Side by Side Comparisons

Rating: R

Author: DalWriter

Characters: Duncan/Veronica/Logan; eventual LoVe

Summary: Set after Season 3. Duncan returns. He & Logan get drunk discussing their respective relationships with Veronica who shows up a bit tipsy herself.

Spoilers: nothing in particular but through The Bitch is Back just in case

Disclaimers: As much as I would love to own them, I don't. This was written in tribute to a show I miss but have re-discovered on SoapNet. I am not making a profit from this but write for my own entertainment.

Interior penthouse at the Neptune Grande Hotel

In response to insistent knocking on the door, Logan finally glanced up from the video game he was half-heartedly playing. "Go away," he shouted.

"It's me, man. Let me in," a familiar voice called from outside.

Throwing down the controller, Logan scrambled off the couch and yanked open the door to greet his unexpected guest enthusiastically, "Duncan!" Stepping into the room, Duncan embraced his old friend and the guys clapped each other on the back as they reunited. "I thought I'd never seen you again. When. . . ? Where. . . ? What's up?" Logan couldn't finish a sentence; there were so many questions swirling around. The guys high-five'd each other.

Shrugging good naturedly, Duncan answered all the unasked questions simply, "You know it's not actually illegal when she's your own daughter."

Logan clapped him on the back. "Glad that's over." Looking around for a baby, Logan inquired, "So where is she?"

"With my parents. You didn't really think I'd bring my daughter over here, did you?"

"What's wrong with here?" Logan smirked.

Duncan couldn't help but smile at his friend's sarcasm but turned fairly serious. "Not my daughter."

"They're all someone's daughter, dude."

Duncan cringed as that reality set in. Fortunately, Lily was only about 18 months old. He didn't have to worry about guys like Logan for a while.

Plopping down on the modern white leather couch Duncan changed the subject. "Do you know where Veronica is? I tried to call her but her number seems to be out of service." Duncan waved his cell phone at Logan.

A shadow darkened Logan's face. Rather than answer directly he walked over to the wet bar, opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Stoli and a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice. Setting two lead crystal rocks glasses on the marble surface, Logan began filling them with ice from the nearby bucket, carefully using the tongs to allow each cube to fall into the crystal with a pleasant tinkle, he not so subtly played for time to formulate an answer to a seemingly simple question. "Want one?"

"Where is she?" Duncan repeated. "Logan . . . . ?"

That wasn't a "no". Pouring four fingers of vodka into each glass, Logan splashed them with a little juice, enough to change the color of the liquid but not really enough to mask the taste of vodka. The drinks were still more clear than anything. He returned the vodka and the juice to the 'fridge, then handed a drink to Duncan. Clinking glasses with his buddy, Logan toasted, "Here's to a blonde ball of fire," before sinking down on the other side of the L-shaped couch.

"Okay. Here's to my sister but what about Veronica?"

Logan chortled, "You have been gone a long time or you have a short memory."

Duncan looked at him quizzically. He was clearly missing something but didn't know what.

"That's who I was talking about, Veronica," Logan explained.

Duncan silently urged Logan to continue. Logan obliged after audible exhale and a brief hardly noticeable grimace. He really didn't want to be the one to catch Duncan up on all that transpired since he ran off but there didn't seem to be another choice. "She kinda had to change her phone number."

"I got that when I tried to call and the recorded voice told me the old number was no longer in service and no other information was available."

Seeing no other choices, Logan figured straight ahead was his best bet. "There was this tape, at the end of last semester. Her and her . . . . boyfriend." Logan spit out that word like it was poison. "It got pretty bad."

Just then the suite door flung wide open with a muffled bang and a drunken Dick stumbled in draped over a buxom redhead wearing a tiny bikini under a barely there cover-up; she was struggling to hold him up. As he was leading his new playmate toward his bedroom, he noticed people in the living area. "DK! Dude! Waasssup? You gotta see that tape, man. Ronnie was smokin'."

Although part of Duncan was happy to see his old friend, he instinctively knew that Dick's comment didn't bode well for what was coming next.

Logan cut off the discussion, "Now you know why Veronica changed her number."

"I saw the tape," Duncan reluctantly admitted to Logan. "My dad showed it to me. Wanted to show me 'what kind of a girl' Veronica was," the younger Kane supplied with air quotes emphasizing that he disagreed with his father. He knew exactly what 'kind of girl' Veronica was.

"Your dad?" empathized Logan. The idea of Duncan having to look at pictures of Veronica half naked with his own father was more than he could stomach. He hated that tape and wanted every copy, everywhere erased permanently just like the ones of Lilly and his own father that he wiped out on this very couch.

Duncan correctly interpreted the disgusted the look on Logan's face. "It wasn't nearly as bad as when I had to watch the tapes of my sister with . . . . "

"Yeah," Logan cut him off. "Thanks for not finishing that sentence. Let's just not go there, shall we? Great father son bonding times we've shared with our old men, huh?"

Dick had already forgotten his companion and rolled over the top of the couch between Duncan and Logan. "Issss good ta see ya, man," he grinned stupidly looking up at Duncan from his new supine position.

Having been through this on an almost daily basis, Logan dismissed the girl. "Thank you for getting our little Dick home safely. We'll take it from here." When she didn't move, Logan repeated slowly, "You. Can. Go. Now." He gestured with his glass pointing to the door in case the visitor had forgotten where it was.

Insulted, the redhead huffed, tossed her hair over her shoulder and marched out. The door clicked audibly behind her.

"Seriously, man. Ronnie looked fine." In an exaggerated manner Dick outlined her curves with his hands as he continued not realizing that neither Duncan nor Logan appreciated his commentary, but seeing Duncan's scowl he offered, "It's Okay. Logan beat the crap outta that Pizzant."

"Pizzant?" Duncan queried looking at Logan.

"Piz . . . Stosh Pisnarski . . . Veronica's . . . boyfriend," Logan sneered as he bit out the beginning of the explanation. "But it wasn't his fault. He didn't make the tape."

"But he was with Veronica," Duncan sought confirmation, wanting to take a poke at this boyfriend himself.

Logan understood exactly what Duncan was thinking and feeling. "Yeah. It did feel kind of good to beat his face in." Duncan nodded in agreement and appreciation.

At that moment, Dick chose to upchuck. Logan managed to get a wastebasket under his face but not before he got some puke on the couch, the floor, the area rug, and the corner of the coffee table. At least he missed the game console.

"Gross!" Duncan exclaimed jumping away from his sloshed friend.

Logan shrugged. "Welcome to my world. I'll call housekeeping. Can you get him into his room?"

Although Duncan had gotten used to all sorts of bodily fluids emanating from both ends of his infant daughter, he didn't want to deal with Dick's vomit. "I'll call housekeeping. You deal with barfing beauty over here."

When Logan emerged from Dick's room a few minutes later housekeeping had already arrived and was cleaning Dick's mess. Duncan was standing helplessly in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. Grabbing the drinks from the coffee table, Logan handed Duncan his and headed toward the sliding glass doors to the balcony. "It stinks in here. Let's go outside."

"Great idea. It's been a while since I've seen a California sunset."

Once they settled into the cushioned wicker lounge chairs, Duncan lamented, "I missed her, you know. I didn't want to leave her behind but she said it was for the best."

"That's our Veronica. Always thinking of others," Logan scoffed good-naturedly.

"She does. She's so sweet," Duncan continued, unfazed by Logan's dismissive attitude.

"If you say so," Logan looked over at Duncan. The sun was sinking into ocean on the horizon; the twinkling lights of Neptune were beginning to brighten. "I guess . . . . your Veronica was sweet," Logan conceded thinking back to the big dance sophomore year, before Lilly's murder, before his father, before Beaver, before Mercer. . . "Mine was . . . feisty."

Duncan arched an eyebrow, "Your Veronica?"

Logan shrugged unapologetically. "You told me to keep an eye on her."

"An eye," Duncan repeated. "I never said anything about any other parts."

"You're the one who put the fox in charge of the hen house."

Duncan laughed sardonically. He wasn't really mad at Logan. Part of him never expected to return to Neptune. Better Logan then some random stranger. Duncan knew full well what Logan and Veronica shared during the summer between their junior and senior years of high school. He watched it almost every day that summer from his vantage point at the Java Hut. He also endured Logan's scorn and ridicule after he and Veronica reconciled. Duncan couldn't claim that he was surprised that they picked up where they left off in his absence, but speculating about it and confirming that she hadn't been sitting home alone pining for him were two different things.

Needing some time to collect his thoughts, Duncan downed the last of his drink and stepped back into the penthouse. The staff had cleaned up Dick's mess and that sour smell could not be detected. You had to appreciate the quality service at a five star hotel.

He grabbed the Stoli, some ice and the juice out of the small bar fridge and returned outside to refresh their drinks, making them just as strong as the ones Logan initially supplied. When he turned to put the containers back inside, Logan suggested, "Leave 'em so we don't have to get up again but bring the ice bucket out here."

"Okay," Duncan agreed, returning with a brimming ice bucket and settling back into his lounger. Taking a healthy sip of his drink, he redirected the conversation to its original subject. "You still haven't told me where she is."

Sighing, Logan admitted, "I don't really know. By the end of last semester, we weren't talking. As soon as school was over she bolted to the east coast, some sort of internship with the F.B.I."

"Really?" Duncan was a bit surprised by that. After Veronica helped him escape and thwarted the F.B.I.'s efforts to stop him, he didn't think they would want her working for them. Then again, his dad always said the best hackers made the best code writers. Maybe the F.B.I. felt the same way.

"Kind of ironic," Logan agreed gesturing toward Duncan with his drink as if he knew exactly what the other man had been thinking.

"So you haven't talked to her since school got out?"

"I got 2-3 emails and I called her on her birthday but just got voice mail."

"So you have her number?" Duncan pulled out his cell phone poised to enter Veronica's new digits and stared at Logan expectantly.