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“Shut up.” Was the first thing Veronica said when she answered the phone. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up-“
“Nikki.” JD cut her off, making sure to keep his smirk at bay so she couldn’t hear it in his voice.
“Yeah?” she answered, albeit suspicious.
Now JD felt free to smirk. “Told you so.”
Veronica let out a groan so loud he was ninety percent sure he could hear it all the way from his own house if he tried hard enough.
You see, generally Veronica wasn’t the one to do the embarrassing things in their relationship (that was her opinion, at least, but JD had seen her face-plant into enough sidewalks to have a slightly different one). Despite JD’s usual cool façade, normally it would be him getting caught doing something weird; usually something Veronica had advised against. Whether it was falling off the side of her house when he claimed he could climb all the way up to her roof (he could not), or reorganizing the cereal section at the grocery store after he said that he could totally steer a shopping cart while inside of it (again, he had quite the habit of overestimating his own motor skills), or accidentally getting himself sent to the principal’s office for starting a screaming match with the English teacher, Ms. Fleming, by claiming that a fact she’d taught which was completely right was wrong just to see how dumb she really was (turns out; she was not that dumb).
Whatever weird crap he was up to, he always got out of it with a smirk and his head held high. Veronica, more than anyone, knew his absurd overconfidence was usually nothing but an act, especially in serious moments. Still, his complete comfort in his own skin sometimes astonished her, the way he could just be himself without caring what other people thought. Whatever he did, though, Veronica was always there for the aftermath; bringing along an eye roll and a smug “I told you so” and sometimes an icepack. Or two, depending how willing she was to go along with his shenanigans that day.
With her own social anxiety that’s been coming in waves since she’d been in middle school, Veronica didn’t do the kind of embarrassing stuff JD did. Not willingly, at least. She usually kept her head down at school, wasn’t much of a prank person, and generally considered herself quite a contrary to the weird chaos her boyfriend always seemed to gravitate towards. Did she sometimes attempt to climb onto the occasional window wearing an occasional set of lingerie with only a long hoodie over it and get said hoodie occasionally stuck on the trellises and occasionally have it ripped off of her as she tumbled with an occasional shriek down onto her boyfriend’s front yard? Sure, but that barely counted. No matter how much JD had mocked her for it.
She stole the shirt that he gave her to cover up after, though, so ha.
Anyway, Veronica normally wasn’t one for embarrassing incidents. Well, maybe sometimes, but only the unavoidable ones. The ones that weren’t her fault, not the ones that resulted from her deciding to do something that many people have advised against and failing miserably.
Not yesterday, though.
Yesterday, Veronica had decided to, for once, as JD liked to put it, “live a little”. She was practically seething after school; Heather Chandler had always had a particular way of getting on Veronica’s last nerve, but that day, she had really crossed the line.
Veronica had spent all weekend working on her paper for English class; it was probably her most detailed book report yet, and in Veronica Sawyer standards, that meant a lot. She got to school with it proudly held in her hands, ignoring Chandler’s hawkish looks as she walked past. You see, on Friday, the mythic bitch had asked Veronica for a favor. A big one, at that. Veronica had found it kind of frustrating, the way that even though she had disobeyed the queen of Westerberg’s orders time and time again, Heather still thought Veronica would bend to her will.
Yeah, right.
Heather Chandler had asked Veronica to write the book report for her. No explanation added. Veronica, however, knew about the party Heather was planning for the weekend and quickly put two and two together. So, she said no. Like a smart person should. But on Monday, Veronica had made the mistake of leaving her paper unattended on her desk in homeroom for a moment while she went to the bathroom, and Chandler didn’t hesitate to strike. She took Veronica’s paper; just like that, like it was nothing, and replaced the title page with one she’d prepared that had her own name on it. Under Veronica’s page, she clipped a stack of empty paper. Veronica was none the wiser until the next period, when they had to hand out their papers. Luckily, she found out the issue just as the kids were handing out the papers and quickly claimed she’d had a printer malfunction. Ms. Fleming trusted her enough to give her an extension. Despite the way it had all worked out, Veronica had to physically restrain from charging at Heather when she saw her leave the classroom with a smug look on her face.
Mythic. Bitch.
She decided that she needed revenge; and it needed to be fast and sweet. JD was a little taken aback when Veronica described her plan with an enraged look in her eyes, later that day in her room. But, in her words, “no one messes with my books and stays alive”.
Her plan wasn’t to kill Heather, exactly, but to do something that to her would be the equivalent; steal the queen bee’s precious perfume. It’s just about the most important thing to her, Veronica had explained. When she was still friends with The Heathers, Chandler couldn’t stop bragging about the special, custom made perfume her daddy had bought her from Paris. Or was it Milan? Veronica didn’t remember. Nor did she care, particularly.
Her plan was fairly straightforward. She knew Chandler wouldn’t be home that afternoon; she’d heard her talking to Duke about going to the mall. And she knew her parents wouldn’t be home, either; they were on some business trip, according to gossip her mom had picked up. So, Veronica’s plan was to break into Heather’s room through her window, steal the precious perfume, leave as if she had never been there, and wear it to school the next day to watch Heather go insane. JD sat on her bed as she explained it, wide-eyed.
“She’s going to beat you up.” He’d told her matter-of-factly.
Veronica, who’d been pacing around in her room, shrugged. “I can take her.” She very obviously could not.
“Plus, that’s fully illegal.” JD had added, now a bit more concerned.
Again, Veronica had seemed far too relaxed for the situation. “Since when do you care about the law?”
“Since I don’t want my girlfriend to go to jail.” JD had reasoned.
Veronica shrugged again, the movement sharper this time. “Well, it’ll be worth it when Heather gets what she deserves for messing with my-“
“Yeah, your books, I know.” JD had cut her off, a little exasperated. “But didn’t you say her room is at the top floor of her, like, giant mansion?”
“I have stamina.” Veronica had insisted.
JD had blinked at her, pacing around her room like a lunatic as she formed her weird, evil plan, and grinned. “You’re batshit crazy, aren’t you?”
Veronica turned to him and smirked. “Only if you mess with my books.”
She had fully planned to ignore his worries. For once, she wanted to do something crazy. Something mean. God knows Heather had deserved it. So, she went to her house shortly after JD left. It was, in fact, a huge mansion, and Veronica didn’t have nearly as much stamina as she claimed to have (or should have, really; she’d always been embarrassingly unathletic), but she actually managed to climb the trellises all the way up to the top of the house. Suck it, JD, she had thought smugly. Who’s batshit crazy now?
Yeah, it was still her.
Not for long, though. Because when she’d finally managed to push herself up onto Heather’s window ledge, pathetically out of breath, the effect of her plan seemed to crash into her unexpectedly.
God, what was she doing? Breaking the literal law because she was pissed at some designer-perfume-owning bitch? JD had been right, the way he seemed to infuriatingly always be; Veronica’s plan had been completely crazy. She had almost laughed to herself, at the absurdity of it all, up there on Heather’s window.
That’s when she heard voices coming from the ground; ones that sounded suspiciously familiar.
Oh, shit.
Veronica looked down from her position, crouched by the window, to see two girls, one dressed in a familiar red outfit and one in a familiar green, both with impeccable, familiar hair.
The Heathers were back.
Veronica could’ve, technically, waited until they went inside, climbed back down, and have gotten away without anyone seeing her. Have this whole crazy plan completely forgotten, push a pillow in JD’s face whenever he’d try mentioning it. But, true to her nature, Veronica had completely freaked out. She had started an attempt to scale down to the ground, as quickly as she could, but didn’t watch her steps as much as she should’ve and had found herself falling down to the ground with a yelp, landing weirdly on her right ankle and tumbling onto the sidewalk when it twisted, bad. She didn’t have time to tend to the pain, though. She leapt up and limply sprinted away from the house, only stopping about a block later when she felt like her right leg was about to snap under her weight.
Well, fuck.
JD hadn’t heard from Veronica for the rest of the day. He could only assume that her weird plan had failed miserably, and she was either: a-in jail, a slightly less likely option, or b-embarrassed and didn’t want him to know about it. Still, he’d fully planned to interrogate her about it when he saw her at school today.
Which is why he was confused when he didn’t see her at school, either walking with her head down or flaunting the expensive perfume in everyone’s faces. When he’d asked Martha if she knew where Veronica was, and Martha had said that she’d spent the night in the hospital, JD’s immediate and initial reaction was concern.
Oh, God, what had his beautiful idiot of a girlfriend done?
But then Martha had revealed that Veronica had merely broken her ankle, and JD had to fight a grin as he asked Martha if she knew the cause.
Martha had shrugged, saying that she didn’t but that Veronica had said she’d fallen and Martha assumed it meant “tripped over nothing”, which was a very Veronica way to break a bone. JD had pretended to agree, but he couldn’t help the smug tone of his voice now that he was talking to Veronica on the phone.
“Don’t say that.” Veronica begged once she finished groaning. “Please, say anything else. I should be saying that. That’s my job.”
“Yeah, hate it to break it to you, but I think you might have to quit the whole ‘ooh I’m so smart and morally superior’ act now.” JD said sarcastically, knowing that if Veronica were next to him right now it’d be a miracle if nothing was being shoved into his face. “You know, since you broke into-“
“Don’t.” Veronica warned, exasperated. “And I didn’t, by the way.”
“Didn’t what?”
Veronica sighed. “I didn’t break into Heather’s house.” She admitted. “I almost did. I climbed all the way up to her window, but then I realized that it was a crazy plan, and I was going to climb back down but then the Heathers came home and I tried climbing down fast, but then I fell on my ankle and still sprinted about a block, and then walked the rest of the way home.”
There was silence for a beat; Veronica wallowing in self-pity, JD blinking slowly as if trying to come to terms with the situation.
“Okay, wait,” he started eventually, “this is the first time I’ve ever gotten to be the one saying this to you. And it’s probably going to be the last for a very long time, so I need a minute to savor it. Hold on.” JD took a deep breath, and he could hear his girlfriend tutting from the other end of the phone. It made him smirk. He cleared his throat, probably more dramatically than was really necessary, before he finally spoke.
“You’re an idiot.”
Veronica let out another groan. “I know.” She grumbled.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.” JD continued, voice positively astonished.
“Shut up.” Veronica muttered, but it was barely half-hearted.
“I cannot believe you did that. I thought I was the dumb one.”
“Well, at least you admit it.” Veronica said, a feeble attempt at trying to get the upper hand back. She knew it was useless, though.
JD waited a beat, and she could imagine him shaking his head. “I love you so much.” He said eventually, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
“That’s… random.” She noted, despite the beam making its way to her face.
“And I hope you know you’re never living this down.” JD continued, and Veronica rolled her eyes. There it was.
“Just don’t tell anyone, okay?” she pleaded. “You can mock me as much as you want, as long as it’s just you.”
She could, once again, hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke again. “Oh, you’ve got yourself a deal, Sawyer.” She had to roll her eyes at that.
He did mock her. Relentlessly, at that. Later that day, when he came over to check on her, and climbed through her window with a smirk so big she threw a pillow at him. He brought her homework, though, and a Big Gulp, and constantly asked if she was okay and said that she shouldn’t have run when she was hurt, so she couldn’t complain too much.
He mocked her the next day, too, when she came back to school. Quietly teased her as he offered to carry her books, taunted her when Chandler passed by them as he was helping her put stuff in her locker, quietly smirked at her as she lied to Martha and McNamara who were curious about the accident. As he was walking her home, though, and noticed the way her limping seemed to intensify and offered to carry her the rest of the way, Veronica scoffed.
“I think we need to take turns on the being stupid thing.” She said, and for the first time all day her own tone had a hint mockery to it.
JD raised his eyebrows at her. “You think I can’t carry you, Sawyer?”
“Me, sure,” Veronica started, “But we’re both carrying backpacks and we still have a fifteen-minute walk.” She reasoned.
“Yeah, okay, fair.” JD admitted. “Guess it’s not my turn to be stupid yet.”
“Guess not.” Veronica shrugged, grinning.
Still, she didn’t resist when JD wrapped an arm around her shoulders and let her lean more than half her weight onto him.