Title: "Solved"
Author: monimala
Fandom: VM
Rating/Classification: AC for language, mild sexual situation, violence. Logan, Lamb, Veronica. Angst.
Disclaimer: I don't own them yet but I have high hopes.
Summary: Lamb knows he's skating the line. One shot. 675 words.
Every time he shakes a kid down, every time he backs them up against a wall or leans a little too close or leaves wrinkles on their prissy little collars, he knows he's skating the line. One wrong move and they'll cry to their rich daddy and get him thrown out of office.
So he's infinitely glad that Logan Echolls has no daddy to call.
And no collar to wrinkle.
"Fucking punk," he hisses, hand fisted around the waistband of jeans that cost more than his entire wardrobe. He spins the kid around, even as he's laughing that maniacal spoiled-like-milk laugh and saying, "What's the problem, Ocifer?" The problem? "The problem is you."
The problem is Logan standing on a lawn, night after night, like John goddamn Cusack with a stereo.
The problem is the hang-up calls. Ten times a night.
The problem is that pinched look on Veronica's face that makes her look like the dozens of domestic cases he's seen over the course of his career…when no one's been hitting her at all.
"The problem is that what you define as 'high school romance,' you royal shithead, is what Balboa County defines as 'stalking.' And what I define as a free pass for me to break your arm."
"Go ahead," Logan taunts, offering that very arm to be twisted back behind him. "It's been done before. I hope you got some tips from Dear Old Dad before he limped off this mortal coil."
This is how Echolls does it. The snappy repartee, the big puppy eyes and the flip comments about his badass movie star dad abusing him. Well, he's not the first or the last boy to ever have the tar beat out of him. Lamb knew the taste of his own blood on his lip before he knew milk or apple juice. And right now, all he tastes is bile.
"Is that how you reel her in, Logan? You spin her your story? Your mommy took the high dive, your daddy used to hit you, and poor, poor you?" He hisses into the punk's ear, jerking his head up by tugging on those bleached blond spikes in his hair. "Is that how you make her forget how long your rap sheet is and that you have no personality to speak of? You stuff her so full of you that she loses *her*?"
Logan is laughing again. His eyes were dilated when Lamb pulled him over and he's probably flying on X or whatever street drug is hip these days. "You should take notes, Donnie Boy," he cackles. "It really turns Veronica on. Gets her revved."
The v-neck of Logan's T-shirt has no blood on it when he walks -- just with a slight stumble -- back to his car.
Lamb's knuckles burn, pink and raw…and the taste on them is bitter, metallic and satisfying.
Practically sublime.
**
He parks the cruiser two blocks from her dorm, walks up in the dark with his hands in his pockets. As if that's going to hide his swollen fingers and the fact that bending them makes him hiss with discomfort.
He hasn't gotten into a fistfight in years. An advantage of joining the ranks of folks who yell, "Freeze! Put your hands in the air!"
But his worry is for nothing because she's waiting for him at the door, half-open and all open. Her annoying little roommate is gone for the weekend -- kickin' it in the OC -- and Veronica is all his tonight.
She does all the relevant touching.
All he has to use is his mouth.
He backs her up against the foot of her bed. He kisses her as she relieves him of his shirt, his pants, his shoes and his responsibility. They fuck with his socks on and he tells her things like "I want you," and "you're fucking amazing," and "I canceled your last parking ticket." She fists her hands in his hair and…and stuffs him so full of herself that he loses…
Almost everything.
But never himself.
Or her hard-won trust.
--end--
September 7, 2006