Title: The Best Memories 2-Home Videos
Rating: PG
Words: 1,389
Characters/Pairings: Logan/Parker (mentions of Veronica, Logan/Veronica, Veronica/Piz)
Spoilers/Warnings: The entire series. Everything.
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. Not the song mentioned, not the charcters, none of it. So don't sue, because it'd be a big waste of time.
A/N: This was written as a response to the current challenge on fanficripples. The song used is 'Lollipop' by The Chordettes.
The Best Memories
2
Home Videos
Parker checked her make up for what had to be the fifteenth time. It was perfect, her hair was perfect, not one single strand out of place. She checked just to make sure.
She and Logan had been in this weird holding pattern since last year, when they'd broken up over that horrible video of Veronica and his fight with Piz. Scratch that. It wasn't a fight. A fight implied that poor Piz had had a chance to defend himself instead of the brutal beat down he'd received.
True, she had broken up with Logan immediately afterwards, but after a month in Colorado with her parents she'd flown back to Neptune and gone to visit her ex. He'd been open, receptive of her idea to talk things out, take things slow and try to make it work. At least, he'd seemed receptive at the time. Now, she had to call him four times before he picked up the phone, and even then it was a struggle to keep him in the conversation. Like he was in constant distraction mode and she was no longer the thing that kept his attention focused. If she ever was at all.
Veronica and Piz had broken up suddenly, quite recently in fact. And Logan's distraction seemed to be in direct correlation to it. The moment he'd gotten word that Veronica was single again he started pushing her away. Again.
She checked her lip gloss again. Maybe it was the wrong shade for their date. It was supposed to be a nice restaurant and the shade was a little dark. It could come off as trampy.
Pulling out her small makeup case again, she held up the gloss she was currently wearing and a much lighter shade of pink, trying to decide if she should switch or stick with her original decision. The deep mauvish pink of her current gloss was sexy, but that could work against her. The light pink looked innocent, but is she looked too innocent all her plans of sleeping with Logan tonight might loose their fizzle.
Opening the bathroom door she walked quickly out to the living room where Logan was waiting, determined to ask his opinion. It was a long shot at best, he didn't know anything about lip gloss or the fact that one color might make her look one way and the other another way. But she had to try. Right?
"Lo—" Parker started, but was stopped by the sight of him watching some old video of two girls singing on a stage. It was strange, for him to be watching two small looking teenage girls singing and dancing around on a giant stage that was decorated with glittery green and gold cardboard cut-outs of letters spelling out 'Spring Talent Show 2003'.
Logan hadn't heard her, didn't turn around or sit up straight or anything. He just sat there, slightly hunched over and pulling at the sleeves of his button down shirt. Pulling on the sleeves, that was something she'd never saw him do. And she'd never seen the expression that he had on his face before, one of pure amusement.
She stood there, completely silent, completely still, with the two tubes of lip gloss still held out in front of her.
"Crazy way he thrills me, I'll tell you why." Sang the girls on screen. The smaller one looked more and more familiar the more she stared at her.
Squinting, as if it would make her see better, Parker studied the girl. If her hair was a little shorter, her clothes a little darker, her eye makeup a lot blacker, and her attitude less cheery, she was Veronica.
Veronica.
Parker was here, getting ready for their big date where they would finally make some sort of decision regarding their relationship. And he was entertaining himself as he waited for her by watching an old video of his ex-girlfriend. How could he?
The other girl looked familiar as well, but in a less I-know-her-personally way and in a more I've-seen-pictures way. It was Lilly Kane. Logan's famed first love, the one that was murdered back in oh-three by his father after their affair went sour.
That's when she knew. She saw the amused, adoring, enraptured look on Logan's face and she just knew. He would never get over her. Them. Lilly and Veronica would always be these specters hovering over her relationship with Logan, calling him back. Lilly would always be there, something he couldn't shake. No matter how hard he tried. Even if he never got back together with Veronica, she would haunt his relationships forever.
They were his two great loves. His first love and the love of his life. They'd been best friends, supposedly. From the few stories he'd told her about the days before his beloved Lilly was murdered, they were quite a team. And Parker believed it, although she had a hard time imagining Veronica as the sidekick rather than the star. She had a hard time picturing Logan giving anyone other than Veronica those looks of love she always saw him give her when he thought no one was looking. When he thought she wasn't looking.
"I'm going to go." Parker said, her voice calm and quiet, the opposite of what she felt. Inside she was screaming and crying, asking him why he couldn't just love her.
"What? You're ready to go?" Logan asked, just realizing she was there after five minutes. Parker remembered a time when he was so aware of Veronica, she could enter a room and he instinctively knew where she was without having to look.
"No. I'm going to go home." Parker didn't want to say the words. She didn't want to be the one breaking up again. She had to do it last time, and it was devastatingly hard. She liked Logan so much, it was possible that she was in love with him, but he was in love with someone else. And probably always would be.
"What are you talking about?" He's just as clueless about the break up now as he was the last time. It breaks her heart, that he could be so out of touch with her feelings that he doesn't even see it coming.
"You're still in love with her. With them. They're these two great loves. They were both so amazing and I can't live up to that. Even if I could, I don't think I'd ever be there." Parker desperately wanted out of there. Breaking up with him was hard enough, admitting that she wasn't enough was ripping her apart. She'd tried so hard, but it wasn't enough and no matter how much she knew that it wasn't her fault, she still felt like curling up into the fetal position and crying.
"I don't understand. You'd never be where? What are you talking about, Parker?" Logan was near frantic now, and she could tell that the thought of him being alone scared him. He hadn't been alone in over a year.
"I'll never be on that level with you, not like they are. And I don't want to have to work for it, I want to be able to just exist there because you love me, not because there's no one else." Her tears were pressing against the pack of her eyelids now and it was an effort to keep them there.
Logan had the good sense not to say anything. Any response he could have would likely insult her further. If he told her she was wrong, that she was on their level, with Lilly and Veronica, he'd be lying. If he told her she was right, that she deserved better, he'd be reducing it-them-down to a cliché.
"I'll be back for the rest of my stuff tomorrow. I just… I have to leave. I can't be here anymore, not with you, not when you make me feel like this. I just, I just have to go." Parker stammered, her voice breaking on repressed sobs.
She wouldn't cry. Not here, not in front of him. She'd keep it back, hold it in until she got home. She'd cry and scream and swear and throw things, but until then she'd stay calm and collected.
Just like Veronica. And, probably, just like Lilly.
A/N: I've had a writer's block lately when it comes to The Return and haven't been able to get anything on paper for it. Plus I've been sick and it turns out that congestion and coughing aren't conducive to writing chapters in that particular story.