Title: "lambs to the slaughter"
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating/Classification: adult language, sexual situations, V/Lamb, blasphemy, humor.
Disclaimer: I STILL don't own these characters.
Summary: Plot? What plot? This is a gratuitous attempt to get Veronica and Lamb up close and personal and make it at least somewhat plausible.
This was karma, he figured. Had to be. For the years of looking the other way on parking tickets, the Sunday mornings he spent puking and hungover instead of pious in a church pew, and all the nights he'd fantasized about handcuffs and Veronica Mars.
Because he hadn't fantasized about the two things quite like this.
Handcuffs? Yes. Dusty warehouse floor? No.
"Way to go, Deputy," she whispered, the Altoid-heavy puff of her breath making him strain to remember if he had onions at lunch. "Beautiful work cracking the case."
He didn't even dignify her with the "Sheriff" correction. They were, in fact, way past dignifying anything at this point. Dignity had turn tail and run...right around the time something else had popped up. It was all the damn squirming, he'd told her, through gritted teeth. They were trussed up like turkeys -- "don't you mean Lambs to the slaughter?" -- and he was only human -- "Oh, really? They have proof of that now?" -- and she was a relatively attractive female -- "Why, Donald, I'm flattered." "Shut up," he'd snapped, wishing he was anywhere but stuck with Veronica Mars and the world's biggest erection.
Over the course of 42 minutes, they'd managed to discover that she wasn't a contortionist, that he didn't keep extra keys to his cuffs in his back pocket after all, and that if the logging industry sported the kind of wood he had, they'd never go out of business.
"I can't believe you got caught by Louie the Lump." She muffled the words against his shoulder as she rubbed her nose against his shirt to scratch an itch. "I can't believe you got *me* caught. You are *so* losing the election."
"Do you ever shut up?" He wouldn't have to worry about losing the election if Keith wound up killing him for this. Hell, if Louie the Lump ever came back to check on his lovely collection of bootleg beanie babies and his idiotic captives, maybe he'd beg the guy to off him.
"Either we talk, Donald, or we obsess over the fact that your body parts are uncomfortably close to mine. Which would you prefer?"
"I would prefer to be cuffed to Angelina Jolie," he lied, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at her. "Naked."
Not that the dress code mattered. Veronica was fully clothed and it was worse than skin...the threadbare thrift store T-shirt and low-slung cargo pants...all riding up and hanging down at the worst place: right at his belt.
Jesusfuck. He remembered when she would come visit Keith at the station, an 8th grader with her hair all haphazardly braided because Lianne's hands couldn't quit shaking long enough to get the strands straight. Even then, you could tell she was trouble. Hell in LA Gears. He'd watch her undo the braids, sweep it all up under Keith's hat, and stride around the office like she was in charge. Fourteen and showing him up. "You're finger-printing wrong, Deputy." "Felony has one 'l', Deputy." "What can you tell me about public intoxication, Deputy? Is inside your house public?"
It had been four years. Barely. And she was legal. Barely. "Jesusfuck."
"That's a new one."
"You inspire creativity," he snapped, trying to think about anything except her thighs pressed against his, her ankles tied to his, and how the reality was so unbelievably ... embarrassing.
"Sheriff..." She used the right title, which couldn't be good. He risked a glance and saw no flip remarks on the verge, no evil twist to her mouth. "This is no picnic for me either."
No, it wouldn't be, would it? "I'm sorry one of your fancy boyfriends can't take my place," he growled, trying to hold on to that image of her at 14 pretending she wasn't just killing time until her mom sobered up. "I'll take Angelina, you take Kane." Trying...and failing.
"Why, Donald, do I detect a note of jealousy? Confess! You've wanted me all these years, haven't you?"
He laughed. It was a better alternative than screaming, crying, or coming in his jeans. "I think the evidence speaks for itself."
"Purely circumstantial." Was that compassion hidden in the hysterical giggle? Maybe...forgiveness? Maybe he was starting to hallucinate as a side effect from blue balls.
He met her when she was thirteen and he was twenty-six.
He'd arrested guys -- not nearly enough of 'em -- for acting on what he had started imagining when she was about fifteen and a half. Well before Lilly Kane had died and put that 'old before her time' look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Veronica."
"Yes, you are," she quipped. Again with the jokes. He wished he could do that... throw up a handy-dandy wall with a one-liner...but any kind of barrier seemed damn near impossible with their feet tied and their hands locked up between them.
Hell. Maybe he'd give it a try. "Sorrier than you know. I haven't gotten laid since February." August, actually, but the exaggerated drought made him feel better about practically shooting a hole through her hip with his very non-regulation weapon.
"Women aren't beating down your door?" she gasped, trying to wiggle her slender wrists out of the cuffs for the ninth or tenth time. "I'm shocked."
"Do the hookers in lock-up count?" Hey, maybe this wasn't so hard...and that would make it the only thing. "When exactly did you say your associate was showing up?" he wondered, trying (and failing) to put some space between them.
"The honorable Mr. Navarro said he'd come looking if I wasn't back by curfew."
"Curfew? I'm surprised Keith doesn't keep you on leash," he scoffed.
"After Felix died, Eli's grandmother set *him* a curfew," she corrected with a small smile. "3 a.m."
He filed that away for the next time Weevil landed himself in the cooler, but the more pressing matter was that it was probably just a little past midnight. He and Veronica had both started their little off-the-books investigations around 11 p.m., when Louie's rent-a-cops had gone on a doughnut run. They had two more hours of this. He watched her come to the same conclusion.
"Jesusfuck," she breathed, against his neck.
"Where'd you learn to cuss like that, Mars? Watch your damn mouth," he chided, so he wouldn't have to think about where her 'damn mouth' actually was.
Her eyes were wide, guileless...a total act. "Aren't you in a better position to watch it, Donald?"
"That sounds like you're propositioning an officer of the law." God, he hoped she was...er...wasn't. He hoped she *wasn't*.
"Does it?" She blinked. Thirteen. Fourteen. Innocent.
"You thrive on this, don't you?" he asked, even though the answer was as obvious as... things that were obvious. "You enjoy torturing me."
"And skeeball and long walks on the beach." She relaxed against him, like he was a body pillow. Yes, that was good. She was one, too. One that smelled like sea air and some woodsy perfume. "What about your back-up?" she asked. "Why no sign of Neptune's finest?"
"Would you really want Sacks and D'Amato seeing this?" he countered. His wrists were numb. He unclenched his fists, breaking down and touching her as he rested his palms flat against her hips. Of course, his fingertips made contact with her bare midriff, which sent the wrong signals straight south.
"Aren't you supposed to contact a medical professional if your erection lasts more than four hours?" There was a catch in Veronica's voice. Panic, discomfort, abject hatred?
"It's only been one...and I thought we weren't going to obsess?"
"I lied."
"You? I'm shocked, Veronica."
"I'm still going to hate you tomorrow. This up close and personal time changes nothing," she assured.
"Why mess with a good thing?" he agreed.
He tried to keep up the banter and the back-and-forth. He tried to think of things like misspelling 'felony' and how he told her to go see the Wizard the morning after she'd been raped and how this was probably right up there with that experience...pinned against some guy she couldn't stand, some guy who had onions for lunch and deserved to be shot repeatedly. He tried...and he failed. As usual.
He was only human...right?
"Veronica..." he gasped.
"This changes nothing," she repeated, that catch back in her voice. Not panic. Not discomfort. Not anything remotely resembling hatred.
He didn't know who made the first move. It was barely two inches, but, God, he hoped it was her. He hoped it was her so he could at least blame her before he died and went to Hell. And then he was kissing Veronica Mars. Christ. Jesusfuck. No amount of time in church was going to absolve him for this glorious bit of blasphemy.
She made a low, whimpering sound. "I must be insane."
"Must be." They rolled so she was straddling him and as close as they'd been tonight, it suddenly wasn't close enough. "I won't tell a soul..."
"Who'd...believe...you?" Her lips were soft, faintly chapped, and tasted like some kind of generic berry balm. A taste he knew he was going to wake up with for weeks to come. Maybe he'd empty out the entire lip care aisle at the drugstore just to find it.
He wanted to touch her. He wanted to wrap his hands in her hair and dive beneath her shirt and fly over the fucking rainbow.
He hadn't made out like this since he was a teenager. Like her.
*"Felony has one 'l', Deputy."*
Oh fucking God. Could this get any better...er...*worse*?
"Look at you, V. I leave you alone for a couple hours and you get in bed with the cops? Damn, Girl."
Why, yes. It could.
The Honorable Mr. Navarro was early.
"Damn it."
Veronica pulled back slowly. So slowly that he thought he was going to explode right then and there. Her cheeks were flushed, her breath coming in harsh gasps. She looked down at him, her expression an uncrackable case, worse than Louie the Lump's. Then she tilted her head as far as their circumstances would allow. "Can you pick the locks, Weevil?"
"You sure you *want* me to?"
"Uh, yeah." "Fuck, yes."
They said it simultaneously, emphatically, as they inched up their joined wrists from between them and his groin throbbed in Morse code-like bursts. He was never going to live this down.
And he wasn't sure he wanted to.
A set of lockpicks flashed in his peripheral vision. Navarro whistled while he worked. *Whistled*, for fuck's sake. "Man, another five minutes and I would've walked in on some kinky shit, huh?"
Veronica blushed. "Nothing you don't watch on the Spice channel, vato," she snapped as one set of cuffs came free.
He couldn't look at either of them. Veronica Pain-in-the-Ass Mars and the Biker King. And Don's little Lamb. "You say a word about this to anyone, Navarro, and I'll have your ass in jail on some trumped up charge that the public defender can't even touch."
Weevil laughed. And laughed. "Shit. Who would believe me?"
The second set came free and then they were frantically scrambling to undo the ropes that bound their ankles. He tried to keep one arm over his lap, but he could feel Veronica glancing down, hear her sigh of relief. Chalk up another nightmarish night in the life of. Roofies, psycho killers, freezers, and forced confinement with someone she hated.
Louie had left his two-way propped up against one of the empty crates, maddeningly out of reach. He could call for a black-and-white and then get the Hell out of here. As the nylon cords fell away, he scooted over on the concrete, mindful of the dirt and dust on his pants and the fact that he was still as hard as a rock. Maybe he did need to see a medical professional. Or one of the hookers in lock-up.
"Sheriff?" Veronica's hand was suddenly on his wrist, rubbing at the red lines where the metal had cut in, stopping him from making the Great Escape.
"Yeah, yeah...I know. Nothing's changed," he murmured, drawing his knees up.
"One thing has." She leaned in. Her lips brushed his cheek quickly, gently.
"You're voting for me?" he asked, wryly.
"Not a chance," she chuckled as she stood. He tried not to look as she tugged down her T-shirt. Of course, yep, he failed.
Weevil offered him a hand up and he accepted it, glad to have already put out the arrest threat as the punk squeezed his fingers hard enough to break them. One of those manly 'if I ever catch you with your tongue down Veronica's throat again, I'll kill you' squeezes. "You have my vote...Donald."
Oh. So that's how it was.
Hunh.
Didn't it figure there was a whole crowd of men with a hard-on for Veronica Mars?
"Louie's probably halfway to TJ by now," she murmured, picking up his radio and tossing it to him. "I guess that's score one for the bad guys."
He caught it, clipped it on, and then picked up the two sets of cuffs that would probably be hanging from his bedposts -- unused -- from tonight on. "At least somebody scored," he quipped, wearily. Maybe there was something to this witty one-liner thing after all.
Maybe it was the only way they could get through to each other.
Hell, maybe it was foreplay.
And this was karma.
It had to be.
Because it damn well couldn't be anything else.
--end--
October 19, 2005