Love Is Like a Cloud (Holds a Lot of Rain)
by cattyk8
SUMMARY
In a world where soulmates feel the echo of each other's injuries (and in cases, see the evidence on their skin), Veronica Mars has long since learned the value of wearing long sleeves even in the summertime. Somehow she fails to notice that her best friend's boyfriend, Logan Echolls, does the same.
Warning: There is a reason why the title's a line from the 1970s Nazareth song "Love Hurts." TW: child abuse, references to rape (following S1 canon)
ONE
Veronica is five years old when she realizes the strange pains she has been feeling mean she has a soulmate, somewhere out there. In the past, she's had small bruises from what feel like pinches, stinging cheeks that redden but go unmarked but hurt no less for it, and what feel like swats to the behind from a heavy hand.
But one evening shortly after her fifth birthday, her Daddy is helping her into her favorite t-shirt—Batgirl, because her Daddy is Batman—when she feels a heavy pressure on her shoulder. Four fingerprint bruises bloom in purple, running from clavicle to armpit, while a matching thumbprint sits dead center on her shoulder blades.
"What's happening, Daddy?" she sobs as a thin-lipped Keith Mars puts the shirt down and stares for a long moment.
The pressure releases, but the bruises remain, and Veronica lets him help her into a different shirt, a looser one, so it doesn't jostle her sore shoulder too much.
Instead of sitting on the side of her bed, Keith Mars stretches out beside his daughter that night. Instead of reading her a chapter from the book they've been working through, one about magic kingdoms behind closet doors, he tells her instead about soulmates. That some power in the universe has either gifted or cursed destined couples with the ability to share their pain.
Keith's face is sad as he tells her the bruises are likely a wound suffered by her soulmate. He angrily says he can't wait to get his hands on whoever left those marks on another kid's shoulder—and on her shoulder.
The next morning, the bruises are still there. Veronica wakes to the feeling of a finger poking, no, pressing against the bruise just under her clavicle, the one just over her heart. It hurts, but she presses back and thinks about her Daddy's hugs or the way her Mommy sings while she's making breakfast. She doesn't know if whoever's on the other end of this pain can feel the love she's sending him, but she hopes so.
TWO
Veronica is six when she interrupts bathtime with a shrill scream that has her mother, Lianne, shouting urgently for Keith as her smooth baby bum turns red and then yellow, black, and blue as she is hit by something hard, harder than a hand.
After one particularly hard blow, Keith recognizes the shape of one of the marks and snarls, "That's a belt buckle. I'm gonna fucking kill the son of a bitch."
It's the first time she's heard her father curse.
"Do something!" Lianne shrieks.
But there is nothing for her to do but suffer through it. Mercifully, it lasts no longer than a few minutes, though it feels like hours, and the doctor Keith has told Lianne to call agrees to an emergency visit before the blows have stopped.
In the end, Keith takes copies of the photos the hospital takes of Veronica's behind. Proof, he says, so that he can help her soulmate one day. They go home with a big tub of bruise liniment and a note from the doctor saying Veronica can take the week off school.
That night, she falls asleep lying on her tummy, with her parents on either side of her. She wonders if her soulmate can feel the gentleness as they stroke her hair. She hopes the balm they rubbed into her bruises helps the person who got the bruises in the first place.
THREE
She is nine and in Saturday afternoon's karate class when her arm breaks of its own accord. This is her third year at the dojo—after the incident with the belt bruises on her bottom, she told her Daddy that she wanted to know how to defend herself and her soulmate if she ever got to meet them, and as soon as the bruises had healed, he had signed her up for karate.
So when she stretches and then screams as her forearm seems to bend the wrong way and then snap, her sensei comes running. An ambulance and then her parents are called, and they all reach the hospital at the same time.
Hours later, Veronica's arm is in a bright green cast, and her father has more photos for his growing collection of evidence against whoever has the dubious care of her soulmate. (Years later, she will see a photo of Logan as a kid, with a bright orange cast on one arm, and her lips will thin in a way that's reminiscent of Sheriff Mars.)
FOUR
At twelve, Veronica learns broken ribs hurt the worst because you can't laugh or breathe or move without pain for days, weeks after. Earlier in the day, Veronica had helped her team win their soccer match, and though her best friend Lilly Kane had not understood Veronica's need to "kick around in the dirt," she nevertheless had been there to cheer her on. Not to mention introduce her to her brother, Duncan, who would be starting at Neptune's junior high in her grade that coming September, as well as his best friend, Logan Echolls.
"His dad is Aaron Echolls," Lilly had said to Veronica, while batting her eyelashes at Logan.
"Who's that?" Veronica asked, pushing one of her pigtails over her shoulder, then wiping her sweat off her brow.
"You know, Aaron Echolls, the movie star."
"Nope," Veronica says, popping the P. "Never heard of him. But in case we're introducing our dads instead of ourselves, my dad's Keith Mars, the sheriff." She grins beatifically at the 09ers who are looking at her in varying degrees of surprise.
"You're hopeless, Veronica Mars," Lilly says finally with a shake of her head.
"Probably," she agrees, "but you love me anyway."
"Just because you love me more! And who would blame you?"
Veronica just sticks her tongue out at her best friend. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Duncan, Logan." She holds her hand out for Duncan to shake but he just stares at her mutely, so she moves on to the other brown-haired boy. "Sorry, I got no clue who your dad is, but Lilly's told me a lot about you, so, hey, at least in this moment, you're more famous than he is."
He laughs, brown eyes warming in a way that makes Veronica think of chocolate and teddy bears. She doesn't know if she wants to lick him or hug him. And isn't that a weird thought to have about someone you just met? "You're okay, for a midget."
"Uh oh," Lilly murmurs.
"Who are you calling a midget?!"
Veronica tackles him into a mud puddle until he's forced to cry uncle. Then in apology for ruining what must surely be a designer outfit, she drags all of them to Amy's and introduces Logan to the best ice cream in town. She insists on paying, despite his protests.
When the four of them pile into the Kanes' car, Lilly tells the driver to drop Logan off at his place before heading home, having already gotten Mr. Kane to agree to Veronica sleeping over that weekend (Lilly knows to ask her daddy for these things, because Mrs. Kane never agrees to sleepovers).
There's a weird look on Logan's face when they leave him on his doorstep. Veronica doesn't know what it means. (Later, she'll realize it's a mix of fear and defiance, resignation and rage. Later, she'll see it on his face more often, especially when his dad is home from shooting blockbusters.)
That night, she's woken by a blow to the stomach that has her stumbling to the bathroom to puke. She tries to keep it quiet as she sobs and heaves with the next few blows, then gives up and screams when she feels her ribs break.
Lilly goes running for her daddy, who isn't home, so she goes to CW, who finds Veronica passed out from the pain on the bathroom floor, and after checking her vitals, calls the Mars residence, and then his boss. Keith Mars arrives first, his face fierce with impotent rage. Then Mr. Kane arrives, and Lianne a few minutes later, both of them flushed and flustered in distress.
Veronica spends the night getting x-rayed in the hospital, and her father acquires another set of files for his ever-growing evidence box.
Not too far away, a boy lets his mother wrap his ribs clumsily, and downs the pills she hands him without question. He lets the numbness overtake him while she drowns her apologies in whisky. He knows from the scrape that appeared on his knee during the soccer game that the little blond girl who smiled at him without knowing who his father was, the one who insisted on paying for his ice cream even though she had to know he could well afford it, would be hurting tonight.
He places a shaky hand over the bandage, and he doesn't know if the pain in his chest is from his ribs or regret. "S-sorry," he mutters into the dark, and tries to keep quiet as he cries.
He doesn't feel the hand she lays on the exact same spot. Doesn't hear her whisper, "Please be okay."
FIVE
Veronica is still mulling over the way the Student Council election went down when she feels the first burning slap of a belt on her back. She knows her dad isn't home, and she knows they don't have insurance, so she grits her teeth against the pain. Three strikes and her back is on fire. She yanks a handkerchief out of her dresser drawer, twists it viciously, and shoves it into her mouth, bites down, and struggles not to scream.
All too familiar with the routine her dad has taught her, she grabs the remote control for the camcorder beside her dresser, turns her back to it, and struggles out of her top, leaving her bra on to preserve her modesty. The shirt in her hands is bloody, and she is not surprised.
She curses whoever is hurting her soulmate with every lash.
When the torture ends, she finds herself breathing heavily. When she is sure no more blows are forthcoming, she hits the button to turn off the video cam.
Wincing with each movement, she reaches for her phone to call Cliff. Her dad has long since apprised his best friend—and the family lawyer—of the fact that Veronica's soulmate has been abused for most of her life. Better yet, the ambulance chaser has more than a few friends who work in emergency services, and Veronica knows he'll call one of them to help stitch her up (she can tell she'll need stitches this time).
After she hangs up, as she waits for help to come, she focuses on breathing, on pushing past the pain. With each inhale, she clenches her fist, promising retribution on her soulmate's abuser one day. With each exhale, she whispers what has become her mantra: "Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay."
SIX
Logan has known who his soulmate is for five years, but it doesn't matter.
He's known from the age of six, the first time he got a paper cut while being nowhere near paper, that he was never going to be able to make up for everything he's put his soulmate through. He has always known he never deserved her. Never has that knowledge stabbed more deeply or truly as the day he met his soulmate on the edge of a soccer field.
The day his father broke Logan's ribs—and hers—for the first time. For the sin of being late coming home.
He knew in that moment any apologies would mean nothing in the face of the pain he had already put her through. The pain he would continue to give her.
He decided then and there that the best thing he could do for her was stay away. So he did what he knew would mean she would never even consider being his: he went after her best friend. And Lilly—Lilly helped him.
From the moment she laid eyes on his scars, the scars she knew well because she'd seen them on someone she loved like a sister, she had helped him. Lilly knew why Veronica wore long sleeves in the summer, and she knew it was for the same reason Logan did. She had bandaged his hurts, and whispered consolation, and seduced him into distraction from his pathetic, miserable life. And she had made sure Veronica knew that Logan was hers.
So they'd played up their relationship. And Veronica had stepped willingly into the friendzone, never knowing that the most epic thing about the romance of Logan Echolls and Lilly Kane was the soul-deep, undying love both held for one tiny blond spitfire.
Each time he'd thought about telling her the truth, Lilly had told him no. "She would fight for you," she told him time and time again. "And he'll kill her."
And Logan, knowing it was true, kept silent.
They made plans—to run away, to blackmail Aaron into good behavior, to murder him. Sometimes, after Lilly's death, Logan wonders if his sperm donor had been home that day, because he knows that if he had been, and if Lilly had tried something, Aaron Echolls would have well been capable of murder. But both his parents were supposed to be in LA that weekend (then again, Logan was supposed to have been in Mexico). Later, he will regret never following up on the thoughts that had wandered into his head.
But for the time they'd ruled Neptune High as the Fab Four, Logan had never flirted with Veronica, nor looked twice at her (when she might see). And after Lilly died, when he wanted nothing more but to find comfort in her bear hugs and the way she always smelled like vanilla and coconut thanks to her shampoo, he pushed her away. Blamed everything on Sheriff Mars, because Veronica's loyalty would always be to her dad.
He never meant for her to be made into a pariah.
But better that, better that than—
He'll kill her, the memory of Lilly whispers into his mind.
The memory persists, rises up whenever he thinks he should go to her, comfort her. Every time he glimpses her across the quad, eating alone, he thinks of Aaron's fists. When he hears she is crying in the bathroom, he reminds himself that he knows that thinner belts cut quicker, but the thicker ones leave more lasting bruises.
She would fight for you.
He pushes her away with sneers and harsh taunts, and he can see her heart breaking right alongside his own, but he keeps at it.
And he'll kill her.
The night of Shelly Pomroy's party, he curses when he sees her walk through the door wearing that white dress, looking like some kind of angel who might be his only salvation from the hell his life has always been. She keeps trying to save him, he thinks, as she tries to talk to him, talk to Duncan. But they're all damned.
And so he turns himself into the Devil. Since Duncan has offered to be designated driver tonight, he goes all out and downs a vial of Liquid X and enough alcohol to convince himself his cruelty doesn't matter. (Later, when he finds out about the GHB, about the trip to the dentist, about Duncan fucking Kane, he throws up from sheer disgust at himself, and it's the first time she gives him a wound that doesn't heal over in a few days—or months, or years.)
When he wakes up the next morning, he doesn't remember how he got home, much less what he did with the girl who's still asleep when he crawls out of his bed. (He kicks her out and then showers til the hot water runs cold, and he doesn't think about why his dick hurts. He doesn't know where he got the bruises on his thighs, and he hopes he wasn't rougher with the girl he doesn't remember bedding.)
And yet, junior year, when Logan spirals after his mother's disappearance—her death, her suicide, her abandonment—Veronica holds him.
She would fight for you, Lilly's voice whispers in his head as he cries his eyes out into Veronica's shoulder.
He'll kill her, she whispers, as he wakes up the next day with the scent of vanilla and coconut in his hair, a warm body snuggled up to his side.
I won't let him hurt her, he thinks back. She'll never be his, except in his dreams, but he can protect her. He will protect her.
She'll be okay.
He'll make sure of it.
SEVEN
It's not long after that when he's on the phone with her, and while a small part of him feels like he's betraying his best friend, all of him shouts that he has to let her know, has to protect her. So he tells her what he did.
"Just a heads up for you. Duncan knows about your files."
"He knows because you told him."
Logan laughs off his regret, his discomfort at having done so. "Well, yeah, I mean, what was I supposed to do? He's my best friend."
"Yeah, well, he took my head off. You would have loved it." He grimaces, closes his eyes. No, he wouldn't. "Have you talked to him since school let out?"
He's about to answer when he hears her gasp. He opens his mouth to ask if she's okay.
"Ohmigod, what do you think you're doing?"
He hears some guy say, "Let's go for a ride." And just like that, his car keys are in his hand and he's striding toward his X-Terra.
He drives with the phone all but glued to his ear. He's thankful she's kept him on the line. She talks loudly, tells him (without letting the asshole with her know) that they're headed for the Camelot.
He doesn't know how many speed limits he breaks to get there before they do.
He feels the bruise forming on his bicep as he hears the guy dragging her up the stairs. There's never been a sweeter pain than the one that explodes on his knuckles when he punches the guy with everything he's got. He pulls the twerp up just to keep punching him, his vision washed in red rage. (Some part of him thinks later he must have looked a lot like his father in that moment. But mostly he doesn't care. That guy had grabbed Veronica. His Veronica.)
"Logan, stop."
Only her voice would have given him pause in that moment, and it did. He didn't even care when she went on to explain the guy—Ben something or other—was a federal agent. He has a bruise on his arm that justifies the ones on his knuckles; that is what he knows.
They talk after that, but Logan won't remember what they say in those moments. He'll remember her soft eyes, and softer words. He'll remember how he fights himself every step to give her the space she asks for. To make himself walk out of the room and wait outside.
He'll remember checking her over from head to toe when she steps out. Making sure she isn't hurt.
"You okay?"
"Mm-hm."
He doesn't know what makes her lean forward. She must be aiming for his cheek, but her lips touch the corner of his mouth. It's barely a kiss.
She will fight for you, he hears Lilly whisper, as she always does.
I'll fight for her too, his mind, his soul, replies in protest.
Veronica shakes her head. She turns to walk away from him. And for once in his life, he can't let her do it.
He'll kill her, Lilly says.
I won't let him. And somehow, everything inside him goes still. He's calm, determined. Decided.
He reaches out, takes her arm. That's all he has to do for her to turn back. He lowers his head to kiss her in the same moment she goes on tiptoe to meet him halfway. Their movements are cautious, uncertain, for the space of a heartbeat as he brings her close to him and fits her where he always knew she belonged.
They break the kiss to stare at each other, but even in this space, their bodies do not—cannot—break apart. Their gazes limn the lines of each other's faces, each other's souls. Then something just clicks and they are body to body once more, mouths fused together, hands roaming. He inhales Veronica, she exhales Logan.
In the end, he doesn't know if it's his lips that have bruised or hers, but they are both red and panting at the end of it.
Eventually, she steps back. And for a moment he thinks she's going to run.
He steps forward as if to stop her, but something in her face makes him stop. Something in his face must make her stop too, because she doesn't retreat.
Slowly, slowly, he reaches out and strokes her arm where he knows a bruise has formed. "Does—does it hurt?" he murmurs.
She stares at his face, then down to his hand, with its bruised knuckles. Raises her own hand to stare at the bruises there. "You're—"
Her eyes are wide, tears filling them.
"I'm sorry," he says. And he knows it's not good enough. He's not good enough. He'll never have enough apologies to make up for the years of bruises, of wounds, he has given her.
She shakes her head—to clear it, perhaps, or in denial (more likely, he thinks). "Let's go," she says abruptly.
She runs down the stairs like the devil is on her heels, and he stands there, gaping after her. She reaches her car and pauses, looking up at him.
He stares down at her.
"Well? Are you coming?"
In a daze, he follows her down. Gets into his X-Terra. Follows her car to her dad's office. Follows her into said office, where she makes a beeline for the safe, not even acknowledging her dad's presence.
"Honey?"
"Dad, I need the evidence file." Her voice is loaded with meaning, but Logan can't decipher it.
"What did you say?"
"Dad." She looks at her father, then at Logan. "I need the evidence file. It's Logan's."
Logan frowns. "What file?"
There's no doubt in that moment that Keith and Veronica are father and daughter. Their lips thin and they frown in the exact same way.
Then Keith takes charge. "Logan. Son. Sit down for a moment."
He obeys. Keith Mars is the only person who's ever been able to give him orders he'll follow without pause or retort. The Sheriff—because Logan has, despite the way he's taunted Veronica in the past, always thought of Mr. Mars as such—crouches down just a bit so their eyes are level.
"I have kept a record of every bruise and cut Veronica has received and made sure a doctor has certified any serious wounds that have appeared on her since she was five years old," the older man tells him evenly. "We're gonna make sure she doesn't receive another one."
Logan doesn't parse what he's saying, at first.
And then he does.
He feels all the blood in his body somehow rush to his toes.
Keith shoves his head between his legs, telling him to breathe.
A small hand rubs circles into his back. Another small hand grips his own.
"You're gonna be okay," she whispers, squeezing his hand.
He doesn't have the words, or the breath, to answer her. But he squeezes back.
"You're gonna be okay."
He believes her.
END NOTES:
Thank you to my awesome, amazing beta reader, Irma66!
If you see any errors, they're my fault and probably cause I messed with what she fixed.
Also, thank you, Irma66, for not yelling at me for writing this instead of finishing my WIP.
Finally, I wrote this for the February Fanfic Fantasy Draft event on the VMFicClub Discord Server. I had meant to post this as support but ended up as a pinch hitter so... Love to my teammates!
