TITLE: His Friend Too
AUTHOR: arbailey
WORD COUNT: 2,957
RATING: PG-13 for language
SUMMARY: When Veronica catches her best friend and an aging action hero together, everything falls apart.
SPOILERS: Pre-series that quickly goes AU but does spoil the 1st season Lilly/Aaron storyline
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any rights to Veronica Mars, and this story is written as a tribute only.
A/N 1: Apologies on the long gap between updates! Illness, midterms, and a bunch of other real life malarkey got in the way. Also, this chapter kept growing and growing until I had to split it into two. On the plus side, however, I'm pretty much done with chapter five, so you'll definitely get a new chapter next week. This story is un-beta'd and all mistakes my own.
A/N 2: This is not a song fic, but all my chapter titles are lyrics from songs. I have been waiting to bust out my Elvis Costello affection, and this seems like a good time! "Veronica" is a kick butt song, and there are definitely shades of VM to the description of Costello's Veronica… You can call her anything you like, but her name is Veronica!
Chapter Four: Call Me Anything You Like…
Veronica had been shocked to wander blindly into the sticky last moments of Lilly's affair with the elder Mr. Echolls. Stunned. Staggered. Gobsmacked. However, everything that has happened since that moment has had an air of dreaded inevitability. She had known exactly how events would fall out, like giant life-crushing dominos. Logan would be angry, Logan would lash out, Lilly would be angry, Lilly would give her the silent treatment. She expects these reactions and isn't surprised when she gets them. Yeah, Logan is a little angrier with her than she expected, but she gets it. She was the messenger. She delivered the kill stroke on his already tenuous faith in Lilly.
But he hit a terribly tender spot with that crack about her mom. And it's made all the worse by the fact that he KNEW how much that would hurt her. Their shared trauma has been a source of quiet commonality between the two of them. While they have never spoken about their mothers' substance abuse problems, they have silently comforted each other on more than one occasion. She has no real desire to run into Logan. And since she is still furious with Lilly, the silent treatment is just about ideal. The only thing she hadn't considered was how the 09ers would treat her because she pretty rarely considered the 09ers at all.
Some of them were awful people, some of them were okay, and some of them- like Meg- were even sweet. She hung out with them, gossiped with them, and joined insipid extracurricular activities with them- Pep Squad had been Lilly's idea, obviously. But none of them made much of an impact on her life. They were the giggly background noise of a party where she was hanging out with her best friends. They were almost entirely peripheral to her inner life- they might have well been the caterers of the lavish 09er parties she attended instead of the hosts.
She had been sort of dimly aware that she was in an envied position. Lilly Kane was the unquestioned queen of Neptune High, and being her best friend automatically conferred courtly status on Veronica. But Veronica wasn't friends with Lilly for status, and Lilly wasn't friends with Veronica out of a sense of charity. They were friends because Lilly recognized that Veronica was braver, meaner, and more cunning than she let on and because Veronica knew Lilly was more conflicted and unsure of herself than anyone would ever guess from her outward shows of brio. They were friends because they understood each other, reflected each other. But all of this delicate reciprocity was invisible to the other 09ers, who simply saw their queen hanging around with a grasping social climber- of all things, the local sheriff's daughter- because Lilly could manipulate and mold Veronica in any way she saw fit.
Veronica had had plenty to keep herself occupied the previous weekend. In addition to endlessly obsessing over Lilly, Logan and Duncan, Veronica had been busy pretending everything was fine in her home life. Her mother had come home (from a quick grocery run according to her teary, hiccupping claim) red-eyed and without any groceries. Veronica forced a tight smile, as sympathetic as she could manage, and put her mother to bed, pretending not to notice the bottle of "water" on her mother's nightstand and doling out her mother's migraine medication. She crossed her arms over chest as she watched her mother settle into sleep. Her palms gripped her elbows tight enough to restrict blood flow, and she shook a little, a deep frown marring her face. Adolescence may be all about learning that life isn't fair, but Veronica was feeling overmatched by the burdens suddenly tossed upon her.
And as it turns out, two days isn't enough time to deal with the total collapse of your life. Lilly's plans to humiliate both her and Logan still galls Veronica, and she's not prepared to put on the brave face and go groveling back to Lilly. And as familiar as she is with "Lilly being Lilly", she can't let it go yet, which leaves total avoidance as her only option. Luckily, Veronica has memorized the schedules of all members of the former Fab Four, and she finds it surprisingly easy to avoid Lilly, Logan, and Duncan. Duncan is still blanking her, and Logan is skulking around conspicuously in what he no doubt thinks is a highly covert manner. She catches Lilly's eye in the hallway just once, but turns away quickly. The older girl's expression is unreadable beyond a certain coolness.
Avoiding all the 09ers, however, wasn't really possible, even if she had realized it would be an issue. She's been lying low, but all week she's getting little glances. It's hardly earth shattering stuff, a few whispers, a snotty anonymous note pushed through the vents in her locker, a small sneer here and there, but Veronica has never been the focus of this much negative attention, and she initially quails a little under the scrutiny.
But nothing actually happens, no punches are thrown or bodily harm done. It's the same nasty, low-level bullying she has seen and- to her eternal shame- participated in for years. Just 09ers expressing their dominance like monkeys at the zoo. By the Thursday, she's mostly inured to it. Still, when she sees Madison and Lilly standing by her locker after school, Veronica stops short before setting her shoulders and striding forward. If she isn't going to let Lilly run her life, it is past time Veronica let her know. She has to stop running away.
But Lilly casts one tight look at Veronica's halting approach and turns back abruptly to Madison. With a few quick words to Madison and a sharp flick of her head towards Veronica, Lilly stalks off just slowly enough that no one could accuse her of running away. Too relieved to question her good fortune, Veronica puts her head down and doesn't stop until she reaches her locker. But Madison isn't making any move towards leaving, and as she sidles up to Veronica with a smug smile, Veronica tenses and refuses to focus on anything but her suddenly fascinating locker combination.
Madison tries to affect disinterest, but there is too much malicious glee in her tone to really pull off the charade. "Lilly says you're out. Don't talk to her. Don't talk about her. Drop pep squad. Don't even think about coming to the car wash this weekend. Stop throwing yourself at Duncan and Logan before you make an even bigger fool of yourself. In fact, you should pretty much curl up into a ball and die if at all possible."
Lilly's usual move in a situation like this- because come on, Veronica is by no means the first girl in school to raise Lilly's ire- is to distance herself from the latest pariah through a series of public decrees delivered by proxy. Veronica had never actually given one of these speeches, as she was considered too soft to make the requisite cruelty obvious, but she had observed the practice many times. Madison's temperament makes her an ideal choice for projects such as these. But even as Veronica ticks off the usual points of protocol in her mind, she is disappointed. She had believed, foolishly obviously, that she was a special case. That Lilly would keep her mouth shut. That Lilly might pull her punches for old time's sake.
But that was fantasy at its most rose-colored. Lilly's reputation is built on the control she holds over the other 09ers. And she controls them by being richer, more audacious, more reckless, and ultimately more ruthless than anyone else. She can't afford to let Veronica's offense slide even if the specifics of Veronica's defection are vague. And really, Veronica is powerless to stem this tide. Even if she wanted to destroy Lilly for all the rotten stuff she's pulled (and despite everything that's a very big if), outing all of Lilly's secrets would only further enhance her reputation for outrageousness. Everybody who'd be hurt by Lilly's sleeping with Aaron already knows what she did.
Veronica turns to Madison with a wide and saccharine smile, "First of all, I just want to say congratulations on taking this opportunity to kiss Lilly's butt, I'm sure you'll make good use of it. But if you think you're anything other than a messaging service for Lilly, you're deluded. Have fun pretending she thinks about you as an actual person for the next couple of days."
Madison's mouth pouts in a disingenuous little moue as she doles out her condolences, "Oh Veronica. Hurt by Lilly trading up? Try not to cry over it, I mean she was bound to come to her senses eventually. There are lobotomized whores better suited to being Lilly's best friend than you."
Veronica's smile slips not an inch when she replies, "Oh, come on now Madison. Don't be so hard on yourself."
In a sudden flurry of movement, Madison's angry face closes in and Veronica instinctively rears back and turns to get out of the crazy bitch's way. Madison spits into her hand, grabs Veronica's long ponytail, and yanks. She grins ferally and dusts her hands against each other, laughing. The whole thing seems kind of surreal (Hair pulling? What are they, eight?) and Veronica grimaces a little at her scalp's tenderness as she runs her hand through her hair with a blank look in her eyes. Until she hits the snarl of gum Madison just ground into her ponytail. She quickly pulls her hand from her hair in disgust, her jaw setting painfully. Madison laughs louder as she sees Veronica clue in and stalks away down the corridor, her giggles still rolling distantly through the hall.
Veronica turns back to her locker and slowly, calmly gets her books together. She's not going to run, or cry, or do anything to make this worse. The witnesses in the hall are on tenterhooks, waiting to see if she'll chum the waters around her by making a scene, but as she serenely continues her routine, they disperse with a few awed whispers and incredulous chuckles. She strides out to her car purposefully. The show is over for now.
But the stoicism only really works while she has an audience, and she's practically in tears by the time she gets home. She's relieved to see that her mother's car is in the drive, but when she gets into the house, Mom is passed out on the sofa and dead to the world. Veronica inhales quick, panicky little breaths through her nose as she tries to tease the sticky gum out of her hair and dashes to the bathroom. She rummages through the cabinet under the sink, slamming the cupboard doors more than is probably strictly necessary.
She is desperately seeking the rubbing alcohol when she remembers a blowout argument between her parents which ended in her mother self-righteously filling a box with household items. Mouthwash. Cold medicine. Rubbing alcohol. On the curb for pick up by the local Sanitation Workers #506. Her mother's snit lasted for all of three days before Veronica found an empty vodka bottle hidden inside the umbrella stand by the door. But they never got around to restocking the rubbing alcohol.
Gauze pads and cotton buds litter the floor around her, and Veronica is suddenly furious as her hand closes on a pair of scissors. She grabs the clump of hair trapping Madison's gum and unceremoniously snips off the entire section and tosses it in the wastepaper basket. The endorphins must finally be hitting because she feels lighter, in control for the first time in days. She gathers the remaining strands of her long ponytail in her hand and cuts the whole thing off above the band. It looks better than she would have expected though she calls the salon for triage all the same. By the time she gets back, her mother is up and about, although she is still peering around sort of blearily.
"Oh, Veronica," whispers Lianne sadly, "Your lovely hair. What happened? Where's Lilly's twin?"
Veronica's eyes blaze as she turns suddenly to look at her mother. Lianne steps backs when she sees Veronica's expression, her own eyes wide in alarm and concern. "Veronica?"
Veronica just shakes her head wearily and doesn't respond, striding upstairs toward her room while Lianne collapses back onto the sofa, at a loss. She watches her daughter cart box after box of pink and frilly clothing into the LeBaron before driving off to the local thrift store. When Veronica returns, she's wearing combat boots and a tough little fatigue-green jacket. Her designer bag, a gift from Lilly, is gone, replaced with a sturdy and functional canvas messenger bag.
Lianne watches her daughter move about the house with a new, brittle poise. She wants to hug Veronica, to beg her to explain what has happened. And sometimes in a hesitant moment she swears Veronica wants that too, but something final has closed over in her daughter's eyes. Lianne feels a soul-ache well up in her chest and nearly squeeze off her breathing. She has lost the opportunity to comfort her daughter over whatever tragedy has befallen her. She's lost her position as confidant, likely permanently. She slinks off to her bedroom and digs out a bottle of innocuous, clear liquid. Intellectually, she knows that alcohol cannot be both the cause AND the solution of her problems, but the beauty of alcohol is how it smoothes conscious thought away. When Veronica finds her mother half an hour later, again passed out, she just shuts the door briskly.
The next morning at school Veronica is again the focus of many awed whispers and incredulous stares. There is a fog of uncertainty around her that dissipates quickly when word gets around about what she did to John Enbom. For the rest of the day, she is given a wide berth as her classmates try to figure out how to react to the new Veronica. She doesn't speak more than three words to anyone under the age of twenty-five all day, and it is an oddly intoxicating feeling of power to see a path clear for her in the halls. Still, this whole new persona only really works with people who didn't know her that well in the first place. She keeps up her avoidance routine for the handful of people who could utterly destroy this carefully assembled façade.
The hallway around her locker looks clear, so Veronica makes a move towards her goal with quick, purposeful steps when she feels someone grab her arm. Veronica panics for a moment as she twists out of the grip, only to settle down when she recognizes Yolanda's penitent expression.
Yolanda pulls back her hand in apology and alarm, "Sorry Veronica! Wow, they weren't kidding, you really did go all hair-trigger kung fu on Enbom, didn't you!" Veronica flashes an apologetic grimace and shrugs her shoulders. In this case, the more outlandish the story that gets told, the better off Veronica will be.
Yolanda presses forward and says, "Listen, I just wanted to apologize about the party. I should have known better than to move in on a guy so clearly designated as another girl's man, even if I am new to the area…"
Veronica shakes her head emphatically, "Lilly doesn't need any undue consideration here. She and Logan broke it off. You're in the clear. Good luck with him."
Yolanda just looks at Veronica, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah, that's not who I meant. I mean, Lilly's not the one giving people instructions on how to put him to bed. I'm sorry, but back East that suggests a certain level of intimacy."
Veronica's jaw drops for a second before she hurries to correct Yolanda's misperception. "Hey, I'm the responsible one, that's all. I could also tell you exactly how to hold Lilly's hair back or how to convince Duncan to drink some water by daring him to shotgun his Nalgene. It's the curse of being the designated driver, not some deeply hidden romantic longing, alright!"
Yolanda shrugs her shoulders non-commitally and says, "Well anyway, you should know nothing happened, just a little…"
Veronica interrupts again, drawing her hand across her throat, "Yeah, I really don't need to hear the details. That may be the best thing about Lilly and Logan breaking up: no more play-by-plays."
Yolanda nods her assent, but continues, "Well, at least you should know he felt bad about what he said about your mom."
Veronica quirks an unconvinced eyebrow while Yolanda presses on, "He kind of got this sick expression on his face after you left, finished his bottle, and then we stumbled to the pool house where he promptly passed out." Yolanda gives Veronica a searching look, and Veronica shifts uncomfortably in place, confused and a little unnerved by the unforgiving examination.
"Are you going to forgive him?" Yolanda asks bluntly.
Veronica opens and closes her mouth for a few moments before sighing. "It's not a question of forgiving him. He says angry, ill-considered things all the time. I can hardly hold his nature against him. But the point is moot. I have more than enough assholes in my life to keep me occupied. I'm not going to start adding to my collection out of nostalgia. We we're only friends because of Lilly and Duncan, which is clearly no longer an issue. In fact, I think the only thing we have in common now is how much better off our lives will be without each other's interference."
Yolanda's only reply is a grim smile. Directed at someone a foot taller than the little blonde and standing right behind Veronica.
A/N 3: It's hard to imagine it now, I think, but I promise this really IS a LoVe story. Hang with it and things will improve. I gotta have my daily recommended allowance of angst! Also, I changed my dialogue spacing based on the suggestion of a kind reviewer. Let me know if it improved readability.
A/N 4: Full disclosure- I cannot promise reviewing will make me better at keeping to a regular updating schedule. But it couldn't hurt, right? Feed the muse! All reviews and con-crit are massively appreciated.