Title: Dude... Like I Have No Idea
Author: Marie
Pairing: Mac/Dick, implied Logan/Veronica
Characters: Mac, Dick, Veronica. Parker and Logan mentions.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,014
Disclaimer: Rob Thomas is my God. And he owns it all.
Notes: Takes place about two weeks after Blue Hair. So you should probably read that one first. But it's not necessary. Oh, and this is completely AU.
Spoilers: Up to 3x01, just to be safe.
Warnings: None.
Thanks: To Cassie, for reading it over and assuring me that it doesn't suck like I thought it did, and for being my total VM/LJ-soulmate. hugs And also to the girls of the #PRFic chatroom for their help during the editting process.
Summary: "It's not like the kind of feeling I had when I was with-" Mac stops abruptly. "It's different. Only I don't know if that's good or bad. It's hard to explain."

"Okay, spill."

Mac slowly takes her eyes off her computer screen and swivels in her desk chair. Sitting cross-legged on the bed with her Criminology book open in her lap, Veronica is staring at her with a slight frown.

"What?"

"You've been acting weird lately. What's on your mind?" Trust Veronica to notice a change in someone's personality. She's not a good private investigator for nothing.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Well, it's always worth a try.

Scoff. "Please. You're not a good liar, Mackie, you know that." Veronica sets her book aside and moves to the edge of the bed. "Did something happen at the club the other day?" she asks softly.

Mac likes how Veronica is good at finding things, but she definitely likes it better when her skills are used on someone else. She turns back to her computer, typing furiously. This page of coding is due tomorrow, and it's trickier than she thought, and she's only halfway through. "Nope, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I'm just a little stressed out, that's all. School work, and tests, and stuff, you know."

"You usually breeze through that stuff," Veronica points out. It's always impressed her how Mac actually attends all of her classes, does all of her homework and still manages to have so much free time.

"So I've hit a hard spot," she retorts, an edge of aggressivity in her voice. Like that's not going to tip her off. Good job, Mackie.

Veronica doesn't say anything. The silence in the room is almost unbearable; Mac nearly wishes her roommate was there playing her loud, bubbly music. She wouldn't be able to concentrate on her work, but at least she wouldn't be having this conversation.

She can feel Veronica's eyes burning a hole in the back of her head as she types.

"Jesus!" Sighing in frustration, Mac pushes her laptop away and spins in her chair again. Veronica is still watching her, blinking steadily. This must be how she gets anyone to eventually spill the beans on anything, she thinks. "Dick kissed me."

"Dick Casablancas?" Veronica's mouth drops open in surprise.

"Or I kissed him," Mac continues, ignoring the interruption. "I don't know! But we kissed. And now it's awkward- I mean, it was awkward before, but now it's worse, and I don't even know what to think because we both had a few drinks that night and-"

"Quite a few, you mean." The shock is replaced by a sly smile that spreads across Veronica's face. "Was there tongue action?"

"Veronica!" Mac flushes. Her friend looks at her expectantly. "Yes," she says quietly.

"Did you like it?"

Mac glances around for something – anything – that could be used as a projectile, but everything within her reach is either too dangerous or too breakable, so she settles for a glare instead. "Yes," she mumbles almost inaudibly.

Veronica cups her hand around her ear. "What?"

"Yes, I did!" Mac shouts.

"Geez, no need to shout!" The smirk has never left the blonde's face. She's mocking her, Mac knows it. "Did it happen again?"

The brunette opens wide eyes. "Hello? Didn't you get the awkward part?"

Veronica shrugs. "Just checking. You never know. So. You and Dick Casablancas played a game of tonsil hockey. Wow. Never thought that would happen."

"Funny, me neither," Mac retorts dryly.

"And it never happened again, and you guys never talked about it."

"He'd probably pull a Logan on me." Mac knows what happened at the Neptune Grand after the Alterna-Prom. Veronica frowns at the reference.

"And now you're... confused," she continues as if nothing was wrong.

More like she can't stop thinking about that kiss and every time she sees Dick (which is inevitable as their respective BFFs are dating) she gets this weird feeling in her stomach – kind of like when she was with Cas- him, but different. Not to mention the fact that if she concentrates just enough, she can still vividly remember the feel of his lips on hers.

"Yeah," she answers.

"Well, we are talking about Dick. Confusion is expected."

"Yeah." The two girls stare at each other.

"Okay. So... what's confusing you exactly?"

Mac never thought she'd be having this kind of conversation with Veronica. Especially since the disastrous sex talk from last spring, and certainly not about Dick of all people.

"Why did it happen?"

"Well, let's see. You guys were drunk. And drinking makes people very friendly. Other than that... I don't know, Mac. I'm not in your head. I'm not in his, either." She pauses. "Thank God for that." She uncrosses her legs and lets them fall over the side of the bed. "I'm not exactly the right person to talk to, Mac."

She snorted. "Yes, because Dick's exactly the type of person to just pour his feelings out."

Veronica wrinkles her nose. "Because he has feelings? Who said something about feelings, anyway? It was just a kiss." Mac lowers her eyes to her hands, which are clasped in her lap. She loses her smile. "Mac?"

"Ever since it happened I get this weird feeling whenever he's around." Wow. Cheesy much? "And I can't stop thinking about it." It being the kiss. She hopes Veronica caught that.

"That's the feeling of impending doom." Veronica's light attempt at humor fails miserably.

"I'm serious, okay? It's not- I don't know."

"So you think you might-"

"It's not like the kind of feeling I had when I was with-" Mac stops abruptly. "It's different. Only I don't know if that's good or bad. It's hard to explain."

Veronica looks at her, serious. "I want you to answer this honestly, okay?" Mac nods. "If Dick kissed you again, for a reason or another, would you let him?"

Mac squeezes her eyes shut and sighs. "Yes."

When she opens her eyes, Veronica's book is back in her lap and her friend is about to go back to studying. "Talk to him," she says, lowering her eyes to the smooth pages.

Mac sighs again and turns back to her computer. Easier said than done.

She sits in her car in the parking lot of the Neptune Grand until she sees Logan's yellow Xterra peel out of the lot. Veronica told her that Dick would be home.

The walk up to the hotel is hard and it seems to her that the elevator ride lasts forever. She has only been here a handful of times since June.

She hesitates at the door for a few minutes before finally raising her fist to knock. Dick answers the door with a beer in his hand and blinks at her in surprise. "Ronnie's out with Logan."

"I know." She takes a deep breath. "I came to see you, actually."

His face registers shock, but he steps aside to let her in. "Do you want something to drink or something?" he asks awkwardly.

"No, thanks. I'm good." Mac crosses her arms over her chest and stands in the middle of the living room as she watches Dick sink down onto the couch.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Dude, you gonna sit down, or are you going to just stand there? Because I was watching these really hot girls modelling bikinis, and you're totally blocking the TV."

Flushing and suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, Mac curls up at the other end of the couch, as far away from him as possible. Dick focuses his attention on the TV while she looks down at her hands.

"Do you... remember the other day? At the club?"

His blonde head snaps around to look at her. He blinks, then his eyes widen slightly. "What about it?" he asks carefully, placing his beer on the table in front of him. He sounds almost hesitant to Mac.

She narrows her eyes. "You kissed me."

His mouth drops open. "I kissed you? No way, you kissed me!"

She bristles. "No way. Why would I kiss you?"

"Why would I kiss you?" he retorts.

Mac presses her lips together, glaring at the floor. "It doesn't matter. A kiss happened. What I want to know is why," she says finally.

"Why what?"

She sighs and does roll her eyes this time. "Why we ended up swapping spit in a club, when we can't stand each other?"

"Uh, hello?" His voice has an underlying matter-of-fact streak that makes her clench her jaw. "There was booze, I got smashed, you got smashed, chicks kept turning me down, you were there."

Her throat tightens and she can't explain why. "So you used me?"

He gives her a cocky grin. "You didn't seem to be complaining."

Mac sighs loudly. Jerk! She grits her teeth, her hands balling into fists in her lap. "I can't believe this," she mutters. Why do I even care

She's almost afraid of the answer.

"I never said I couldn't stand you," he adds quietly.

Mac's skeptical blue gaze lands on him. "It was implied in your incessant mocking of me."

He groans, running a hand through his hair. "Look, that was high school. I was a jerk, we absolutely weren't part of the same crowd."

"We still aren't," she points out.

He ignores her. "Now, we've graduated-"

"- and you're still a jerk," she quips before she can stop herself.

"- and like it or not, our best friends are screwing each other, and they're together all the time, which kinda forces us to spend time together," he continues without missing a beat. "That kind of changes the way you see someone."

"I don't see you any differently," she states dryly.

He frowns. "I kinda deserved that, didn't I? I guess I can't blame you," he says slowly. "But just work with me here, okay?" She glares.

"Whatever. I, on the other hand, can't stand you at all," she informs him.

Dick grins. "If you did, you wouldn't be here right now."

Mac bites back a frustrated scream, rising from the couch. "I shouldn't have come here," she says, heading for the door. "Just forget I ever dropped by, okay?"

"Why do you care about something that happened two weeks ago and never happened again, anyway?" he calls from behind her. She stops and turns around, looking much like a deer caught in headlights, and he laughs. "Yeah, I have that effect on babes."

Mac doesn't know what's more shocking: that he's that conceited, or that she thinks he's just called her a babe. Probably the latter, since he is Dick Casablancas, and everyone knows the size of his ego.

She laughs despite herself. "Is your ego really that big?"

"Not as legendary as something else I was gifted with," he retorts, smirking.

She rolls her eyes. "You're impossible."

"Impossible to forget?" He raises an eyebrow, cocky. "Yeah, I'm just good like that."

Mac loses her smile and turns again to leave. Isn't this why she came here, because she couldn't get those four minutes in heaven out of her head?

Dick must have realized he struck a nerve, because suddenly he's all serious. "Hey. Look, I don't know why it happened, okay? But... it was nice."

He's joking. He has to be joking. But she turns and there's no hint of amusement on his face, and she's never seen his eyes so dark and serious. The weird feeling, that feeling that builds up inside of her whenever she thinks of the kiss is back, and she suddenly feels like breaking something, because he's Dick and he's not supposed to make her feel something that isn't anger or disgust.

"Stop it," she whispers. "Stop trying to screw me around."

And then she's gone.

"Wait. He offered you something to drink. He admitted he's a jerk. He pretty much said that he sees you differently than in high school now that you guys have been, ahem, forced," Veronica gives Mac a mock glare, "to hang out while Logan and I are busy screwing each other-"

"His words, not mine," Mac says quickly, although she can't help but agree a little with Dick on this one.

"- and he said the kiss was nice?" The blonde whistles. "I'm impressed." She tilts her head, frowning. "Are you sure you really talked to Dick? 'Cause that really doesn't sound like him."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," Mac sighs. "Yes, I'm sure. He was cocky, and annoying, and he actually asked me to move over so he could watch girls parade in tiny bikinis."

"Weird," Veronica mutters. She bites her lip, thoughtful. "You know, Logan told me he's been pretty quiet since that night – well, as quiet as Dick can get, which means not much, but less obnoxious than usual."

"And what's that got to do with me?" Mac says, raising an eyebrow. "Sounds more like someone finally put him in his place. Probably some angry boyfriend."

Veronica gives her a weird look. "Or it could be some girl."

A knock on her dorm door snaps Mac out of her homework-induced daze and she frowns, looking up from her laptop and at the clock. Parker is out with her older sister, who is visiting, and they'll be gone for a few more hours, so it can't be her roommate knocking because she forgot her keys. Veronica is working on a case, or doing homework, or even spending quality time with Logan - that girl is running so much all over the place that it's usually hard to really tell what she's doing. In all cases, Mac can't figure out for the life of her who could be at the door.

Except maybe Wallace, but she and Wallace don't talk that much anyway, so she can't see why he'd suddenly drop by unexpectedly. It's probably someone looking for Parker. Placing her laptop on her desk, Mac crosses the room, ready to tell whoever is there that her roommate is out and won't be back until later.

She certainly doesn't expect to find lips pressed against her own as soon as she swings the door open.

With a shocked gasp, she staggers backwards and looks into the face of one Dick Casablancas. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she cries.

He just smiles and leans against the doorframe. "I'm trying to figure out why I can't stop thinking about that night either."

So he's figured her out. "And you thought you'd try and kiss me, without any forewarning and certainly without permission, just to see if the answer would magically come to you?" She puts her hand on the doorknob, fully intending to kick him out.

"I thought you were the best place to start, since you're the one I kissed," he replies calmly.

"So you admit it, now? That you're the one who kissed me, and not the other way around?"

Mac is getting more and more agitated and Dick seems to notice, because he holds his hands up in surrender. "Whoa, dude, chill." He pauses, considering her. "I didn't admit anything."

"Sure you didn't." Nudging him with her foot, which actually means kicking him hard in the shin to make him move away from the doorway, she ushers him into the room and shuts the door. The rest of the floor so doesn't need to hear this conversation.

He leans against the closed door, stuffing his hands in his pockets and surverying the room with a smirk. She sits down at the end of her bed, crossing her arms over her stomach and eyeing him warily. "So?"

His gaze snaps back to her. "So what?"

Mac shakes her head. She tends to forget that she has to make full sentences when talking to him, or he won't understand. "Did you figure anything out?" she clarifies, carefully detaching each word as if talking to a very young child.

"Other than the fact that I liked it, it's a bust," he says bluntly, looking down at her.

Mac's jaw drops. What? Either she's in a parallel universe, or the end of the world is coming, because Dick Casablancas isn't supposed to like kissing Cindy Mackenzie. Maybe he's drunk. He's always drunk. But surprisingly, he seems to be completely sober.

A small smile appears on his lips at her shock, and he takes his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms over his chest. "So?"

She shakes her head in an attempt to make her shock go away. "So what?"

"Did you like it?" he specifies, speaking as if he was talking to a three-year-old child.

Am I really having this conversation with him? "You totally attack me and catch me off-guard, how do you expect me to like that?"

He shrugs lightly, never losing his smile. "The first time, then?"

Mac looks at the floor, feeling her cheeks heat up. "Um..."

"I'll take that as a yes," Dick informs her.

"So what if I did?" she asks defensively. His smile widens for a moment, then disappears completely.

"Look. I don't know what's going on, okay?" He moves away from the door. "But I think there's something here. I don't know what it is, but there's something. And dude, seriously..." His shoulders sag a little. "There's not a lot that gets a reaction from me these days, you know? You know, apart from booze and frat parties and stuff. So if kissing you makes me feel-" This is as close as they will ever come to talking about him.

Mac is on her feet in a second, arms crossed over her stomach. The indescriptible feeling is back, again, but she's stopped wondering about that. "I..." She falters. "I can't date." The unspoken words, the unsaid reasons behind that statement hang in the air. Dick moves towards her. "And I'm certainly not looking for sex. I don't know what's going on either - let's just... go with the flow or something."

He's so close now that she has to tilt her head back to look at him. "Okay," he says.

The second third time they kiss... they're completely sober. And they feel.