October 17, 2006

"You're back." He's surprised by how little he's surprised to find her on his couch. This time, he notes thankfully, her shoes have been left by the door.

"Why Donnie, is that any way to meet the little woman?" She cracks, smiling as he glares.

"You have no idea how excited I was when I thought you were leaving town for college."

"But how could I have left you? You might have felt like I didn't care anymore."

"It's over Mars, the romance is gone."

"Fine, tell me after I've paid my year's tuition. Shucks, if you'd only told me two weeks ago."

"Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Me, I seem to lose more than I win."

"Did Lamb get fleeced again?" She asks, tucking her legs under her body as she watches him shrug out of his jacket and take off his hostler. He empties the shells from his gun, before replacing it in the holster. When he looks up again, Veronica is staring at him strangely.

"What?"

"I never thought of you as a conscientious kind of guy, more as a go off half cocked dude."

"Surprises Mars are what make life interesting."

"Apparently. You, Mr. Sherriff, just keep unfolding like a flower." She uses her hands to express her idea of an unfolding flower, but it's her face he watches and not her hands. She's smiling, like she's actually happy for a moment, not mocking, not being spiteful, just talking for the pleasure of talking.

"Okay, I'm a flower and you're still racking up an impressive B&E record. Bored again?" He asks, going into the kitchen and grabbing two beers.

"Not so much bored as drawn to your animal magnetism." She smirks as he returns to the living room and lowers himself onto the chair opposite her.

"Here." He says, handing her one of the beers he'd brought out.

"But Sherriff Lamb, I'm a minor." She gasps breathily, batting her eyelashes again.

"Drink, don't drink. I don't care but I'm planning to get drunk tonight, so if you're going to abstain, give that bottle back." She looks at him for a moment then pops the tab on the can and takes a massive gulp. He's amused to see her wrinkle her nose as she swallows.

"Okay, we're going to have to drink a lot of these to get drunk. What we need is hard liquor."

"Spoken like a true boozer."

"You're not the only one who had a crappy day."

"So you've come to take it out on my liquor cabinet. Nice Mars, very nice." He rises from his seat, brushing her aside as he passes on his way to the kitchen. He grabs the bottles quickly and returns to the living room, placing the bottles and two glasses on the coffee table. "Here you are, Nancy Drew."

"Thank you nondescript Hardy boy." She pours herself half a glass of whiskey and he watches her tear up as she downs it.

"Yeah, you're a regular booze hound Mars. You already look a little green around the edges."

"Aren't you supposed to be the responsible adult here? Shouldn't you been trying to stop me from doing this rather than edging me on?"

"Veronica, for a couple of hours, don't make me worry about what you're doing. Please. I beg you."

"Aww, poor Donnie, worrying about little old me." Don finishes his beer and reaches for the bottle of tequila in front of him. He pours a full glass. "Wow, you really do want to get drunk."

"Yes, oh master of the obvious. I really, really want to get drunk."

"Why?"

"Because this town is fucked up beyond belief and the only way I can escape it is by getting so shitfaced that I have absolutely no memory the next morning." He downs the entire glass in three gulps, then pours himself more.

"Is that how you ended up with Madison?" Veronica asks in, if this is even possible, a hesitant voice.

"I don't remember." He laughs, "I don't even remember being at the Neptune Grand that night. What the hell was I doing there? I'm not exactly a regular there, you know? And why in hell did I think it was a good idea to sleep with an 18 year old 09er?" Veronica really has no way to respond to this, although she's upset by how sorry she feels for him tonight.

"So why do you need to drink tonight, why is Neptune more fucked up today than it was say last week or last month?"

"Marco Estevez was shot a week and a half ago and I've basically been ordered to stop the investigation. Phone calls every hour, yelling that we should be focusing on Hearst instead of some no good, Latino gangster. Except how do you tell his mother and his grandmother that you're going to drop his murder case? Just because they live in the wrong zip code, doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same service as the 09ers. Fuck, I hate this." He says, finishing his second glass. "When I signed up, I thought I was going to serve and protect. Serve everyone and protect everyone, not just the rich bastards that run this town."

"Oh Deputy Lamb, if only your election supporters could see you now, how screwed you'd be." Veronica says, somewhere between delighted and heartbroken. Emotions tonight are hard to define.

"If they were here tonight, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves."

"Damn, what I wouldn't give to have my tape recorder here tonight."

"Well, just get me drunk again Mars, I can almost guarantee a repeat performance, unless I accidentally end up in bed with a blond 18 year old again. Either way you'd win."

"I'll keep that in mind." It's a lame response, but it's the only one she's capable of at the moment. Her memory is overrun with images of Don and Madison in the elevator at the Grand and her mind is taunting her, forcing her to image what it would be like to be kissed and touched and fucked by Don Lamb. When she finally refocuses her mind, her cheeks are bright red and Don is starring at her.

"Veronica, I'm drunk. You are slightly less drunk. If you don't leave now, I'm going to kiss you. I'm going to kiss you in a way that the Kane kid and the Echolls brat don't even know exists. And I don't think, no, I know that I wouldn't be able to stop after that. So leave. Now." Don is embarrassed as soon as he's done talking, knowing that his little speech sounds like something straight out of one of the crappy Harlequin novels that Inga reads. But, regardless of there quality, his words scare Veronica and she's off the couch and at the door before he's even done talking, stumbling to put her sneakers on. Don remains on the couch, head tilted back, eyes closed.

"Bye Don." She says, and it doesn't escape either of their attention that this is the first time she's called him just plain Don in years.

"Don't drive home." He barks in reply.

"I wasn't going to." She snaps back, "I'll walk home, it's only ten or twelve blocks."

"Try not to get into trouble tonight Mars."

"Wouldn't dream of it." She says, actually meaning it. She slips out the door and shuts it firmly behind her. She leans against it for several moments, toying with the idea of turning around, walking back through that door, and letting Lamb do his worst. She's intrigued by the idea but realizes that they'd still hate each other in the morning; she'd probably hate him even more if the sex was good. And it would be good, she's sure of it. But her dad's expecting her home tonight and the idea of him somehow figuring out that she's here, and showing up with a shotgun does disturb her slightly. One dead Sheriff and one jailed ex-Sheriff would create a rather lawless Neptune. So Veronica walks away from his door and by the time she's home she's convinced herself that she isn't at all attracted to Don Lamb and that there is certainly no way that he, sober, would ever want her.