Title: See Dick Think
Category: TV Shows » Veronica Mars
Author: And The Moment's Gone
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T
Word Count: 2,318
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers through Donut Run
Summary:Yes. Dick thought. It wasn't a normal occurrence.
Official Disclaimer: All Veronica Mars characters and plots belong to Rob Thomas and the CW. I do not hold stock either the man or the company. Veronica Mars, Logan Echolls, and any other character featured are NOT mine.
It was most certainly true, Dick Casablancas was not known for doing anything other than drink and surf. There was more than the occasional girl wrapped into the equation somewhere, and he was a definite fan of video games. But as one would note, not too many neurons were needed for his existence.
One would also die in shock to discover that Dick did indeed know what neurons were.
Which could attribute to why he was currently wandering around the school after classes, waiting on his best friend to finish in the newspaper office and thinking.
Yes. Dick thought.
It wasn't a normal occurrence.
Reserved for special occasions, and getting drunk alone, Dick did allow himself to contemplate certain things from time to time.
This time, however, it was about his best friend's ever-changing mood.
Which he thought had something to do with the revolving door that he called his love life. Dick slumped against the lockers and shook his head. No… not his love life. If such a thing existed, Dick would probably have to kill himself. He had had his girlfriend for a little while, and then abandoned her for the joy of the hunt.
No, the thing turning his best friend into Jekyll and Hyde was his best friends' love life.
Or perhaps lack thereof.
And he knew that that was the thing.
You see, the Casablancas' boys and the Echolls' son had been friend literally all of their lives. They had lived next door to each other long before Richard Jr. and little Logan had made their first appearance into the world. For the first five years, actually, the neighbors honestly had trouble telling which boy belonged to which couple. And when the Echolls' decided to move their family to the quiet life in Neptune, Richard Sr. didn't hesitate to call for the maid to open up his estate and transfer his children there too.
There was not a single memory of Logan getting into trouble that Dick didn't recall being involved in. And, Dick assumed, vice versa.
And although he didn't like to admit it, Dick paid a lot of attention to his best friend and the way that he worked.
In middle school, he had started to make a name for himself as a heartbreaker. Logan Echolls was the guy that all of the giggly little girls wanted to add to their romantic repertoire, and the one guy that all of their little boyfriends wanted to emulate. By freshman year at Neptune High, Dick could honestly say without a doubt that there was not a girl in the '09er crowd that Logan hadn't made it to third base with. With the exception of Lilly Kane, the ever-sensible Duncan Kane's older sister; and Lilly had been on Logan's 'to do' list since puberty. Not that she would have put up too much of a fight had he gone for her sooner.
You see, Lilly Kane loved to piss her parents off. After they threatened to hold her back a year so she could graduate with Duncan it had become her raison d'etre.
Yes, Dick knew how to pay attention in English. Thank you very much!
And while dating the son of film star and family friend Aaron Echolls was not necessarily the thing to get Celeste's goat, so to speak, getting caught topless on the floor of the living room with him just happened to do the trick. To say that Celeste Kane wasn't too happy about that one would have been the understatement of the decade. She hadn't demanded that Lilly stop seeing Logan though, which shocked the hell out of everyone. Honestly had she pitched the fit Lilly hoped for, the following years probably would have turned out differently for everyone.
The only thing that Lilly was better at than pissing her parents off was cuckolding her boyfriend; If the girl didn't have a flavor of the day that she flashed and teased in front of Logan, it would probably have signaled the end of the world. Casey, Sean, Luke. You name the guy, and Lilly had probably had hinted that she had slept with them. Whether it was true or not was up for speculation, but it didn't stop the rumor mill.
Dick was just glad that they didn't know a thing about the PCHer or Logan's old man until the trial had started. Learning about those two indiscretions would have probably killed him.
And just when Logan was gearing himself up to finally dump her and stay broken up…
She was gone.
Aaron and Lynn had both tried their damndest to keep Logan out of the news cycle. Sure, there was the odd tabloid shot of him and Duncan at the Kane estate or at school, and the paparazzi loved seeing people at Lilly's grave, but Logan was kept pretty close to the home for the first few days.
To Dick's knowledge Logan had only been out to the cemetery twice.
He had holed himself up in his room for almost a week and a half after the funeral. He saw Duncan and his mother and had the maid turn everyone else away. And when he returned to school he claimed he was as good as new. Or as close to good as new as Logan Echolls ever got.
He didn't have an actual girlfriend for a year after Lilly.
That didn't mean that girls weren't around; Logan had never been seen without his harem, even before Lilly had been found dead. And he definitely didn't try to hide when he was partaking in what his harem had to offer. He just didn't allow one of them to claim that they were his favorite.
There had been Caitlin Ford.
Dick still cringed when he thought about that one.
Yet another girl to fool around with a PCHer and expect Logan to roll over. She had been blackballed before the end of business that day. Dick had seen to it personally. No one tried to make a fool out of Logan and live in the comfort of the '09er bubble to tell the tale.
Then Kendall had entered the picture.
Dick's favorite step-mommy of all of his step-mommies.
Laker girl and trophy wife by trade, Kendall had been having an affair with Logan almost as long as she had been 'Mrs. Richard Casablancas.' It honestly hadn't bothered him as much as it did his brother.
After all, hadn't he had a wet dream or two over Mrs. Echolls before she threw herself off the bridge?
And after if memory served.
Kendall wasn't around to help Logan emotionally. She had been there to dull the edge of what his life had become. She was a quickie before school and the one you call to keep you warm at night. He wouldn't have been surprised if someone told him that Logan paid a good bit of money to keep her in his bed when he needed her. But she had been kicked to the curb a few days ago when she expected Logan to reward her for her services.
Dick laughed and kicked off of the wall at that one.
Which turned his thoughts to the last and latest of Logan's conquests.
Hannah.
When exactly in his life Logan's favorite type had become the simple petite blonde was really anyone's guess.
Hannah Griffiths was the epitome of everything that at one time Dick thought Logan was sent to destroy.
Petite. Perky. Blonde. Freshman. Virgin.
There.
Dick Casablancas just summed up everything that infatuated Logan with the girl in five words.
Honestly, she didn't bother him that much. After all, he's only had to hang out with her and Logan at the suite once so far. It was just – damn it she's below them. They're Egyptian silk and drinking gallons of Dom from the bottle and she was pink flannel and hot chocolate. They skipped school to surf and gave band geeks wedgies and she was a straight A student who sold 'spirit buttons' during her free period.
And don't think for a second that Dick can't tell that Logan thinks the same thing. He knows with an odd authority that every time Logan looks at her, Hannah's not who comes to mind. And whenever Logan reaches to pull her closer, it's instinct talking. Hannah is little more than a distraction, and Dick's not entirely sure why Logan's even bothering. It's not like there weren't dozens of other girls who would give their lives to be able to 'distract' Logan Echolls. She just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
And the poor girl doesn't even know it.
That makes Dick feel bad for her.
Not bad enough to say anything mind you, but he's sure the feeling is there. After all, if it were him, she would have been discarded long ago.
He's outside now, moving through the parking lot, and he laughs when realization hits.
He'd skipped one, of course he had. Maybe it had been intentional, but he's completely left one out.
The most important one of all.
He'd seen his best friend truly happy maybe twice in his life. And when they were five playing with G.I. Joes didn't count. At that time neither of them really knew what happiness was. Lilly made him happy, as much as she could at least. As selfish as Lilly Kane was, when they were together, she never ceased to make a lonely Logan feel wanted. She might have ripped his heart out later down the line, but at least he could pretend that they were meant to be for a while.
And then there was her…
Dick shrugged as he watched from his perch on top of his best friend's Xterra as she dropped her book bag into her back seat and reach into the floorboard to pop her trunk.
No girl had ever done as much damage to Logan Echolls as that one.
Veronica Mars.
The only one that Logan and Duncan have ever had to share; and the only one to ever tear them apart.
In a way Dick finds that funny.
There have been countless girls that he and Logan have both cast off and hooked up with. They have shared everyone from Shelley Pomroy to Madison Sinclair. And they had yet to fight about it. If he got to them first, it was all him, and if Logan made mention of a certain appetite, well Dick thought it was his job to provide. There had been absolutely none of Logan and Duncan's brand of hostility when it came to girls.
Or should he say: girl? After all, there was just the one.
Duncan had her first.
Dick still didn't know why one day he was told that she was to be the next social leper. One day Duncan just got quiet and Logan handed out orders and he wasn't one to disagree. Then her father accused Jake Kane of murder and he was allowed to vent all of his frustration out on the girl.
Somehow he still can't find it in him to feel bad about dumping her in the guest room. The black eye Logan gave him had healed rather quickly though. So it wasn't that bad.
From in front of him, she slams the trunk, tossing a duffel bag into the back seat and leaning against the car for a moment, staring at the side door where his buddy Logan and his little brother are leaving the building. Logan's eyes catch hers and they both look away. And Dick bites his lip to keep himself from shouting an unwelcome comment her way.
Lilly Kane. Kendall. Hannah. They all left their mark on the man that's flipping his keys up in the air while Beaver animatedly rattles on about the girl he's seeing. He wears them with pride and shows them off with a lash of sarcasm. Veronica too, but hers is beneath the surface. Logan keeps that pain so close to his heart and so far away from prying eyes.
They both like to pretend that nothing ever happened between the two of them. That the happy moments that he interrupted and the hot make out sessions in the school parking lot after summer school never happened. It's easier than knowing that your best friend put his heart on his sleeve for a girl that turned him in to Lamb for murder. And it's probably better than knowing that the grudge with the PCHers that Dick had helped fuel didn't lead to something bitter. After all, she could only take them lying for so long. And Logan had never been good at turning from a fight.
So it never happened.
And they could go back to status quo.
But Logan still won't let Dick write things on her locker. And Sean was slammed into a table the last time he suggested that one of her tires should go flat. He never spoke to her out of spite, and until that little scene in the hall earlier he never dared to touch her either.
Which leads Dick to laugh and the other two to stare at him as the doors pop unlocked.
"Have a good day Ronnie!" He shouts from his perch, and Veronica stiffens at the sound of Logan's pet name on someone else's lips.
"Dick." She mummers back, almost resisting the urge to flip him off as she slams the door to her convertible and shoves the key in the ignition.
As if by clockwork the second he reaches for his seatbelt, Logan's hand collides with the back of his head. "I thought we talked about this." Logan rasped out, starting the SUV and pulling it out of the school parking lot.
"Yeah, well I've been thinking…" He let it trail off and then watched as Logan's eyes followed the black convertible down to the stop sign.
No one asks him for more, and he smiles as Logan toys with the radio.
Yes. Dick thought.
And if Logan could ignore it… so could he.