Broken Promises, Burnt Marshmallows, and Empty Shells
Just a one-shot about how things could have been after Logan told Veronica about his role in her rape.
He wished he could say he didn't know why he did it. That he didn't know why he'd thought to tell her what really happened to her that night – and whose fault it really was. But he knew with sickening clarity why he'd taken her in his arms that night and confessed everything.
Ever since the party – the rape – he would look into her haunted eyes and see ghosts. Ghosts that he needed to stay buried (Or alive… oh please, let alive be an option). Ghosts of their past, and of what could have been (if only they'd all been more careful with each other… oh LillyCassidyMegMom… if only…).
Those eyes gave him a glimpse into her fractured soul; he found it was a labyrinth, and he wasn't sure if he was the beast at its center or the traitor in its walls. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He loved her, more deeply than he'd ever loved anyone, even Lilly (oh Lilly… if only I'd loved you more…). And when he'd started speaking, confessing to being the owner of the drugs that put her in the position to be raped, confessed to egging on the boys taking body shots from her thin stomach, he'd known it was a bad idea. But he'd kept going.
Kept going because he couldn't bear to see the ghosts in her eyes any longer. He didn't know how exactly he expected his admissions to help anything; maybe he thought answers were what she needed, maybe he thought she'd break up with him and then he wouldn't have to see those eyes anymore.
But neither scenario played out, and now he's dating an empty shell instead of a coffin… instead of ghosts, her eyes now hold nothing. He doesn't know which one is worse.
Whenever he looked into her eyes, he could see the deadly labyrinth her mind had become. And he would always wonder whether he was the beast that ate fair maidens (and the young men of Troy; the ironies never cease) or the traitor that led them unsuspectingly to him. He always tried to figure out which was worse. But it had never occurred to him that he might be both, Judas the betrayer and Pilate the executioner, all in one shining package. He was, in the flesh, the last kiss between Judas and Christ. Something meant to be so pure and good used for something so horribly wrong (the hammer that breaks the bones and the nails used to hold up the body).
And he had meant for it to change everything between them. But it had changed nothing. She was still the same sad little girl who let him hold and kiss and fuck her. She just wasn't there.
Six months ago, he would have sneered at you if you'd told him he'd be the one to break Veronica Mars. He'd have pretended it was his life's mission (and hid the truth behind late-night binges and guarded eyes).
But the truth was, he'd never wanted it to end this way (if you could call this an ending). Despite his best (worst) intentions, he still loved the girl who he'd tried so hard for so long to hate (but still not enough to save her).
He never thought he would be the one to finally shatter the indestructible Veronica Mars (and all the pixie spy magic in the world couldn't put her back together again).
He'd never planned to let it go this far. But it had, and now every time he looked at her, he saw broken promises and the stench of burnt marshmallows filled his nostrils.
And that's what he was left with. Broken promises and burnt marshmallows and the shell of someone he might have known once.