Title: "Let Them Meet Cake"
Author: monimala
Fandom: VM
Word Count: 1525.
Rating/Classification: AC for adult language and mild sexual content, humor, V/Lamb, AU.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my disease.
Summary: 12th in the "Between The Rock and a Not-So Hard Place" series. This was downright underhanded and dirty.
The key stuck in the lock and he cussed, cussed some more, and then finally thunked his head against the peeling white paint of the door and grinned...despite any and all frustration. "Well, fuck." She'd actually gone and done it. She'd one-upped him just when he'd gotten comfortable. Never a dull moment with Miss Veronica Mars, Savior of the Downtrodden. She'd changed the locks. Forget B&E or leaving it unlocked, this was downright underhanded and dirty.
Cute.
He knocked until the pounding would annoy her...especially since he was channeling repeated viewings of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" on TVLand and knocking rhythmically while singing, "Back to life, back to reality," in a falsetto.
It didn't take her long to let him in and slap a new set of keys into his waiting palm. "Because it has to be said again: Your taste in music is seriously deplorable, Donald," she grumbled, witheringly.
"And, yet, you keep sleeping with me," he murmured, yanking her into his arms and nuzzling her neck until she pummeled him and dragged him over the threshold. Away from the prying eyes of neighbors or, with their luck, that reprobate Vinnie Vanlowe.
Surprisingly enough, Don wasn't shocked by how quickly he and Veronica had fallen into a comfortable pattern. Like two old married people. Okay, maybe more like Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner as married people. But, still the comparison was valid. They'd been hanging out for almost a year and overinvolved in each other's business for even longer. She knew everything about him. From how often he washed his socks -- once every two weeks -- to which way he hung -- slightly to the left. To which way he voted -- slightly to the right. He knew her standard order from Mr. Chao's -- pepper steak, egg rolls, and vegetable fried rice -- and her favorite guilty pleasure show -- What Not to Wear -- and that no matter how she started out, she'd always end up sleeping on her stomach (and his).
What he *was* shocked by...was how every time he kissed her, it was hot. Every single fucking time. It didn't matter if it was a "Hi, Honey, I'm home!" peck on the lips or a full-on tongue battle that was a bigger jockey for power than the frequent wars over the TV remote. He never got tired of it. Of sneaking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist, inhaling her and laughing that her hair smelled like apples or pears or some other strange fruit. ("I smell like a Billie Holiday song about lynching? Thanks, Donald.") Of reaching out in bed and finding her there, next to him, tasting like his toothpaste.
He was more addicted to her than he was to The Rock's movies. He had to face facts: Eventually The Rock was going to stop making flicks. He, however, was not going to stop making out with Veronica. Not if he could help it. He was fucking done for. This was it. In fact, he was seriously considering tying her up in his basement just to keep her from leaving for Stanford.
Okay, so he didn't have a basement.
But it was a nice thought...given the bondage element and all.
He unsnapped his holster, setting his sidearm on the shelf next to a collection of shot glasses and ugly school photos of his brother's two brats. For good measure, he put his new keys there, too. Veronica was puttering around in the kitchen again -- God, he hoped it meant cake. He'd forgive her the locks for Devil's Food. Or Red Velvet. Especially if there was homemade frosting involved.
She came back into the living room dusting her hands off on her jeans. Powdered sugar. Was that a key element of cake? And, if so, what kind? He couldn't remember. "I think it's time we take the next step," she announced.
He left his shirt half-unbuttoned, wondering if she'd gone psychic on him and picked up words like 'tying' and 'basement.' He arched an eyebrow, speculatively. "I know you shanghaied half my closet, but moving in together might be a bit much."
She rolled her eyes. He used to find that patronizing. Now he found it sexy. He found everything she did sexy. God, he was pussywhipped. "I said 'step,' Moron, not 'leap.'"
"You know, every time you call me names, it turns me on," he chuckled, decidedly relieved...and maybe just a little disappointed.
"Does it, really? Idiot. Asshole. Pea-brained, small-penised, imbe--oof!"
He tackled her, slamming her down to the couch with the momentum of their combined body weight. Which, okay, wasn't all that much given that anorexic gymnasts probably weighed more than she did.
"Where does all that food you put away *go*?" he wondered, pulling his face from her freakishly flat stomach and picking sweater fluff off his tongue.
"Tapeworm," she chirped, with the accompanying nose crinkle that always suckered him.
"So about this next step..." he prompted ever-so-helpfully.
*She* ever-so helpfully began undoing his shirt the rest of the way. "Wow, your attention span is better than I thought."
"We've discussed this, Veronica," he sighed, rolling to his side so he wasn't crushing her into the sofa cushions. "I may be pompous, but I am not ineffectual. I wasn't just elected Sheriff for my good looks."
"It's a good thing 15-year-olds can't vote. You could've lost to Orlando Bloom!" As he cringed at that thought, she navigated him back to the original subject. "So. Us. This. Now that you've taken care of the Dad problem..."
"I don't know if I've 'taken care' of Keith so much as given him debilitating nightmares that keep him from coming after me with a weed whacker."
"Works for me. So, anyway, I was thinking...in case you got the urge to tell the rest of the Neptune phone book that you like to do things to me involving Hershey's syrup and your nightstick..."
"You want to start videotaping us and selling it on the Internet?"
"Do you know me at ALL?"
"Yes." He kissed her, taking his time and diffusing the anger he knew was fake anyway. "I know you. I know all of you. Every little bit."
"You. Are. Such. A. Girl," she gasped, yanking him on top of her so he could provide evidence to the contrary.
When she got her hands on his belt buckle, his attention span dropped its rifle, threw up its hands, and surrendered like the French.
And, yeah, he still wasn't shocked.
***
The smell of something baking wafted through the apartment, distinctly chocolate-y and delicious. He traced circles between Veronica's shoulder blades with one hand, and circles altogether lower with the other, as she drowsed on her stomach (and his).
"Does it bother you that I wear the pants in this relationship? That I practically own you?" she murmured, sleepily, propping her chin on his chest.
"Actually, neither one of us are wearing the pants in this relationship right now," he pointed out, finding just the right spot and rotating his thumb until he was rewarded with a gasp, a shiver and her head falling back. "But, no, it doesn't bother me. I think you've owned me since you tied my shoelaces together when you were twelve."
"That wasn't me. That was Lilly," she chuckled, a bit wistfully, and he dipped his fingers inside her, taking the sadness away with a few deft strokes.
Ripples of arousal went through her and she stifled her moan against his chest, her teeth sinking into his skin. No working out shirtless for him tomorrow, no, Sirree. Of course, he didn't really do that anyway with Woody around. The guy gave him the creeps.
A few minutes later, when her synapses were firing again, she continued her train of thought. "I want to tell Wallace and Mac about us."
And he pulled the emergency brake on said train. "Oh, yippee," he snorted. "Why don't I tell Sacks and then we can all get together and have a barbecue?"
"I'm serious."
"Why?"
"Because they're going to Hearst...and I want them to keep tabs on you while I'm in Palo Alto."
He closed his eyes, swallowed the panicked lump in his throat that he seemed to get whenever she mentioned college. Suddenly, that whole tying-up-in-the-nonexistent-basement plan seemed like a really, really good idea. If he wasn't careful, he was going to do something stupider than usual and propose. Which, of course, she'd turn down. And then he'd be hurt and he'd lash out and insult her parentage going back three generations and she'd castrate him. And he kind of liked his man parts, so, he was going to take what she offered...her little friends acknowledging them. Hopefully without pitchforks, torches, and computer viruses involved.
"I get cake out of this deal, right? That is why you made it, right? For bribing purposes?"
"German chocolate."
"Thank God."
"Don't you mean The Rock?"
"Him, too."
"Donald?"
"Yes, Veronica?"
"In case you were wondering...?"
"Yeah?"
"You practically own me, too."
--end--
April 25, 2006.