto the bed. "I was counting on it."