Title: "Beggars and Choosers"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating/Classification: AC, language, V/Lamb, elements of non-con, angst, sexual situations.
Disclaimer: I still do not own these characters and am still poor.
Summary: 1150 words. An AU set during 1.22, "Leave it to Beaver." An answer to the "May (de)Flowers" Challenge at picking_losers. He will never forget the look on her face.
Note: Thanks to Gracie, my partner in crime, for letting me type at her AND for thinking of the title.
Note2: I hate titles. A lot.
The first time he has sex with Veronica Mars, she's crying, and he knows he will never forget the look on her face. It's going to go in that file cabinet, in that box, in that place where he keeps the other dirty pictures of his fuck-ups… right next to the snapshot of the first time he saw her like this, sitting across from him in a white dress with her black mascara running.
She bites down on her lip, squeezing her eyes shut and whispering, "Just do it. Just… get it over with…" and it's enough to make him go soft. Any man with balls would go soft hearing that, which only proves that the man holding the gun on them is a ball-less shit-fucking coward.
Don Lamb has never actually killed a man in all his years in uniform, but he knows Aaron Echolls is going to be the first.
After…
The bed is hard, unmade, and he doesn't want to think about the man who belongs in it. The guy who's probably six miles down the road and calling The National Enquirer instead of the cops, so he can get his 15 minutes of fame off of the double homicide Aaron Echolls commits in his house.
Veronica smells good, like something summer-y, and whatever get-up she put on to sneak around the Kane mansion is scratchy against his skin.
But none of that --the guy, the house, her perfume-- actually matters, because he's supposed to give Aaron Echolls the money shot or they both die just a little bit faster.
"Please…" she says, which makes Echolls crow, "Yeah…that's more like it. Really dig down, find your motivation. Make her beg for it, Sheriff."
He doesn't want to make her beg for it. Once, maybe. Okay, a dozen times in the last year. But not now. Not this time. Now he just wants to get them both out of here alive. And neither one of them would have been here in the first place if it weren't for her completely irrational need to make him look stupid --"I don't have to *make* you look stupid, Deputy"-- and to stick her nose where it doesn't belong. He imagines what she would say to that, too: "How is driving along in my own car, minding my own business, and getting attacked by the psycho in the backseat, sticking my nose where it doesn't belong?"
"You know, I've always wanted to direct," Echolls is saying now, pacing back and forth, twirling Veronica's taser in one hand and his gun in the other. "Cliched, but true. And, certainly, I didn't envision starting out in porn, but we can't be choosers now, can we? Not with such talent as yourselves at my disposal."
"I-is that… what you… said… to… Lilly?" Veronica's eyes flash open and they're so full of anger that he almost wants to say "Atta, Girl!" but that's not really something you say to a girl you're fucking for an audience, now is it?
"Ah. Thank you for reminding me. The tapes. Your little performance, mediocre though it is, almost made me forget what I wanted." Aaron clicks his tongue, the perfect movie star mugging for a crowd… of two. "Why don't you two continue while I do a little searching-- and I will be nearby, so don't wiggle out of it. So to speak."
He leaves the bedroom door wide open. He motherfucking *whistles*.
It's then that Lamb has a moment to breathe. To touch her face and check the purpling bruises. He knows he's got a matching goose egg on the back of his head and at the moment it's the only thing on him swelling. "I can't do this, Veronica," he whispers. "But I can jump him when he gets back, take him down…"
She's still angry, but not at him. Probably a first. "I knew you were an asshole. I didn't know you were an *impotent* asshole. A-and you have horrible hair." He'd be insulted except that her laugh is wet and she's so tight beneath him, and around him, that she's ready to snap.
"I'm growing it out," he promises. "I lost a bet."
There is a psycho knocking books off shelves and cushions off chairs twenty feet away and they're half-naked and discussing his hairstyle. Lamb would find this hysterically funny, except that it doesn't make it any less like rape.
It's going to go in that file cabinet, in that box, in that place where he keeps the other dirty pictures of his fuck-ups.
After…
**
The second time he has sex with Veronica Mars, it's almost two years later and he knows he will never forget the look on her face. It's going to go on the mantel, where he keeps his autographed Sharks ball and the picture of himself and the President from the 2000 campaign trail, in that place where he puts all of his best memories… right next to the stupid snowglobe he got during his first Christmas in Neptune that still has the 'Happy holidays, Deputy Lamb, love Veronica' tag hanging off the side.
She bites down on his shoulder, legs wrapping around his hips, and whispers, "Just do it. Now… please… fuck me *now*," and it's enough to make him come his brains out right then and there, except that he's better than that so he waits… he draws it out… until she's right there with him.
"Simultaneous orgasms… not a myth after all," she chuckles against his jaw, stretching beneath him with a delicious little sigh.
She smells like spring now, like rain and clean and the faintest tickle of flowers--"Are you saying you're allergic to me, Deputy?"-- and he's just philosophical enough to wonder if they're the ones on Aaron Echolls' grave. He imagines what she'd say to that, too: "Since when are you ever philosophical *or* into horticulture?" Whores, yes. Culture, no.
He didn't put him there, Echolls. The honor went to somebody else one night at the Neptune Grand. Clean job, silencer, etc. Lamb wouldn't have done it clean. If Keith and Sacks and a couple of other squad cars hadn't shown up at the house --seems like the guy who owned it was good for something after all-- along with Jake Kane, Lamb would have made it as ugly and dirty as possible.
He still remembers the trial. A fucking mockery, where they made Veronica look like a crazy slut and him like some kind of pervert who'd called her out to a love nest on the highway so they could trap poor Aaron in a blackmail scheme. He would've killed Echolls then, too, except losing his job and gaining a murder rap hadn't seemed like a bright idea.
Veronica only calls him "Deputy" now out of habit, mostly to annoy him.
And she makes him beg for it every single time.
--end--
May 24, 2007.