More and more lately Logan feels – misshapen; like he's been whittled away, eroded at until he's not even sure he wants to recognize what's really left. He's been worn down for so long now, by (on-and-off mind games and always someone new) silver keys snuck in and out of air vents; and (thick, dark crimson splashed on pristine tiles and all over the internet) thin, imported leather splitting apart fresh skin; and friends who turn into (zombies with no reaction and a tight lid on their emotions) near-strangers, or who draw unspoken battle lines and make you choose.
It's been a while now that he's been tempted to think life works this way – does these things – on purpose. There's some harsh, cutting humour in being a stringless puppet inside a never-ending cosmic joke; and with every other act, every new punch line that somehow manages to get the drop on you even when you expect it, you learn, and you know better: life's a bitch until you die.
Truth be told, he doesn't really care about the stealing. It's Aaron's money; and this is a man who drops more monthly just to have Curly keep his cars at their shiniest and most reflective. Gotta make sure your every angle always looks its best...
It's not about Mrs Navarro, either. True, she's been with them since Logan first came to Neptune, but she was never more than just the help. Long ago, in the days before kind blue eyes and killer knee socks, he used to wish she had been. Then he could be like those kids in the movies whose housekeeper-slash-nanny more than substituted for busy, barely-there parents. Then, he could have the knowledge he'd at least been raised – cared for – by someone. (But those were all empty wishes that would disappear too soon after; blown away like the flimsy, glowing-red ashes of long hair and bright smiles in cotton-candy pink photographs.)
And he half burns, half chokes back a bitter laugh (finest single malt, another fifteen lashes), toasts to the empty (s)hell that is his life, and tries his hardest to clamp down on the dim, vain, desperate want – hope? He's not certain he can really remember the meaning of it – that there's someone in it who's constant enough not to eventually turn into some kind of backstabbing bitch.
He can see the bottom of the first bottle by the time he decides it was probably Weevs who did it anyway, and it's well into the last half of the second bottle that he falls asleep – collapsed face-down on the bed (and he couldn't in all honesty tell you how or when he'd gotten naked), and fevered in his determination to get some proof of that fact.
By the time he's pulled into the parking lot at Neptune High the next morning, he's been busy, but he's somehow held on to that determination. He's (temporarily) safely hidden away all evidence of last night, and thrown out yet another comfy shirt after seeing the dried, brick-red constellations dotted on the back; he's tossed his cookies once and second-guessed himself twice, and finally made up his mind that there's only one person who can help. He's also just heard that Weevs turned himself in last night, which somehow automatically convinces Logan's still half-hung over brain that Weevil didn't do it. (He almost, almost finishes the thought that Weevil was innocent, but – well – it's Weevil.)
Figuring out how to approach Veronica Mars feels very much like pulling teeth – healthy, solidly rooted teeth – with a pair of rusted toenail clippers and nothing but the power of your mind. Any well thought-out plan Logan tries to formulate eventually boils right back down to 'piss her off enough she'll do it just to spite you'. Which is why he watches her a bit more intently than usual – just not enough to have her catch on that he's into more from this than yet another round of their usual no-punches-pulled. They're in Journalism class, and he's built up the perfect setting to casually tell Caitlin they had to let Mrs Navarro go, hoping neither girl can tell who it is he's holding under scrutiny. He wants to see if he can get even the hint of a reaction, because there's one thing he's convinced is an absolute truth: new her or old her, no matter what, Veronica Mars always roots for the underdog.
"Did you guys know that ninety percent of identity theft is committed by relatives of the victim? That's an interesting fact... 'Least I think so."
He wonders if he should be surprised; the notion of it almost makes him laugh, and laugh loudly. Because of course she's already working on it; and of course she suspects him. She's a Mars. Why not go after the close relative if they're on hand... That's their standard MO, right? He hits back with a jab at her still mooning over Duncan, but fun as they are, those rarely hit their mark anymore; and her retort is so smooth he can't even manage to curb his smile in time, even though he wants to grit his teeth until they splinter for giving her the satisfaction. Just his fucking luck. Apparently, on-point sarcasm will always be his downfall.
After making sure an otherwise imminent tyre job is put off till tomorrow, Logan gets a ride to Gold Coast with DK under the pretext of checking out some of Chang's moves. He mainly stares out the window during the drive over, busying fidgety fingers by tangling them over and over in the sleeves of his hoodie; because anywhere he looks inside this car makes the air close in around him – so thick and heavy it feels like he's choking instead of breathing in. This was Lilly's car, and everywhere, Logan could swear he sees flashes of swishy blond hair, hears the echoes of girly whispers and tinkling laughter, fucking smells the marshmallows and promises and the essence of Lilly. Everywhere. And he hates – hates – that Duncan can just drive her car like this, without pause or emotion, nothing to say during the whole ride aside from "Lilly loved this song," like that fucking makes up for anything.
He hangs back what he thinks is a safe distance away while they're all at the beach. The temptation to goad and burn Veronica with DK here is huge, the way it always is on the increasingly rare occasions when he catches those two in the same space. But if he wants to ride with her on the way back ('wants', he comments to himself, being about as much of an overstatement as saying Aaron is a talented actor), he'd rather stave off the momentary gratification.
Waiting around on a busy beach isn't all it's cracked up to be. Watching random dudes hit the waves gets old after not even fifteen minutes. Duncan looks so task-oriented he might as well have been pre-programmed. If he has to watch Veronica shoot half-longing, half-puzzled looks towards Duncan in between snapping every other picture Logan thinks he's gonna snap altogether; and he's never much gotten the appeal of people-watching to begin with. It's when he sees two blondes walking – skipping – backwards arm-in-arm, laughing as they tease their trailing boyfriends, that he decides the parking lot is the safer place to wait (that, and he's always carrying his flask with him from now on).
He's halfway between sitting and leaning against her car waiting for her by the time she and Duncan are done. Of course, aside from keeping a steady, hard gaze on him, she does nothing to acknowledge his presence even when she's gotten to within a couple of feet of her parking spot. Undeterred, he slides off the car with a dramatic flourish and gives her a mockingly bright, peppy smile.
"What part of me ignoring you makes you think you're welcome?" she says sharply, and he'll have to remember this one, because it'll be gold when he gets to turn around and use it on her.
"So you're investigating the credit card thing."
"Congratulations, you noticed." Her voice is getting harder with every word, and he can swear it feels like his tongue is physically itching for him to say something in return, to get her back for–
"I wanna know who did it, and I know Veronica Mars, super spy, must have something to go on by now," he says instead, because she's opened her mouth to say more, and it'll probably all snowball to hell if she does. It'll probably all snowball to hell anyway, but at least this way it gets to be on his terms.
She frowns slightly, and then her gaze suddenly slides past him and over his right shoulder. Logan rolls his eyes, because fifty-to-one he can guess exactly where it is she's looking; and sure enough, there Duncan is, pausing in the middle of getting in Lil–his car, practically frozen on the spot and watching him and Veronica with an impossible lack of expression on his face.
"Wait here, Mars." Logan smirks and winks, drops his bag on the hood of Veronica's car and jogs the couple of steps over to where Duncan is.
"Hey, DK, I have to talk to Veronica about something, and I think it'll go easier if I just get a ride back with her, you know."
He's found he has a much easier time of it if he doesn't so much lie to Duncan when he needs to, as tell him very carefully chosen half- and quarter-truths. He actually pulls it off more smoothly that way, and he also doesn't have to feel guilty about flat-out lying to his best friend even when the situation demands it.
"Sure, man. OK," Duncan says finally, as tonelessly as has become his habit lately, then simply gets behind the wheel without another word. Logan jogs back to Veronica's car, grabs his bag off the hood and quickly gets in, before she gets it in her head to just peel out of the parking lot and leave him behind. She would, too – now that Duncan's pulling away as well and he'd have no ride back.
The silence in the LeBaron is a couple of state lines past awkward, stiflingly so, and Logan is getting antsy now, restless. It doesn't help that he's incredibly fucking uncomfortable and has to keep shifting in his seat every handful of seconds. His back is still mottled greenish-yellow and purple from that Brussels bong he'll probably never prove she planted, and the seats in her toy surprise car are digging more and more uncomfortably into his sorest spots. That's so much like her that he almost has to wonder if that dogs and owners thing extends to cars now as well. So he shifts and fidgets and keeps his gaze in his lap, only he's really staring at her out of the corner of his eye, because it's dark out and he has nothing better to do anyway.
She's different. Anger burns him inside like frothing drips of acid, to know that something lingers in him, something that makes him see enough of her to really notice to what extent— She's different.
Not just in the obvious way: the one that's easiest for him to go after, because she sometimes seems like the only other person who can see how brutal life is After Lilly; or because she gathers all the little bits of herself into projectiles that hu–sting (can't fucking hurt, she's doesn't mean enough for that anymore) just as hard.
Not in the way that drunken, staggeringly drunken whispers, whenever his thoughts turn traitors, will make him wonder if he could actually, if he let himself, maybe like this version more than he misses the old her. The old them, he'll be quick to amend; because even when he's three sheets to the wind he's still too fucking incandescent with rage to let the thought slide for more than half a second that he could miss just her.
Not even in the way that vivid dreams searing his tongue and soaking his skin try persuade him this is what Lilly meant when she'd say he wasn't seeing the full potential to the Veronica of frilly pink. (He mostly ignores this dream Lilly anyway; because he knows, no matter how good things were between them, that Lilly always, unfailingly, sided with Veronica fucking Mars).
She's different in a way he tries desperately not to notice, even from this close. Because so what if she looks worn and fragile and stretched too thin. So fucking what if lurking in the well-hidden depths of her gaze is the same crushing sort of desolation he can recognize on the spot, the same that he feels every second and sees in the mirror every time he cares to look. He shouldn't – doesn't! – have to remind himself: she deserves it.
"I'm gonna have to make a stop at the Neptune Grand," Veronica says finally, voice quiet and measured and stilted. Great; and here he'd just gotten a break from Caitlin asking him to take her to the fucking Grand.
It's just then that sirens flash behind them, and Veronica automatically pulls over, as does Duncan just behind them. It's Duncan's car the officer approaches, but both Logan and Veronica get out of the LeBaron anyway to see what's going on.
"Can I have you step out of the car?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Got an impound notice on this vehicle. Bunch of parking tickets and a moving violation dated October 3rd."
In his peripheral vision, Logan sees Veronica almost completely bury a full flinch. Right now, that's the only thing he can anchor himself in as he fells the blood rush from his face – from everywhere, really, because his whole body seems to be going numb – and fucked if he knows where it's all even going. The sound of Duncan talking to his dad registers in his ears like it's half become shrill buzzing, and he dimly wonders if this is what hysteria feels like.
The drive from the PCH to the Grand is a complete blank, and he can't muster the energy to do more than raise his eyes to Veronica's face when she practically orders him to stay glued to the inside of her car. She's gone for maybe ten minutes, and he guesses she was in selling some sob story about – wait, what's the best story someone her age can spook a hotel manager with? Probably a fake pregnancy with a mystery frat boy who got her so drunk she's drawing a blank on the whole night. He wonders what she hopes the management will do. Sure, this isn't the Camelot, but even the Grand wouldn't keep surveillance tapes for months at a time.
She's clutching a handful of papers in her hand when she comes back, and given the moue on her face he's surprised she doesn't slam the door off its hinges after she gets in.
"I knew it," she mutters. "God, Logan, if it 'wasn't you'" – has he ever hated air quotes as much as when she does them? – "you might wanna remember not to have your girlfriend sign for room service next time."
"Really, because– Wait, what?" This is the second time tonight; he considers making a note to expect the blood to drain from his face if he's around Veronica Mars for stretches of more than half an hour on end.
"Caitlin," Veronica says sharply. "She signed for room service on the night that the Honeymoon Suite was charged to one of the stolen cards. Ring any bells?" She's still not looking at him, which is a small comfort he'll take right now, because he's spared seeing the pity or (more likely) satisfaction in her eyes – but it does mean he'll have to spell this out for her. He'd much rather let her think whatever, but right now she's his fastest way of finding out just who Caitlin thinks she can fuck behind his back.
"Yeah? Brilliant deductive skills, Mars. 'Cause I never took Caitlin to the Grand." He hopes the unspoken "you stupid bitch" is loud enough for her to pick up on. Out of all the people he could have found out from that another girlfriend is getting her thrills from going behind his back, it just had to be Veronica Mars.
'You know what? Screw this,' he thinks. He'll deal with this tomorrow, because how hard can it be to get his hands on Caitlin's phone for a few minutes and check her outgoing call log anyway. The only thing he needs right now is a good bottle of Jack and not to see Veronica's face for the rest of the week.
Strips of his back smart when he gets out of the car, and he gives her a two-fingered salute before turning around and heading off. Screw hope and determination; life is a fucking bitch until you die.