Chapter Text
Water, Water
by BryroseA
Logan may think he’s slick, with his quick cover ups about Pan High and killing the grass on their football field, but Veronica Mars can see right through the lie of petty vandalism to the potential for real criminal acts beneath.
Does he even remember who he’s dating?
Okay, so she’s been kind of avoiding anything remotely resembling detecting this summer, but that doesn’t mean that she’s gone blind.
She could just let it go, but…no, she can’t. Even she is not that committed to normalcy. Later that night, sitting in the cold front seat of her LeBaron and watching while Logan and his toadies tote their gas cans over the fence of the Neptune Community Center, she feels a welling anger that tells her she never will be.
This is decidedly not normal, boyfriend of mine. What the hell are you up to?
Veronica rummages around in the backseat, locating the partially buried duffle bag filled with supplies she’d never quite gotten around to returning to her father’s office.
She lays her hands on the familiar smooth shapes of the bullhorn and fake siren and smiles grimly.
Ten minutes later, Veronica snickers to herself as the boys scatter in all directions. The big, lumbering shape she knows is Dick curses lustily as he is momentarily held up when a decorative loop on his cargo shorts snags on the fence, but the others make a clean break of it. She can’t exactly make out all of their faces, but there is definitely one key player who is missing.
Maybe he left a different way.
She sighs internally as she pulls on the parking brake and shoves open the door. One way or another, she needs to check. Make sure that Logan didn’t leave behind any incriminating evidence—the asshole.
One surprisingly easy fence scramble later, Veronica lands lightly in the courtyard of the Community Center. She makes her way stealthily through the shrubbery that lines the pool deck, deliberately keeping a low profile and scanning across the grounds until she spots—
Dammit, Logan.
He stands at the edge of the pool with his back to her. The underwater lights are on, making the pool glow an almost neon shade of aquamarine and Logan, in his snug t-shirt and well-fitting jeans, is silhouetted as he surveys the water. It would almost be a beautiful sight—the long lean lines of his body backlit—if it weren’t for the gas cans resting on the pool deck by his feet.
Her rage bubbles up again. Dick, Beaver, Enbom and Rams were all scared off by the siren, driven to run fast and far away by their instinct for self-preservation and their fear of getting caught. But not her boyfriend. No. He’s such a dumbass with a death wish that he’s come back to the scene of the crime.
Then Logan glances down and prods the gas can with the toe of his sneaker.
He’s still thinking about doing it!
Veronica doesn’t even really feel herself moving forward; all she sees are her own two hands filling her field of vision as they plant themselves firmly in the center of Logan’s back and push. Hard.
Logan tips forward into empty space, his mouth open in shock, arms windmilling comically. At the last minute, he twists his body agilely in the air so that he goes in back-first, landing in the pool with a large splash and immediately sinking out of sight.
After stepping out of the way of the wave that froths over the edge of the pool, Veronica moves forward and peers down into the water. Logan, still stunned, is submerged face-up in a spread eagled position. For a brief moment he seems to hang suspended and motionless in the glowing water, his face fixed in an attitude of surprise, a trio of bubbles glubbing up from his mouth to the surface. The hem of his t-shirt floats up his torso, dancing in the ripples. Then he blinks and his eyes meet hers through the water. The animation returns to his body and he drags his arms together vigorously, forcing himself down to the bottom of the pool, where he pushes off with his feet.
He pops to the surface about six feet away from the edge.
“Veronica,” he sputters, coughing, “what the hell!?”
She shakes her head and holds up one hand in a negating gesture. “Don’t even try it, Logan.”
He’s treading water, legs working harder than normal to keep him afloat against the drag of his waterlogged jeans and sneakers.
“What? Is this some sort of weird mating ritual?” He shakes his head vigorously and starts to make his way across the pool to where she stands. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m not terribly turned on right now.”
“I said,” she looks him dead in the eye and his indignant splashes quiet, “don’t even try.” Logan stills as the coldly serious tone of her voice registers. The tension in the air thickens and she kicks the red gas container. “Talk.”
He meets her glare with a winsome smile. Oh yes, the boy has teeth.
“Talk? About what, pray tell? I’m at the lady’s pleas—”
“No, Logan.”
He drops the act abruptly, “What do you want me to say, Veronica?”
She sarcastically taps her chin with an index finger. “How about…Veronica I’m not being a complete jackass and elevating this insane class warfare thing by burning down the public pool.”
He makes a frustrated noise. “You don’t understand, it’s—it’s—I can’t let them think that it’s okay to just go around shooting at you!”
“Do not make this about me!” They glare at each other. “Logan, I know that things have been going back and forth between you and the PCHers all summer. I’ve been trying to ignore it, let you get it out of your system, but this…burning down the public pool…it’s really, truly shitty of you. It’s like you’re turning into the evil villain from some 90s Teen Disney show.” Against her will, her voice drops, becomes softer, more vulnerable. “I don’t like it.”
His jaw is still set mulishly, but Veronica takes a deep breath in. “I need this to stop. Now. I can’t be with you when you’re like this.”
Logan rears back in the water, his face registering shock and anger and fear. “What the hell is this, some kind of ultimatum?” He slaps the surface, emotions flooding out of him in a practically visible wave as he yells. If they were on dry land, his rage might be intimidating, but given the fact that he’s having to hold up his waterlogged pants with one hand while he gesticulates furiously with the other, it loses a little of its gravity. Blind to the indignities of his position, Logan, still treading water feverishly, continues, “My mom is dead! My dad is a murderer! My girlfriend is dead! And now the only pers—“
“Hey!” Veronica is truly hurt. “Dumbass! I’m your girlfriend.”
In his surprise, Logan’s legs momentarily lose their rhythm, sending him plunging downward. He spits out a stream of water as he regains his balance. “I didn’t mean…I know that.” His voice is quieter now, too, and she can see the fear swiftly overtaking the anger.
They stare at each other across the expanse of water. In the dim lighting, his eyes are black and intense, as they lock onto hers. A bead of water drips down from Logan’s forehead, trickling across his cheekbone. It shouldn’t be possible to be simultaneously this angry at him and this attracted to him, should it?
“I love you, Veronica.” It’s part plea and part challenge and it melts her just as much as it freaks her out.
Veronica squats and reaches down to run her fingers through the water, staring at the ripples she’s creating as she asks, softly. “Look, if I let you out of the pool can we talk about this? Just talk, without going all nuclear?”
She chances a look up at him and he nods solemnly. Veronica sighs, holding out her hand, palm open in invitation. Logan paddles smoothly to the side of the pool and hoists himself up out of the water, wet clothes and all, in one swift movement.
He moves to stand in front of her, water sloughing off of him in sheets. She’s still angry. Totally still angry. Not distracted at all by the way his soaking wet t-shirt molds itself to the curves and valleys of his body. Or by the look in his eyes that’s that familiar combination of tender and fiery. Or by—she brings her eyes quickly back up to his face.
“Come on. Let’s get you some dry clothes. You’re freezing.” She darts a meaningful glance down to where his nipples stand out, hard, against the thin fabric of his shirt.
“That’s not cold,” he mutters. Her eyes widen and he maneuvers in closer to her, carefully angling himself to keep his sopping wet body from touching hers as he kisses her with sweet desperation. Veronica breathes in the sharp smell of chlorine and the warm ache that is Logan.
As she starts to lean in to him—water be damned—he pulls back and cups her face between chilled hands.
“You freaked me out a little there, Veronica…I thought you were breaking up with me.”
She just looks at him, weighing the words swirling around in her head, not today, and don’t make me and no, never, I’m never letting you go, but settling instead on, “Come on, jackass. Let’s go home and have that talk.”