Title: Double Standard

Author: Sassy

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Lots of Piz/Veronica, but it definitely turns into Logan/Veronica

Summary: Set after the last episode. Veronica tries to get over Logan. And Logan is sick of Veronica's double standard.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, they are all Rob Thomas.

Double Standard

Piz opened the door to see a slightly distraught Veronica in the hallway. He tried to slow his heart from beating too rapidly. After all, Veronica never did see him as anything more that someone to talk to when Wallace and Mac weren't available. He never really did much to change it either. All of his subtle hints seemed to go unnoticed by the supersleuth and he had never had enough guts to actually tell her how he felt.

"Veronica, what are you doing here?" She seemed uncomfortable and he couldn't figure out why. Veronica was always confident, sure of herself and her place in the world, at least for as long as he had known her.

She glanced around the hall and then motioned to the door. Piz realized he had left her standing in the hallway. "Oh, right, come in. Wallace isn't here right now. Were you looking for him?"

He moved out of the way so Veronica could enter the room. She shrugged, "Yeah, I know. That engineering class has been kicking his ass."

"It makes me glad I'm a broadcasting major, though I wish he was around more to hang out with me." The room fell silent again and Piz couldn't figure out why everything was so ackward. "So, Logan and you…"

Veronica stepped forward, putting her hands on his shoulders. "I didn't come here to talk about Wallace. Or Logan." She grasped the back of his neck and pulled his head down to meet her lips. She was kissing him, roughly, passionately, and it was everything Piz had ever hoped for. She was kissing him. She had come to his dorm room to kiss him.

He tried not to think. He just felt her soft lips attacking his, nipping them, sucking them, her tongue slipping in and out of his mouth, battling his tongue. His heart was racing, his body beginning to react to her. Her hands started to roam, smoothing over his sweater, reaching down to his waist band. His own hands started to rove hesitantly, reaching up to lightly brush over her breasts. He was so caught up, he didn't notice the slight blanche on Veronica's face, the tear that rolled down her cheek.

She didn't want to think about Logan. She wanted to get him out of her system, move on with someone other than him. She wasn't dense. She knew how Piz felt about her. She simply ignored it because she hadn't wanted to deal with it. But he would be willing to help her move on. Easily. She knew this would change their friendship in ways she couldn't imagine, but she needed this. She wanted to need this.

Still, she could feel Logan with every kiss she gave Piz, feel his hands on her, feel his kiss over her body, feel his eyes looking at her with a strange devotion. She no longer saw Madison straddling him and kissing him. She know longer envisioned them having sex. She saw him kissing her. She saw him wanting her.

Piz's hands moved up to her hair, running them through the blond locks with fervency. Veronica began walking backward, pulling him with her, pulling him down onto his bed. He moaned as Veronica started to move her mouth down his neck. This was like a fantasy come true for him, even if he was following her lead. She pulled up Piz's shirt, rubbing her hands on his bare chest. Veronica's shirt came next, revealing a blue polka dotted bra. Not sexy, but still attractive. Piz pulled away from the frantic kissing to take her in, to freeze in time the first time he and Veronica made love. He knew where this was going. He wasn't making assumptions. He had seen the look in her eyes when she had kissed him for the first time.

Unfortunately for Piz, the warm gaze in his eyes as he drank in her body was enough to pull Veronica out of the daze she was in. This was Piz. Wallace's roommate. Her friend. She couldn't do this. She couldn't take advantage of him. She was better than this and he deserved better.

She slid back from Piz, struggling a bit from his weight on top of her. "No, Piz, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this."

"What?"

"I can't do this to us. We're friends, Piz, good friends." She started to move to the edge of the bed, her arms wrapping around her, coving her chest somewhat. She was suddenly very aware that she was standing in front of him in her bra.

Piz felt a little bit of bitterness run through his body, fast dousing the passion. "You came into my dorm room and started this, Veronica. And now you don't want to finish it? Because you're having second thoughts. It's okay. I want this too."

Veronica looked away from Piz, trying to find the right words to say. "I know. But I just broke up with Logan. I wasn't thinking. I haven't been apart from Logan that long. And I love him. I can't just turn it off, no matter how much I want to. I want to hurt him, get back at him for sleeping with Madison when we broke up before. This isn't the way to do this. I can't just use you like this."

Piz jumped off the bed, jerking his shirt off the floor. He started to yank it on, his temper rising. "You were just using me? Using my feelings for you!? That's why you came here, isn't it? You aren't as oblivious as you tried to seem. You always knew how I felt, even though I never told you. You pretended you didn't know, but the minute you needed to use it to your advantage, you did."

"That's why I'm stopping this, Piz. I don't want to hurt you anymore than I already have." She started to the other side of the bed, looking for her own shirt. "You're my friend, Wallace's roommate. I'm going to be around here, and you're going to be around where I am. We're stuck together, and I don't want to do anymore to damage us. You'll be able to get over these kisses, even if it takes a little while. If I hadn't had second thoughts, you would have never would have forgiven me. You deserve better than this. I knew it the second I saw the look on your face."

Piz turned his back on her, heading for the door. "You know, I think I'm going to the station. You can stay here and get dressed. I'm sure Wallace will be home soon. Maybe you can jump him."

Piz slammed the door behind him, leaving Veronica to sink on the bed, pulling her shirt back over her head.

Veronica waited a moment to stop herself from breaking down. With her shirt back in place, all she wanted to do was get out of the dorm room and forget that the whole event had ever occurred. She didn't think to fix her I've-been-fooling-around hair or make sure everything was back in it's proper place. She wanted to escape.

She never expected to find Logan walking down the hallway towards the room. She hadn't even thought that something like that would happen. Logan didn't even live in the dorms. Truth be told, she hadn't really thought any of this through. But the look on Logan's face was nearly as painful as the look on Piz's face when she had confessed her reasons for kissing him.

'You just had sex with the puppy! I can't believe you and your double standards! We haven't even been broken up for three days. At least I waited a couple of weeks before I plowed Madison." Logan hesitated for a moment and sniffed the air around Veronica's face. "And you're not drunk, so you can't even use that as an excuse."

Veronica's back straightened at Logan's harsh words and met his glaring gaze with a fiery look of her own. Suddenly she was no longer pathetic Veronica, and her personality was back. "What are you even doing here? These are the dorms. I don't think you have any friends here."

Logan leaned forward, putting his arm over her head, propping himself on the wall cockily.

"You're right. I definitely don't. But if you remember, Wallace is in my Sociology class. And we're partners on a project…we weren't broken up when Wallace and I signed up to work together. I'm supposed to meet him here in ten minutes. If I had known you and your puppy were going to be going at it before, I would have met Wallace in the library."

Veronica slipped under Logan's arm and started down the hall. She had no inclination to correct Logan's assumption because she knew deep down it hurt him, even if he was being snide about it now. And that's what she wanted. She wanted to hurt him.

"That's right, Veronica, walk away when we're fighting. You're so good at walking away. It's the easiest thing for you, always." Logan's tone stopped Veronica in her tracks. She whirled around to face him, eyes flashing.

"Just like screwing inappropriate girls is what's easiest for you."

"You can hardly take the moral high ground on that one anymore." Logan started to smirk, watching the different emotions on Veronica's face. She looked like she wanted to throw something at him, but thought better of it. Instead, she redirected the approach.

"What I do is not your business anymore!" She nearly yelled it, ignoring the fact that they were in a hallway.

"You mean, who you do? Well, shouldn't you be using the same standard when it comes to me and Madison?"

He stepped closer to her, in a slightly threatening way. He towered over her tiny body, watching her every movement. "You know how much I hate Madison."

"And you thought I love Piz? He's been wanting you since the day he met you. And he would have tried something if he had more balls."

Logan had a point. Well, at least the first part of it. Still, Veronica wouldn't change her opinion. "You turned to Madison who has the depth of a Barbie doll. You know what she did to me! She caused my rape and while doing that, she wrote Slut on my car!"

"If you're going to blame Madison, are you going to blame me for bringing the GHB from Mexico? Are you going to blame Dick for trying to force Madison for loosening up? Or maybe blame Woody for molesting Beaver and screwing him up so badly that he raped you?"

Veronica blanched at the harshness of his voice as well as his words. This was too much. This conversation, argument, whatever the hell it was, had gone into territory that should never have been entered.

"I'll blame who I want for that, Logan, and you trying to tell me not to blame Madison isn't going to change anything. I forgave you for the GHB. That's who you were."

"It's who I am, Veronica, and I'm not changing. I've just never been enough for you. You've never let me because you set yourself up for failure by everyone you know."

Logan knew he should stop. He was being too honest to her. He was hurting her. He should just let it drop. Veronica wasn't his and she had obviously moved on quickly enough without another thought to him. Why did he even care?

"You have failed me, Logan. So many times, it goes past counting them on my hands."

Logan had to admit that he had failed Veronica many times. And he wanted to make up for those times over and over. But Veronica had failed him too.

"I've had plenty of people fail me too! Including you. I forgave you for accusing me of murdering Lilly, even though you gave me up to the sheriff without even talking to me. I forgave you for accusing me of raping you. I forgave you for turning your back on me every time something goes wrong in your life and you've decided I'm the cause of it. I know it's not the same thing, but I'm not saying I haven't failed you. I'm not saying you haven't forgiven me. But this thing with Madison wasn't even intentional."

Veronica seemed taken aback by the things Logan had mentioned. She didn't like the way he was making her feel, like she was being unreasonable and unmoving.

Logan wasn't finished either. "You and I, we were supposed to mean more to each other, be able to get through everything. You are – were the only thing in the world I had, the only thing in the world that mattered.

"I loved Lilly, but she never loved me. Not in the way I wanted. She loved boys and I fit into her world of boys. I was her counterpart, the male version of her. We were angry and rebellious and together, we had a great time together. But she loved me because I was the first one to join her in getting into trouble. And I loved her because she acted like I mattered sometimes.

"You were different. I loved you with everything I had…probably because I didn't have anything else, and I think you loved me too. You were my chance, but you're so busy holding me to these unrealistic standards that even you don't follow.

"And because I made a mistake when we weren't together, you threw us away completely. The day you came back to my room and kissed me, I felt like everything was going to be normal again. But that changed quickly. Now you've run to find cold comfort in the arms of a boy who fits perfectly into your sidecar without another thought to me."

Veronica laughed a little at the ridiculousness of their situation. Yelling at each other, airing their dirty laundry in the middle of a dormitory hallway.

"How do you think it made me feel to find out from Madison that you had sex with her in Aspen while I was looking for lingerie without the first clue to what you would want? She gave me suggestions on what you'd like as she sauntered out of the store. You hurt me!"

"And you think I'm feeling great, three days after I pour my heart out onto your voicemail, begging for forgiveness, finding you coming out of Piz's room with sex hair and your shirt half unbuttoned at the top? I'm going crazy imagining that boy with his hands on you, touching you, kissing you, hearing you moan when it's supposed to be me!" He spit the last of it out as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. "I had no idea I was going to run into you after you had a romp with someone so soon after you left me so self-righteously."

Veronica grabbed Logan and made him look her in the eyes. Suddenly, she needed to clarify. "I didn't sleep with Piz, Logan."

"Oh, you and Wallace decided to things to the next level? I doubt that."

"No, I came here with the intention of jumping Piz. I knew he'd be willing. And we almost did. But I stopped it. I couldn't do it. Not to him, not to me. It wasn't right when I was imagining you touching me when it was him."

Logan was momentarily speechless. He didn't even know if he believed her, even if he wanted to. He stared into her eyes, watching her closely. She wanted him to believe her. She looked so pleading, it was a change from their bitter and angry words only moments ago.

"Why are you telling me this now? Why didn't you start with that?"

"I wanted to hurt you as badly as you hurt me. Logan, I've never felt like I did when I found out Madison had slept with you. I was humiliated. I was hurt. I was shocked. I trusted you. When you told me you hadn't been with anyone during our break up, I believed you."

"Maybe I should have been honest about that. But I was trying to protect you. I didn't mean for Madison to tell you."

"She couldn't wait to rub it in my face."

"Yeah, well, Madison's a bitch."

Veronica couldn't deny that. She was quiet for a moment, just long enough for Logan to pull her to him and gently caress her face. Before she even had the sense to tell him to stop, he was ravishing her lips with the love he had felt for her for more than a year. She fell into it just as easily as she had before. Kissing Logan was like everything being right in her world. His hands moving her closer, wrapping around her waist, pouring all the angst and love he felt for her into her made her want to be with him again. No matter what they did to each other, he always loved her. Just his touch made her forget that she was mad at him, that she wasn't with him.

"I want to be enough for you, Veronica. You've always been enough for me."

"I need time, Logan. We need to talk about things like we have just now. We've never talked about these things before. There's no way we can be enough for each other if we don't work out all our anger at each other. We were just screaming at each other in a hallway."

She took a deep breath and leaned up to kiss him one more time. His lips were soft and demanding. His kiss never made her think clearly, so she would have to stop that if she could ever figure anything out.

"Seriously, could you guys just decide whether you want each other or not?" Wallace stood at the edge of the hallway, watching the impromptu makeout session full of emotion after such a fight. Veronica avoided Wallace's eyes, knowing that soon Wallace would know what she had done. He would forgive her too, but he wouldn't be happy she'd used his roommate. And he wasn't always the biggest fan of Logan.

Wallace brushed past them to enter his room.

"Just make sure it sticks whatever you decide."