embellished_me

Friday night is when the losers stay home and watch TV

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:47:58 GMT

Spoilers for 10/26:

OK, so Moonlight? Seriously growing on me. I am now willing to watch without fast-forwarding to the JD scenes. Although I have to say: the scene where Beth met Josef for the first time? And got treated to the full-on focused, obsessive Logan stare? Yum. She didn't seem as affected by it as I was, but then, JD did a great job of bringing the just slightly crazy. No surprise she was weirded out.

I'm dating myself, but does anyone remember a show from the 80s called Beauty and the Beast, where Linda Hamilton had a forbidden love thing going on with a lionesque hero from an secret underground society? I was about the right age in 1987 to think that was like the coolest thing ever. Moonlight has a similar, suck-you-in cheesiness about it. It speaks to my inner teenage girl in all the right ways.

I'm still on the fence with FNL. Although I like that Tyra and Landry have one of the main storylines, I don't like what the story has done to Tyra's character. She's once again a terrified girl desperately afraid of being alone. And after all the character growth she had last season, it's frustrating to see her essentially back at square one.

I like that they've given Jason and Tim a friendship storyline that has nothing to do with football, but don't particularly care for the story itself. It's more than a little over the top. And I don't like the Julie storyline at all. We've been given to believe all along that she's a fairly mature, sensible, self-possessed teenage girl, and now all of a sudden she's a shrieking brat in need of a good kick in the ass. It seems as though the writers have no idea who these characters are a lot of the time.

So yes, I stay home on Friday nights and watch TV. I'm a big loser! Who else was watching?

Dirty Sexy Money

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:32:13 GMT

Everyone should immediately go watch this show. Hopefully you DVRd it last night; if not, rumor is that ABC.com will be making the full episode available online, though I don't see it there just now. Or you can do that torrent thing if you're not opposed to a little video piracy. Whatever you do, just check out this show. I love Peter Krause. Donald Sutherland is the perfect mixture of aw-shucks and treacherous. Billy Baldwin makes me want to forget he has any brothers (the scene between him and Peter Krause in the limo is hi. lar. i. ous.).

There are some problems that need to be worked out, but overall I think this series has enormous potential.

And, hey: Peter Krause. How can you go wrong?

Warming up for the fall TV season

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:52:44 GMT

I've been re-watching season 1 of FNL in preparation for the new season, and god, I'm still just in awe at the character development and storytelling. So much is done with so little - a glance here, a throwaway line there - it's the details raise this show from the level of a mediocre family drama to something truly extraordinary.

I've been unspoiled this summer and don't know anything about what may or may not happen (and would like to stay that way, so please don't post spoilers to my journal). But I'm very excited about the potential, and nervous about the possibility that this show I love so much won't be able to clear the bar it's set for itself. I do hope it's able to find a wider audience this year - I'm afraid NBC will pull it pretty early on if the numbers aren't better. And that would be heartbreaking.

I'm also pleasantly surprised at the promos for Moonlight I've been seeing. I haven't read spoilers for that, either. But I find the main character, Mick, much more engaging in those promos than I expected to. So maybe it won't be an hour of waiting around for Jason to show up on screen.

Anybody planning to watch Dirty Sexy Money? Heard anything good about it? I love Peter Krause from way back in his Sports Night days, and am so glad he's returning to network TV where I can see him. We dropped HBO/Showtime after the first season of Six Feet Under, so I never saw most of that.

Only about two weeks til things get started - I've been clearing the old stuff out of my DVR (including season 3 VM, bye bye) in preparation. Pass the popcorn.

Everyone else is doing it ...

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:06:47 GMT

So when I first heard the news about Jason Dohring's being cast in Moonlight, I was dubious. It seemed a lot like a step down, career-wise.

I think I've been convinced that it could still be a good thing for his career, in that it means Jason still holds a place in the hearts and minds of the network higher-ups. And from all indications, it's a good role for him: the OPJ grown up and undead. A combination of Buffy's Spike, amoral and feral, with the easy, slick hedonism of Logan Echolls. Yummy, right?

Trying not to let myself get too excited about that.

I do still have concerns that he's being typecast as the bad boy. While I love the bad boy, as an actor at this point in his career, I think he needs to be showing a wider range. But, eh, the rest of the world seems to be thrilled, so maybe I'm just being unnecessarily curmudgeonly about it.

Good or bad, I'll definitely be tuning in. Does anyone know if we have a premiere date yet?

FIC: Fractured 5/5 (L/V, Parker) R

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:23:13 GMT

Hey, I finished it! ::waves frantically:: In case anyone is still interested!

Previous parts here. If you already read the previous parts and just need a refresher, previouslies are below the cut.

Big thanks to earth2mars for speedy and immensely helpful beta on this section, and to secrets_and_lie for handholding throughout.

All of you who stressed about whether or not this was really L/V? Heads up, eyes forward: this is the part where you have to worry no longer.

Previously in Fractured:

This fic is AU pretty much from 3x01, but definitely AU after 3x09. The main action takes place during the winter break between 3x09 and 3x10 and finishes with the start of the spring semester.

In the days after her rape, Parker feels numb and disconnected. Unable to see her way from rape victim back to normal, healthy relationship, she starts to fixate a little on Logan’s relationship with Veronica. Over Christmas break, after Logan breaks up with Veronica, Logan and Parker run into each other while shopping, and strike up a friendly conversation. Logan invites Parker to a Christmas party he and Dick are throwing at their suite.

Meanwhile, Parker is volunteering at a women’s crisis center in the less affluent part of Neptune. One night while she is working, a young woman named Solidad comes in and says that her sister, Alina, is missing, maybe dead. Unsure of what else to do, Parker calls Veronica for help.

Veronica begins working the case, but Solidad’s story changes and starts to develop some holes. Solidad says that it might have been her sister’s boyfriend, Marcos, who killed Alina. When Solidad disappears from the safe house Parker arranged for her, Veronica and Weevil track Solidad back to her apartment, where they find her in an argument with Marcos. Solidad tells Marcos that she killed Alina so that Marcos couldn’t have her.

Solidad runs out of the apartment and appears again in the crisis center, begging for a bus pass. Parker refuses, and Solidad runs out. Veronica and Weevil follow her back to the crisis center and then pursue her after she runs out, but the trail goes quickly cold. Solidad has disappeared.

Several days later, Marcos appears at the crisis center while Parker is working. He’s carrying a knife and demands to know where Solidad is. He threatens Parker, but Logan and his gun arrive just in the nick of time. Marcos is arrested.

Logan takes Parker to dinner. They talk and bond, and go to the party at Logan’s suite together.

Two days later, Mac finds out that Parker is seeing Logan. She is worried, but says nothing.

Parker and Logan have their first real “date” – movie night at Logan’s suite. Just as things begin to heat up a little, Veronica arrives with the news that Marcos is dead, apparently murdered. Parker and Logan must identify the body as that of the person who attempted to attack Parker at the crisis center. While at the morgue, Parker notices Marcos has a tattoo in the shape of a heart with the name Solidad written inside.

After that, Logan, Parker and Veronica make a tense trip to Solidad’s apartment. As they’re looking for clues, Solidad’s sister, Alina, arrives, apparently not dead after all. She’s been in Ojai all this time, unaware that Solidad was missing and that she’d claimed to have killed Alina. She tells Veronica that she left because she felt guilty after ending her secret relationship with Marcos, who had been Solidad’s boyfriend first. Marcos had taken the breakup badly and threatened to hurt Alina.

Veronica swears that she’ll help find Solidad.

Parker and Logan have a heart-to-heart in his car late that night; Logan admits that Veronica has changed since he first met her, and that he loves her but fears she’ll never be able to love him back.

The next day, Parker finds a sense of physical and emotional well being she hasn’t felt in a long time. She takes off her wig and sits in the sun on a bench outside the crisis center. She will be OK.

*~*~*~*Part 5*~*~*~*

Parker returns to her dorm room that evening with a little smile twitching around her lips and her wig stuffed in her purse. Mac, sitting cross-legged on her bed, is on the phone, and raises one eyebrow at Parker’s appearance, before a smile curls her mouth and she gives Parker a little thumbs-up sign.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Probably with one hand tied behind my back. Or both of them, if you’ve got some good voice recognition software.” Mac bounces in geeky glee at her own joke. “No, um, kidding. OK. Around eight?”

She flips the phone shut and looks at Parker. “So--?”

Parker shrugs, smiles. “It was so nice today, I just wanted to feel the sun on my head.”

“Well I, for one, think you can totally pull off the look,” Mac says loyally. Her bright expression fades a little as she hefts her phone. “That was Veronica.”

“Mmmm?”

“She got a call from Alina, who found an e-mail address written on a piece of paper by the phone. Veronica wants me to hack into Solidad’s e-mail account to see if there are any messages to or from that address.”

“Can you do that?”

Mac rolls her eyes. “Yeah. But what makes it extra easy is that Solidad is a sophomore at Neptune High, and that’s where her e-mail account originates. You could say I already have some familiarity with their security protocols. Which are, by the way, totally lame.”

“So Veronica’s coming over here? At eight?” Parker feels some of her sense of peace trickling away.

Mac nods. “Do you want to be gone? Or maybe I could meet her someplace else …”

Parker shakes her head. She’d given Mac the Cliff’s Notes version of her evening with Logan, which had turned into an evening with Logan and Veronica and Alina Elizondo, the morning after it happened. Mac, wisely, had said little at the time.

Now, Mac sighs, seeming to consider several possible openings before saying, “I love Veronica. And I like Logan. And I’ve seen them really, really happy together. And I’ve seen them really, really miserable. The thing about them is that it’s always intense, either super happy or super miserable, you know? They don’t seem to ever just, I don’t know, be.”

Parker nods, eyes fixed on the floor.

“And I just think – for whatever it’s worth – that maybe getting mixed up in all that intensity right now isn’t the best thing for you. And also? I don’t want you to get, you know, hurt. Logan, he’s --“

“He’s kind, and funny, and dead sexy,” Parker says with a wry smile. “And he’s also a lot of other things that he mostly only shows to Veronica. Which tells you something right there. We had a talk that night, before I came home,” she says off Mac’s dawning look of relief.

“So Veronica –“

“Has no problem with me. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

***

Parker is alone, lying in wait when Veronica arrives. As soon as Veronica realizes this, she turns to leave, but Parker gets to the door first, and gives Veronica her best steely-eyed glare.

“Hey. Remember when you forced your way in here, when I didn’t want to talk to you? Well, it’s your turn now. Sit.”

Veronica eyes her warily in return and, evidently deciding that she can’t actually plow her way through Parker, goes over to Mac’s bed and sits down in a huff.

Parker sits in a chair across from her and folds her hands in her lap. She’s been rehearsing her speech for the past hour. “Now. First of all, I’m sorry. I didn’t know … I didn’t want to know that you still had feelings for Logan. I was kind of caught up in my own stuff, and you were all with the ‘I’m fine,’ so I didn’t think much at first about whether or not my seeing him would be OK with you. And I’m sorry.”

Veronica’s expression is nonplussed, her lower jaw thrust forward in mulish stubbornness, her arms crossed.

Parker waits, and, getting no response, tries another tack. “He’s not happy, Veronica. He worries about you …”

Veronica’s face comes to furious life then. “OK, you? Of all people, are not going to lecture me about Logan, or his unhappiness, or my relationship with him. He broke up with me. He chose to be unhappy. You spend a week with him and you think you know all about us and our history, but …”

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” Parker says, raising her hands to fend off Veronica’s anger.

“He ended things between us!”

“I know. And I can’t tell you what to do ...”

Veronica’s eyes narrow. She opens her mouth and draws in a deep breath … and the door opens.

“Hey,” Mac says cautiously, peeking around the doorframe. “Everything OK in here?”

Veronica shuts her mouth, and turns her back on Parker. Conversation over. “Hey,” she says tightly to Mac. “Did you find anything useful?”

Mac looks from Parker back to Veronica, apprehensive. “Um, I can come back later …”

Parker shoots a look at Mac, and shakes her head.

Veronica sighs impatiently. “Did you find anything?”

“Um, yeah.” Mac pulls out her laptop and powers it on. A few moments later, she and Veronica are scrolling through Solidad’s e-mails for the last several months.

“There are two messages tied to the address Alina gave you,” Mac says.

Parker watches over Mac’s shoulder, ignoring the venomous glance she gets from Veronica. Mac opens the first e-mail.

I’ll meet u there at 8 ~~Soli

“That’s not exactly helpful,” Veronica says. “Can you find what she was replying to?”

Mac scrolls, and opens another message.

Come to the shop tomorrow nite. It’s about your sister. Guerra Bikes. 1402 NW Blalock. -A

Veronica already has her phone out, making a call. “Hey,” she says, then silently mouths Weevil for Mac’s benefit. “Do you know somebody with the first initial A who owns or works at Guerra Bikes on Blalock?” A pause, then a smirk. “No, I don’t think you all know each other. But I do recall you having some affiliation with a motorcycle gang that hangs around in that part of town. Heh, yeah, that’s funny.”

“Hang on,” she tells Weevil. She then speaks pointedly to Mac, ignoring Parker. “Weevil says the A is probably Andres Guerra. He’s the uncle of one of the PCHers, and he kind of oversees things without really being part of them.”

“Do you think …”

“I think if Andres thinks Solidad killed Marcos, his luring her down to his shop can’t be a good thing. Alina said Marcos had been getting involved with the PCHers. What if he was a full member of the gang and she just didn’t know? And now the PCHers are looking for revenge?”

“Shit,” Parker says quietly.

Veronica puts the phone back to ear, mouth thinning. “What are you doing right now?” she asks Weevil.

***

“This is not the kind of sexy evening I was expecting when you asked what I was doing, V,” Weevil gripes from the passenger seat.

Parker is sitting in the back seat again, having told Veronica she’d just follow them in her own car if she wasn’t allowed to come along. Veronica had given in with bad grace, and set about ignoring Parker with great enthusiasm.

“You know me,” Veronica says tightly. “No sexy fun until business is done.”

Weevil chuckles, turning back to share in the humor with Parker. Parker isn’t smiling. Weevil goes back to staring out the window.

They ride the rest of the way in silence. Parker’s wig is back in place, but covered with a cap, and she’s dressed in unaccustomed, long-sleeved black per Veronica’s instructions. The peace she felt on the bench earlier that afternoon slipped away with the sun; Neptune is once again covered in darkness, and the salty wind off the ocean has a bite to it.

Veronica parks her car about half a block down from the shop, and the three of them get out, Parker looking around nervously.

Suddenly Veronica is standing in front of her, little and fierce, her bright hair tucked under a dark cap. “You,” she says, “will be backup. If anyone’s going in, it will be Weevil and me only. Understand?”

Veronica’s face is pale, the shadows under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks cast into stark relief in the streetlight. She looks older, harder. Scarier. Parker nods, mute.

They make their way down the block to where the bike shop sits, hunched between a laundromat and a check-cashing store. A narrow alley, maybe six feet wide, separates each of the buildings.

The front of the bike shop is dark, with bars on the windows and door. Parker can see Guerra Motorcycle Accessories hand-painted in stylized letters on a panel over the door; a sign in English and Spanish warns visitors that the premises are monitored by a video camera at all times.

Weevil flicks a glance at Veronica, and another down the street, hunching his shoulders under his jacket.

Veronica sees it. She stops in front of Weevil, puts her hand on the leather of his jacket and looks seriously into his face. “Thanks for coming down here with me. I know it’s a risk. If anything happens, I want you to run like hell, OK?”

Weevil shrugs, then straightens. “Wouldn’t violate my parole for anyone else, V.” The words are said lightly, but his eyes aren’t laughing.

Parole? Parker adjusts her assessment of Weevil and of his loyalty to Veronica several notches. Parker has friends, she knows, but Veronica has friends who will break and enter, hack into school servers and wield unregistered guns on her behalf. This little group she has built around her; it’s like what they say about people who have been through some enormous trauma together. There are secrets, and loyalty, and understandings that no one else can enter into.

Parker thinks she’ll have to add it to the growing list of things about Neptune that she’ll never understand. She takes a deep breath, wishing again for the sweet, uncomplicated air of home.

Veronica leads them down the alley in between the bike shop and the laundromat. The little concrete yard behind the building is daytime bright, thanks to a security lamp mounted above the back door. The three of them press themselves hard against the side of the building, and Veronica edges around the corner to peer into one of the windows.

She looks for a moment, and then returns to Parker and Weevil. “I can see someone in there, in the corner, but it’s too dark to see if it’s Solidad. Whoever it is, looks like they’re tied up.”

“Anyone else in there?” Weevil asks.

Veronica shrugs. “Don’t know. Can’t see anyone. Are you coming in with me?”

He nods briefly, and Veronica turns her attention to Parker. “Stay in the alley, up where you can see the front of the building. If anyone comes, run back here and knock on the window.”

Parker nods her assent. What else can she do? But she also slips her hand into her pocket, feeling for the smooth, straight edges of her cell phone. Just in case.

Veronica and Weevil edge around the building. The door is locked and bolted, and Parker winces at the sound of breaking glass.

She hears Weevil’s muttered curse, then Veronica’s voice, whispering something urgently that she can’t quite make out. She should be watching the street side of the alley, she remembers, and turns.

A heavy arm slips around her neck and a leather-gloved hand clamps over her mouth. The other arm circles her waist. She can’t scream; can’t break free. She lets her body go limp, but the person behind her is strong enough to carry her dead weight, his fingers biting into her flesh as he pulls her backward toward the street.

***

Solidad starts wriggling and making noises behind her gag as soon as Veronica and Weevil climb through the window. Veronica crosses the room and starts working on the knotted bandana tied over Solidad’s mouth as Weevil goes to check the other rooms.

“Please, please, we have to get out of here, they’re going to come back.”

“Sssh,” Veronica warns. She pulles out a penknife and quickly cut the zip-ties binding Solidad’s hands and feet.

“Hey, V?” Weevil calls from the next room. “Might wanna take a look at this.”

He comes in carrying a set of clothes spotted with blood. Unfolded, they look like a young woman’s clothes.

Veronica’s eyebrows scale up her forehead. “Are those yours?” she asks Solidad.

Solidad nods, rubbing her wrists.

“And the blood? Who does that belong to?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. They – Andres and the other guy – took those clothes from my bag two nights ago, and brought them back with the blood on them.”

Veronica and Weevil trade a look.

“We know Alina is alive,” Veronica says quietly. “Why did you lie about killing her?”

A sound from the street makes all of them jump.

“There isn’t time for this!” Solidad insists, hissing. “We have to go, like, now. Then I’ll tell you everything you want to know, OK? I swear.”

“Yeah, V, your interrogation is going to have to wait,” Weevil agrees, glancing over his shoulder. “Save it for the post-mortem, OK?”

“All right, let’s go,” Veronica huffs impatiently, but she motions Weevil toward the back door and then jerks her head to indicate Solidad should follow. Just as Weevil puts his hand on the doorknob, a loud click sounds from the room behind them. A click that sounds ominously like a gun’s safety being disengaged.

They all turn, and in the darkness just inside the next room, Veronica can make out a man’s tall form and the glint of light off the gun in his hand.

“Too late,” he says.

***

Do everything you can to avoid being taken to another location, Parker thinks. It’s number three on the list of things you should do if attacked, according to the brochures she hands out for Take Back the Night. Number one and two are Yell “fire!” and Aim for the attacker’s eyes with your fingers or keys, or use mace or pepper spray if you have it. Those are pretty much out of the question right now; the hand over her mouth is tight enough that her cheeks feel bruised, and she can’t get either of her arms free. Leather-jacket guy has a grip like a python.

Twisting, she manages to bring her booted heel down hard on the guy’s foot. He grunts, but doesn’t loosen his grip. Next she tries biting his hand, but the thick leather glove prevents her from doing much damage.

Out on the sidewalk, he shakes her briefly, like a rag doll, and stands her back up on her own feet. His arms are still tight around her as he shoves her through the front door of the bike shop and then she’s free, pushed down hard on the floor, but no longer in that suffocating grip.

She kneels, panting. The brochure hadn’t mentioned what to do if the present location was bad enough all on its own. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her captor reach into a drawer and pull out a couple of those plastic handcuffs you see the police use on TV when they’re arresting a lot of people at once. Last chance, she thinks. She slips her hand into her pocket and feels for her cell phone. Her first thought is to press ‘9’, her speed dial number for ‘911,’ but then she thinks of Weevil and his parole, and the fact that he’s here – somewhere – to help a young girl he doesn’t know. Her thumb slides up and finds the center button, ‘5.’ It’s Logan’s number, programmed in after the Christmas party.

The man in the leather jacket, his face indistinct in the darkness, advances on her. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she says loudly. “My boyfriend comes to this bike shop sometimes, and I was looking for him. Guerra’s Bikes, right? Do I have the wrong place?”

The man grunts and jerks her arms hard behind her back, binding her wrists quickly with the zip-tie.

“Why are you doing this?” Parker demands, keeping her voice strong in the hopes that Logan will hear. “I wasn’t doing anything, please, just let me go.”

The man pushes her, and she lands hard on her face, unable to break her fall with her hands. One cheekbone throbs. She feels tears and the beginnings of real fear as her adrenaline and bravado ebb away. She can feel him zip-tying her ankles together as well, and then she is unceremoniously dragged into the next room.

Weevil, Veronica, and Solidad are sitting against the wall here, similarly bound, and Parker feels her last shred of hope die away. Mac knows where they are, but it’ll be hours before she becomes alarmed enough to call for help. So unless Logan answered her call and heard and understood what she said, the four of them are seriously, seriously screwed.

The man who caught her in the alley confers in the corner with the other man, the one who apparently found Veronica and Weevil trying to free Solidad. The two of them move into the next room, and Veronica immediately begins interrogating Solidad in a hissed undertone while simultaneously turning back-to-back with Weevil so she can work on loosening the ties on his wrists. Girl can multitask, Parker thinks vaguely.

“I told you, I thought she was missing at first, maybe dead,” Solidad insists. “Marcos had said he was going to kill her. But then when I was in that hotel, I got a call from a friend of Alina’s, looking for her cell number. Said she’d heard Alina was in Ojai and she wanted to give her a call.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why’d you leave the hotel?” Veronica asks. Her face is creased in concentration as she tugs hard on Weevil’s wrist tie.

“I tried to call Alina then, but she still wasn’t answering her cell. So I went back to the apartment to try to find a number for her friend in Ojai.”

“And Marcos showed up,” Weevil puts in over his shoulder.

“Yeah. He was looking for me because that girl had called him, too, looking for Alina, and he wanted to find out the name of Alina’s friend there so he could find her. Was going to beat it out of me,” she says, wincing in remembrance.

“Um, guys …” Parker said nervously. The two in the front room have stopped talking; from her vantage point, she can see one of them with his face pressed against the front window, clearly watching something out in the street.

Veronica leans forward and sees what Parker sees. “Did you call for help?” she whispers to Parker.

“I, um, I pressed Logan’s speed dial number on my phone. And I talked really loud. But I couldn’t have a conversation with him or anything. I don’t think he probably even picked up. I’m sure it didn’t work; it couldn’t be him out there, could it?”

Veronica’s mouth sets into a thin line; she doesn’t say anything, but for the first time, Parker sees something like worry on her face.

Veronica turns back to Solidad. “So then what? You told Marcos you’d killed Alina?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t think of any other way to get him to stop searching for her, so she’d be safe.”

“Oh, Solidad,” Parker breathes. “Did – did you kill Marcos, then? To keep Alina safe?”

“What? No!” Solidad says. The shock on her face is unfeigned; she hadn’t known until this moment that he was dead.

“Then who –“

“Got it!” Veronica says triumphantly. It takes Parker a moment to realize; she’s worked Weevil’s zip-tie loose and he pulls his hands out. Another minute and Veronica’s hands are free as well.

“Shit,” Parker mutters as their captors move toward the back room. Veronica and Weevil both keep their hands behind their backs as if they’re still tied up.

“You,” says one of the men, nodding at Solidad. He’s older, in his early 40s, maybe; Parker assumes he’s Andres Guerra. “Plans have changed. Get up.” He holds out the blood-stained clothes Weevil had found earlier.

“You killed Marcos,” Solidad accuses him. “That’s his blood, right? On my clothes?”

Guerra chuckles. “Oh, no, mija, you killed Marcos. All the neighborhood knows how jealous you were that he dumped you for your sister, and how you bragged about killing Alina yourself. And there isn’t going to be a single person alive who can give you an alibi. No one’s seen you since before Marcos was killed, have they?”

“No one except us,” Weevil says lazily. “You going to off all three of us? Seems like a risk, murdering three people to pin one murder on an innocent girl.”

Guerra smiles without humor. “You never were as smart as you liked to think, Eli. Yeah, I know who you are. I know how you betrayed Thumper, got him killed. You’re a convicted accessory to murder, Eli Navarro. You think it’ll be hard to convince the sheriff you killed these two pretty blonde girls? When you’ve got their blood on your hands? “

He turns back to Solidad. “Get up. We’re going for a ride.”

***

When Parker’s name comes up on his caller ID, Logan almost doesn’t answer. Not that he doesn’t want to talk to Parker, but he still thinks maybe she shouldn’t want to talk to him. She’s fragile; he knows that. And he’s starting to think it was really selfish to start something with her even though he knows he’s not remotely over Veronica.

But he doesn’t want her to think he’s avoiding her, so he answers. “Hey, Parker.”

No response, just an odd muffled swooshing sound and then a voice – Parker’s voice – as if from a great distance. He can’t understand what she’s saying, but she sounds frightened and angry.

Again? Really? Veronica’s used her phone twice to signal him when she was in trouble. Part of him thinks it’s too big a coincidence. Probably there’s nothing wrong, and the speed-dial key that dials his number got accidentally pressed in her purse. He listens harder, but he doesn’t hear her voice again, just that swooshing sound.

He hits ‘end’ and dials Parker’s number. It goes straight to voice mail. Not good. He grits his teeth and tries Veronica’s number. Also right to voice mail.

Logan thinks for a few moments before going to his computer and looking up Mac’s number in the Hearst directory. She answers on the second ring.

“Hey, um, Mac, it’s Logan. Do you know where Parker is? It’s important.”

Mac is silent; he can all but hear her indecision over the phone.

“I got a call from her cell,” he goes on. “She wasn’t on the phone, but I could hear her yelling at someone in the background. So I need to know – do you know where she is?”

“Shit,” Mac says quietly.

“Where?” Logan demands, not bothering with polite.

“Guerra’s Bikes on Blalock.”

“With Veronica?”

Mac’s breath is shaky. “Veronica and Weevil. They left an hour ago.”

Logan’s hands twitch on the steering wheel as he drives. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, exactly. Barge in and raise hell? Sneak in and catch them by surprise?

Hell, he doesn’t even know for sure that they’re in trouble. Suppose he shows up to find Veronica turning the bad guy over to Sheriff Lamb, and it turns out that Parker accidentally hit his speed-dial number during their celebratory high-five.

Yeah, probably not.

When he turns onto Blalock he sees Veronica’s little SUV parked near the corner. Guerra’s Bikes is further down; a black Mustang is parked in front of the shop. He pulls in behind Veronica’s car and shuts off his ignition, blowing his breath out in a long whoosh to steady his nerves.

Getting out of the Range Rover, he’s uncomfortably aware of the weight of the handgun in his pocket. Damn Veronica for getting them all into this, and damn Parker for not just letting Veronica handle it. He briefly considers turning around and calling the police, but considering what passes for police in Neptune, and given the fact that Veronica and Parker probably didn’t enter the premises of Guerra’s bikes through its open front door, he decides to keep that as a last resort.

The little shop sits low to the ground, hunkered down between the other buildings as if preparing for a fight, its two front windows reflecting the streetlights to look like two glowing eyes. Logan stares back for a moment, and then slips around the side of the building.

***

Solidad glances at Veronica, and then back at Guerra, who is still holding out the bloody clothes. Veronica looks at Weevil from under her lashes. All this happens so quickly that Parker barely has time to register it, but before she can so much as gasp, Weevil has launched himself off the floor and barrels at Guerra like a bull, head down.

The older man grunts in surprise when Weevil hits him and the two of them go down, grappling like wrestlers on the floor. Veronica whips her taser out of her coat pocket and flies at leather-jacket man, who has just come through the door from the front room to see what the noise is.

He knocks her back with one upraised arm, though, and the taser sparks uselessly in the air between them. But Veronica uses that off-balance moment of surprise to lunge again, this time scoring a hit.

He shouts something incoherent, staggering and then falling as the electricity short-circuits his nervous system. The gun flies from his hand and skates across the floor into the darkened room beyond.

Veronica glances at the gun, but the man on the floor doesn’t appear able to move, so she pulls her penknife from her pocket first and cuts the ties from Parker and Solidad’s hands. It’s the wrong choice; without warning, the balance of power in the room shifts when Guerra flips Weevil and pins him to the concrete floor. He jerks a pistol from his waistband and jabs it hard against Weevil’s temple. Parker opens her mouth to shout, but …

“V!” Weevil barks, his voice high and tense. His eyes are wide, fixed on the gun at his head, the whites showing all around in fear.

Veronica, Parker and Solidad freeze. And in the silent space as Veronica and Guerra stare each other down, deadlocked, leather-jacket guy regains enough power of movement to drag himself across the floor towards the front room.

Another beat, and Veronica spreads out her hands in surrender. She lets her penknife fall to the floor with a clatter. She bends slowly, as if to lay down the taser, but Parker sees her flick a brief glance first at Weevil, and then up at the back door. What she does next happens so quickly Parker has to blink to be sure she saw it correctly. Veronica slides the taser hard at the still prone leather-jacket guy, but fires it just before it leaves her hand. It flies across the floor and is still sparking when it makes contact with leather-jacket’s arm. He howls, and twitches, and is once again immobilized.

Guerra looks up in surprise, long enough for Weevil to twist away from him. Guerra keeps hold of the gun, and looks as though he’ll bring it up to aim at Veronica, until a voice in the doorway stops everything.

“Put it down!”

It’s Logan, steady and grim, his gun leveled at Guerra. He doesn’t look at Parker or Veronica, just shouts, “Run, now!” in a tone that has Parker scrambling for her feet and towards the door.

Guerra shakes his head, laughing, and swings his arm up quickly, aiming the gun at Logan. Veronica sees it. “No!” she screams, lunging at Guerra, trying to put herself between him and Logan.

The two shots are deafening in the tiny room. Parker screams, and screams again. Both Guerra and Logan are on the floor.

***

Alina breaks down when she sees Solidad in the emergency room. “¿Qué hizo usted?, what did you do?” she cries. Parker half listens as Solidad tells how she made up the story about killing Alina so Marcos would stop looking for her, and how Andres Guerra killed Marcos when his drunken shouting in the streets of their neighborhood started to extend to things Andres and the PCHers didn’t want spread around. And then took Solidad prisoner as part of his plan to pin Marcos’ murder on her.

Parker’s attention fades; she’s already heard the extended version in the waiting room while the ER doctors worked on Logan. Now that Alina’s here, she wants to go up to the surgical waiting room to see if there’s any news. Veronica is up there alone, waiting.

“I’m going up,” Parker tells Solidad and Alina, inclining her head to indicate the second-floor surgical wing.

Solidad nods, wiping away tears. “He saved us,” she tells Alina, and then looks back at Parker. “Please let me know when he’s out of surgery.”

Veronica sits in the green-carpeted room by herself, staring sightlessly at a modern abstract painting across the room. She’s wearing scrubs borrowed from the hospital to replace her blood-covered clothes, and she looks up only when Parker is right across from her. “Hey,” she says weakly.

Parker lowers herself into a chair. “Any word?”

Veronica shakes her head. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but her face is buttoned-up, stony; she’s holding back because Parker is there.

Back at the bike shop, she’d fallen to her knees beside Logan on the floor, heedless of the growing pool of blood. “Call 911,” she’d told Parker calmly before bending and looking into Logan’s eyes. She cupped his pale face in her hands and started talking to him, murmuring on and on, keeping him conscious and focused on her until the paramedics arrived. For several moments the only sounds in the room had been Logan’s painful, sucking breaths and the soothing murmur of Veronica’s voice.

Now Veronica is nearly as pale and bloodless as Logan had been, her lips bitten with worry, and Parker has no idea what to say to get her through the time until they know – something. The ER resident had been grim: the bullet had pierced Logan’s chest cavity and collapsed one of his lungs. They feared it might have nicked his pulmonary artery. He’d lost a great deal of blood. He might not make it.

Andres Guerra is luckier, with Logan’s bullet lodged harmlessly in his shoulder. Parker grits her teeth against the unfairness of it. “He has to be OK,” she thinks, and then realizes that she’s actually spoken the words aloud.

Veronica looks at her for a moment, and then another, before she presses her clenched hands hard against her face, which is scrunched up with the effort not to cry.

There’s nothing else to do. Parker slides out of her chair and kneels on the floor in front of Veronica, and puts her arms around her, pulling her head down to her shoulder. Veronica stills for a moment, and then Parker feels the hot wetness of tears on her shoulder, as Veronica’s whole body shakes with the force of her fear and pain and regret.

***

Parker must have fallen asleep; when she wakes up on the waiting room couch, the clock reads 6:42, and Veronica is gone. Her heart immediately starts slamming in her chest. She flies out to the nurses’ station and asks frantically about Logan Echolls. The bleary-eyed nurses’ aid, clearly near the end of her shift, takes pity on Parker and directs her to room 226, just down the hall to the right.

It’s all Parker can do not to run. When she reaches the door of the room she blinks, and it takes a moment for the scene in front of her to come into focus.

Logan is in the hospital bed, pale and somehow frail-looking but alive, according to the steady beep of the heart monitor by his bed. Veronica sits next to the bed, her rapt eyes fixed on his face, her hands clutching one of his. She murmurs something inaudible, and with a start Parker realizes that Logan is awake, because he cracks open his eyes and manages a ghost of a smile. “Say that again,” he whispers.

“I love you,” Veronica repeats, not bothering to hide her tears. “I love you.”

Parker swallows, and backs out of the doorway before either of them sees her. She leaves a note with the nurse’s station saying that she’ll be back with a change of clothes for Veronica, and to call her cell if she wants her to bring anything else.

***

“So Logan’s going to lose the whole semester?” Mac asks.

Veronica is cross-legged on Mac’s bed, her smile the full, contented smile of a woman whose secrets are all good ones. “Yeah,” she says. “He’ll miss so much class that it’d be pointless for him to try to catch up. He’s taking medical leave this semester, and he’ll come back in the fall.”

“And are you having fun playing Nurse Veronica?” Mac says pertly. Veronica throws a pillow at her, laughing, but she doesn’t deny it.

Parker’s phone rings. She recognizes the number; it belongs to a sophomore guy in her bio lab. One who’d flirted wickedly with her on the first day of class and hadn't batted an eye when she brazenly wrote her phone number on his notebook. She takes the call, and agrees to the date he suggests, Friday night for dinner and a movie. There’s no urgency, no rush, just the sweet lightness of attraction and potential. It’s just right for now.

“I was thinking I’d go over and check on Solidad, see how she’s doing,” Veronica says when Parker hangs up.

Mac’s eyes widen. “Won’t she be in school right now?”

Veronica makes a show of shrugging. “Yeah, they’ll be outside at lunch in half an hour. It’ll just take a minute. Wanna come with me? Visit the old stomping grounds?”

“I’ve got class,” Mac says, eyeing Veronica as if for signs of mental instability.

“I’ll go with you,” Parker offers. “I don’t have anything until three. And I’d like to see Solidad, too.”

Veronica drives. The town of Neptune occupies a long strip along the Pacific coast with Hearst College at its north end and the high school at its south end; it takes twenty minutes or so to drive from one end to the other.

When they pull into the visitor’s parking lot, Veronica’s mouth quirks up in wry amusement. They get out of the car and start walking toward the building. The open courtyard with terraces and lunch tables sits just above the visitors’ lot. Students are just beginning to spill out of the school and occupy the tables.

“That one was mine,” Veronica says, pointing toward an empty table at the corner of the courtyard. “And Solidad will be over there.” She indicates a couple of tables at the far end, closest to the student lot. A couple of Hispanic boys with denim jackets and snug jeans are already sitting there.

Veronica crosses in front of the building and stops in front of a black marble fountain set into the limestone façade. Lilly Kane, Parker reads. Oh.

Veronica puts out a finger and traces the line of the water as it trickles down. Then, drawing a deep breath, she turns around and surveys the now-crowded courtyard. Her eyes settle on the group of students at the center tables; varsity jackets, cheerleading uniforms and expensive, designer clothing predominate. The students there trade boxes of pizza back and forth, occupying that center-most space with the casual ease of those born to it.

The group is easy to place; anyone who’s gone to high school recognizes the careless supremacy of the popular kids. Tinged here with something just a little menacing, something unsettling – or maybe that’s just Parker’s imagination, helped along by Mac’s stories of the Neptune High experience.

Veronica turns her back on the central group and seeks out the fringes, the table she’d pointed out to Parker earlier. Sure enough, Solidad sits at that table, talking and laughing with a group of friends, almost unrecognizable with her bruises faded and her smile bright.

She looks up with a shy smile when she sees Veronica and Parker. “Hi. Are you guys, like, down here for college day or something?”

Veronica laughs. She glances around; clearly, several of the faces are familiar to her, but the vibe is just a little bit tense, Parker thinks. “No,” she says. “I just came down to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” Solidad flushes, embarrassed by the attention. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Yeah? No trouble from … anyone?” Veronica’s eyes dart pointedly to the PCHers at the next table. Andres Guerra is in jail, awaiting trial for the murder of Marcos Villareal. Veronica and Parker had been concerned that there might be retribution in the wake of his arrest.

Solidad shakes her head. “No. It’s all good. How’s, um, how’s Logan?”

“He’s doing great,” Veronica says. “I’ll tell him you said hi.” She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a hang tag, the kind meant to slide over a car’s rear-view mirror. “This is for you,” she says, handing it to Solidad. “It’s a permit for the faculty and visitor lot. You can’t use it every day, or they’ll notice, but when you’re running late for class, or whatever …”

Solidad grins up at her, eyes sparkling and complicit. “It’s usually just the 09ers who score these.”

“Usually,” Veronica agrees, smiling back. She looks around and shrugs. “We’re gonna go. You have my number and Parker’s; call us if you have a problem, OK?”

“OK,” Solidad agrees, ducking her head.

Veronica swings her hair over her shoulders as she walks away, not looking left or right even though several pairs of curious eyes follow her out. Parker trails behind her. She takes a last look at the Lilly Kane memorial fountain, monument to so much more than a dead teenager, and then has to hurry to catch up.

Veronica is moving quickly, Parker thinks. She’s already put this place far behind her.

***

end

please feed(back) the writer!

They be stealin' ma sweet potato

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:07:21 GMT

This has nothing to do with fandom. But it's so funny I managed to alarm both my office-mate and the people in the next office with my hysterical laughter. Read.

teh funny is here.

It's good to be me.

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 22:25:01 GMT

DH took the kids for the whole day today. I have the whole darn day off! Those of you with children will have an especially good understanding of how amazing this is. This morning I re-watched some VM season 2 torrents, laid around, painted my toenails, watched a X-Files episode I'd never seen before (Trust No1), and played with some recent pics in Photoshop.

Then I went to Marshalls, where I managed to find a gorgeous new quilt, two matching decorative pillows, a shower curtain, bath mat, towels, toothbrush holder, soap dish, decorative shower curtain rings and two beautiful, large framed pictures for our master bed/bath. All for $153.00. That's right. Pretty much decorated the whole room for $150. We already have two nice comfy sets of sheets that match the quilt, and the window treatments will remain. How cool is that? I'm feeling like quite the savvy decorator. We seriously haven't had anything new for our bedroom since we bought the house seven years ago. It was TIME. All I need now is a couple of gallons of paint and I'm good to go.

And now I'm sitting at Panera, using their free wi-fi, eating the world's largest brownie and drinking Diet Coke (beverage of the gods; also, it cancels out the calories in the brownie). And I'm writing fanfic, which, hey, I wasn't going to. But I am. So there.

All in all, it's good to be me today. Hope everyone else is having a nice Saturday!

LOL Picspam

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:45:11 GMT

Yeah, so I'm bored at work. I have stuff to do but, eh, it can wait.

So I bring you ... a tiny picspam.

Everyone's seen the LOL cats and all their variations, right? If not, go here, or this will make no sense. OK. So here's LOL Logan.

(Thanks muchly to vm-caps for the screencaps.)

*chortle* Anyone else want to do some?

No more Logan.

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:15:53 GMT

For some reason it's hitting me today. No more new Logan. Ever.

Last Tuesday I was fine; this week I really, really miss Logan.

*sigh*

I'm a hopeless, hopeless fangirl.

Don't leave me heeeeere!

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:19:40 GMT

I feel like my four-year-old, terrified of being left behind. I set myself up as embellished_me at IJ and GJ, but I have to admit I don't really know why, except that everyone else is doing it.

Carry on.

Look what found us at the park yesterday

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:56:32 GMT

I took the girls to the park yesterday. It was pretty hot, so no one else was there, and as we were getting ready to leave, this little sweetie appeared out of nowhere.

She is an apricot toy poodle, if my message-board friends are correct. Very sweet and friendly. She was filthy when we found her, but we brought her home and gave her a bath and some food. (Our cat is not amused, BTW.) We're going to put up signs later today, and take her to the vet to have her scanned for a chip just in case. She's obviously well-fed and she's been trimmed in the not too distant past, so she belongs to somebody.

In the mean time, she's at my house, terrorizing my cat. :) Actually we put the dog outside today when we went to work. We have a closed dog run in the garage with a doggie door that leads out to the fenced yard, so she'll be fine. And the poor cat can have some peace.

Damn. Is it safe in here?

Thu, 24 May 2007 03:07:57 GMT

Note to self: expressing too much opinion or appearing to have too much information about any TV show on a message board not related to said TV show is to declare oneself a big loser with too much time on one's hands.

I frequently post on a site that has nothing to do with TV and has thousands of members literally from all over the world, most of whom are women age 25-55. So the topic of TV comes up periodically. Usually it has to do with American Idol or Gray's Anatomy. Tonight someone posted a "mourning Veronica Mars" thread. I opened the thread, perused the responses, which were all along the lines of "I can't believe it's gone!" and "Oh noes!" Took a deep breath, wrote out a succinct little paragraph about why I believe the show is better off cancelled, and answered a couple of questions people had about the finer points of this season and the last one, not understanding plot points, etc. All very reasonable and calm.

In response, I got a lot of "I can't believe you'd say that!" and "Any show is better than no show!", culminating in a nasty couple of paragraphs along the lines of "I'm surprised that you'd favor the cancellation of a show you've obviously spent every waking moment watching and memorizing for the past three years."

Which, ouch. And not exactly true. I didn't even start watching till the beginning of season 2. But now everyone over there thinks I'm a lifeless loser. Anyway. I thought I'd come back over here to lick my wounds and obsess in a safe environment.

I am somewhat more philisophical tonight, and neither bitter nor emo. I rewatched the second fight scene and can see more of what other people have seen in it. Watching more closely, I caught the little moment at the end of the scene where Veronica is watching Logan leave, with a perplexed and not disinterested stare, and then guiltily (it does look guilty; I have to give KB credit for a nice subtle moment there) jerks her eyes back to Piz. And Piz sees it. That's a nice moment. That and the tiny smile V gave Logan after she got her pen back, well, someone in the right frame of mind could wank that into (a) Veronica having a little realization about herself and what she really thinks of Logan's violent tendencies and (b) Piz deciding to bow gracefully out at some point over the summer.

I'm still disappointed in the finale; clunky writing and an odd product placement just really sent this over the top into badness. I'm heartbroken for Keith and pissed at Veronica for putting him in that position. I fear for Logan, whose nihilism seems to have come back front and center, and I still think that the first fight was grossly out of character and did a huge injustice to the character. Apologies are nice, but what RT had him do to Piz was serious assault, and went far beyond the boundaries of an "in the heat of the moment" punch or two. Apologies don't cut it. And I maintain that Logan - the real Logan - wouldn't have done it, at least not like that.

And with that, I think I'm ready to move on.

In which I go all emo

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:06:40 GMT

So, several months ago, when things in the fandom started to go really bad, there was this little instinct in me that said, don't go there, self, don't look there, self. Don't read the spoilers. Don't read the spec. Don't read the bitter rantings as the spoilers make the future look more and more bleak.

Because I am stupid, and because at that point I really didn't believe things could be as bad as it looked that they might be, I gave in. I read all the spoilers and the spec and the bitter rantings pretty much everywhere we all find these things.

During these last five episodes, I started to see my error. How the opinions expressed about what might be meant by certain things colored my views of what was on screen. And nowhere was my mistake more apparent than tonight.

I think there were probably things to enjoy in tonight's episode. The only one I can come up with at the moment is that Veronica's hair was back to its season 1 quirkiness, with the little knots in the back. Very cute.

And that's pretty much it. The hair.

There were some odd references in the show, some weird attempts at meta that fell completely flat. Mac bringing up Matchbox 20 for no reason so Piz could say, "Rob Thomas is a whore." There were some plotlines that played out so much like bad fanfic that RT did indeed seem to be mocking us. If I hadn't read all the things that I've read, maybe it wouldn't have seemed that way? I don't know.

But the worst thing, the very worst thing, was having read the spoilers about the mention in the script of Logan doing something like Aaron. During those two fight scenes, that was all I could see. Aaron. I couldn't see Logan's love for Veronica, I couldn't see him exacting the very vengeance she wanted but couldn't bring about herself. I saw Aaron. And with that I saw the total destruction of a TV character I've loved probably more than any other like, ever. After Logan punched the guy behind the video, and the guy said to Logan, "You're dead," Logan just smiled, and shook his head, and offered a hopeful, "Someday."

Logan's dead. In every way that matters.

Maybe that was the point? I don't know. The episode tonight seemed to deal a lot with personal destruction, with characters reaping what they've sowed for the past three years. Veronica's self-involvement and reckless disregard for what her actions might do to others brought down her dad. Keith's willingness to sacrifice everything for his daughter contributed to his downfall. Logan's love for Veronica - or his inability to escape his upbringing, if that was the point Rob was trying to make through Logan's angst over Dick's personal reflections - brought him down as well, in the end.

I don't really know how I would have seen it if I hadn't had all this pre-interpreted in my head. It would have been nice to watch it unspoiled. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

I may have more to say when I've had time to think about it, but those are my first impressions.

I am bitter. And a little emo.

Fanfic writers: please read

Tue, 22 May 2007 19:41:50 GMT

This interview with Barry Eisler on this blog. I admit I've never read one of his books, but now I feel ... oddly compelled to do so.

He makes a very important point about sex scenes needing to further the plot and/or character development in well-written fiction, and how much hotter it makes the sex when that happens.

Actually, secrets_and_lie made this point to me a while back when I wrote a story where the sexin' was kind of tacked on at the end. (Sorry, babe, I took your advice to heart at the time, but if you look at this guy you'll see why he made such an impression. He's smokin' hot.) :)

It's very useful advice regardless of the source. And I must say that Barry makes a very compelling case by including a scene from one of his novels in the interview. Y'all should read it, purely in the interest of research.

Wed, 16 May 2007 14:32:03 GMT

OK, so I was thinking last night about why the PSA plot lines of last night's episode and 'Un-American Graffiti' from two weeks ago bother me so much. I was bitching about it to my husband, and he was all like, "What, you have a problem with them bringing attention to social issues and injustice in your TV show?"

And, well, yes. I do.

I'm an adult. I read the newspaper (or an online facsimile of one), I know what's going on in the world and that there are a lot of things that suck. I donate money to appropriate causes, and I teach my children to treat everyone with respect and basic human decency.

I actually don't watch that much TV. I know, it may come as a shock - it seems like anyone who gets this involved with one or two TV shows probably spends all their time in front of the tube. But the reality is that I watch VM, FNL, Bones, House and sometimes Grey's Anatomy. That's it. Oh, and in the summer I watch The Closer.

I'm very picky about what I watch. I expect a certain level of quality, and I expect to be drawn in and entertained. I don't watch to be informed or enlightened, or to have my consciousness raised. I don't watch to see great examples of social responsibility or paragons of feminist empowerment.

For the most part, I want escapism in my TV. I want compelling stories about entirely fictional characters caught up in their own lives and challenges. I want to feel that they could be real, but know that they aren't. I want storytelling that makes me forget what I read in the newspaper that morning.

I feel this way not only because I'm looking for a break from real world angst, but also because it seems to me that these timely, PSA, ripped-from-the-headlines plots are the laziest way of trying to make your show emotionally compelling. If you aren't creative and intelligent enough to make me give a damn about your characters and plots without drawing on the daily news in an attempt to exploit my emotions and make me care, then find another line of work.

There's been a lot of talk about VM devolving into a teen soap in the last half of this season, and for me, use of these kinds of plotlines is proof positive. This is a last-ditch effort to draw in a younger (teen) audience by dealing with "important issues." This is DeGrassi or 90210 or a very special episode of Blossom. This is not a show that appeals to an older, smarter, better-informed demographic.

I deeply resent being preached to in my TV shows. I stopped watching The West Wing after that horrible, pompous, clunky post-9/11 episode. My least-favorite plotline on FNL this year was Smash vs. the racist white majority. Not because I disagreed with the points the writers made (generally I agree with them), but because I think it's the laziest and most manipulative form of storytelling possible.

I think, too, that this is why I don't tend to get too worked up about the themes on VM that make other feminists so angry. I neither want nor expect my TV characters to model the kind of personal morality that I would expect from myself, my children or others in my life. In fact, I prefer it when they don't. NYPD Blue's Andy Sipowicz was often a horrible, flawed, racist jerk, but he was a compelling character throughout the run of that series. Compelling in a way that the upstanding, do-right cops and lawyers of some other series never have been.

I wonder, too, if a desire to appeal to a younger audience doesn't have a lot to do with Logan's de-fanging and the watering down of the L/V relationship this year. Not to mention the removal of Weevil. Both Logan and Weevil were characters who did some horrible things without repercussions and were still portrayed sympathetically. The L/V relationship came about after Logan had done some truly awful things to Veroncia, and their relationship as originally shown was a highly sexual thing (even with no actual sex) between two very troubled people. Not generally the sort of thing you find on a teen soap.

I'll fully admit that I have a double standard for TV shows that I watch vs. what I would allow my children to watch. I'm not sure that I'd want a younger teen watching the first couple of seasons of VM. I'd prefer that the shows my children watch when they get older do deal with important issues in a way that speaks to kids, that they model people making good decisions or suffering the consequences when they don't. Children and young teenagers are not hardwired to deal with moral ambiguity and sort out "what's on TV" vs. "what I should do in real life" the way adults are.

I'm an adult. I want TV that makes me think instead of doing it for me. I want plotlines and motives that reasonable people can disagree over, instead of these obvious bats to the head. Yes, we all know that there's a need for greater tolerance in post-9/11 USA. We agree that horrible crimes have been perpetrated in Uganda and other parts of Africa. There's nothing to think about there, no moral ambiguity, and thus, for me, no interest.

PSA: those of you who aren't watching VM right now ...

Wed, 16 May 2007 02:32:03 GMT

... shouldn't bother watching tonight's episode at any later time. I'm not even going to review it. I think it would be upsetting for everyone concerned.

I feel kind of dirty. I think my DVR does, too.

Hmmmm

Wed, 09 May 2007 02:42:19 GMT

I don't have much to say about tonight's episode.

It was mostly fluffy. There were a lot of really funny moments ... I especially liked the Logan/Mac stuff, which was quite entertaining. Parker was absent, so no angst there, and we got to see Logan both snarky and mopy, which made him much more like Logan of yore. We even got to see him lean! And oh, the arms. I'd like to personally thank JD's trainer.

The Veronica/Piz stuff actually played out pretty organically, I thought, and culminated in some passionate ... hand-holding. Which, um. Not really sure. A little lean or a friendly nudge there would have accomplished the same thing without being quite so trite.

Best line of the night?

Veronica: "That's a thing that makes you go, uh, hmmmm."
Jeff Ratner: "How 'bout a thing that makes you go, uh, way?"

Hee.

The spoilers re: Leo and his re-joining the force were, disappointingly, right on, and probably the most wince-worthy plot blunder of the night. They tried to wank it away with Leo's burglary tipoff, but it's just not believable. Dude was fired for good cause; no way Keith can justify taking him back.

Paul Rudd did a credible job, and had a truly funny scene (I thought) with Keith in the jail cell.

Continuity note: tonight Piz learned a lesson about the people you idolize - in the end, they'll generally let you down. That's a noir-ish theme that dates from season 1 and was a nice bit of continuity (and brought Piz a little in the the noir world). It'll be interesting to see if he learns a similar lesson with Veronica; if so, it would be a nicer bit of dramatic continuity than we've seen from these writers in some time.

I'm not sure what was up with Logan worrying Veronica might have cheated on him with Piz during their relationship. That seemed false to me. Except that he, like us, is probably wondering how V could do such a complete 180 (he's assuming) on her feelings for Piz, and of course we were set up for it when Logan visited Piz and Wallace's room looking for Veronica. So maybe he thinks there was a little feeling there before, right? In any case, it gave him reason to look all mopey and sad (note the return of emo!sleeves in the elevator scene with Veronica). A little spec on my part: I wonder if, when Logan first sees the sex tapes, he assumes they were taken back when he and Veronica were technically still dating? That would give him a pretty good motive for the beat-down.

So it turns out I had quite a bit to say about this episode. Overall, it wasn't thrilling, but there were a lot of funny character interactions, and virtually nothing in it to cause a lot of angst for anyone but the serious Mac/Bronson shippers (so long, Bronson, and bring on more Max!).

Wed, 02 May 2007 13:46:33 GMT

I was left with the impression of something that could have been really effective, if properly executed, but it just wasn't. Bad writing, horrible MOTW and some, um, interesting acting choices really trashed this.

Veronica, in reference to Logan: "I've never seen him ..." I assume that the writers intended the last part of that trailed off line to be "this happy," but honestly, I would have said, "this subdued" or "so over-medicated."

Throughout the episode, the impression Logan gave was that of being just a little off his game. He had the cute snarky scene with Mac, but really, Mac carried that. In his scene with Dick in the hotel suite, Dick was more entertaining than Logan. (And, um, Logan, it's not "whomever" in that sentence. Not sure what the purpose of that line was, but if Logan correcting Dick's grammar is the writers' idea of great snark, well ... yeesh.)

I think the intention was to portray Logan going through the motions, not really that into Parker but playing the dutiful boyfriend. There's no spark in his conversation, none of that wicked gleam in his eyes. And JD did what he always does, so well ... but there's only so much you can do with writing like that.

I loved the Max/Mac scene on the couch - been waiting for that ever since they introduced Max, who has to be my favorite minor character since Corny. But ... no fallout for Mac? She's at a party in the same suite where she attended the alterna-prom with Beaver last year, and there's nothing? Not some little oblique reference? C'mon.

I actually felt some sympathy for Piz, and thought that his laying that first kiss on Veronica was an OK moment, making his character a little more interesting and a little less reticent nice guy. But V's overdone reaction with the fingers pressed to her lips, and then her sudden enthusiasm when she followed him out into the hallway -- meh. I can see her deciding to try him out because she's lonely, or because she wants to move on like Logan has apparently done. If KB had shown just a little subtlety ... but no. We got swelling music and Veronica all starry-eyed, apparently swept off her feet. And then of course Logan had to witness the last kiss. The only thing that saved that scene was Logan, with the subtle pain and -- this is telling -- no snark for an eminently snarkable moment.

(Interesting to note, throughout this episode, Veronica was shown to be much more distraught over the breakup than Logan was. Right up until that last scene. JD just does the minute facial expressions so well.)

I liked the Keith storyline with the underage drinking sting, but it just. moved. so. slowly. I liked Keith's line to Veronica that there are some mistakes you just can't take back, but it wasn't played out. A great opportunity for some character development for Veronica, totally wasted.

The after-school specialness of the MOTW was just, ugh. I have nothing more to say about that.

All in all, it wasn't a great episode, but it wasn't the horror-fest the L/V shippers have been expecting, either. Parker needs to get that book Oprah was pimping a while back - because honestly, Logan just isn't that into her. He wants to be, but his eyes follow Veronica whenever she's in the room. And Veronica's very clearly not over Logan.

FIC: The Curve of the Earth 3/3 (Logan/Tyra) NC-17

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:57:19 GMT

Title: The Curve of the Earth (3/3)
Author: embellished_me
Characters: Logan/Tyra (Veronica Mars/Friday Night Lights crossover)
Rating: NC-17 (language, explicit sexuality)
Words: 6000 this section (now about 15,000 total)
Spoilers: Veronica Mars through 3x15, anything later than that is spec; Friday Night Lights through 1x22 generally, but no explicit spoilers for anything past the first few episodes.
Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights belongs to Peter Berg, Brian Grazer, David Nevins and NBC; Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas and the CW. No infringement intended.

Summary: Tyra Collette usually feels like there's nobody in Dillon who understands her. Logan Echolls is pretty sure he's lost the only girl who ever did. When Logan finds himself stranded in Dillon, he and Tyra figure out that how things really are depends a lot on your perspective.

Author's Note: Once again thanks to secrets_and_lie for awesome beta!

Links to previous chapters below the cut.

Part 1 is here; part 2 is here.

*~*~*THE CURVE OF THE EARTH - CHAPTER THREE*~*~*

“Are you, like, always hungry?”

Logan shrugs. “I’m a guy. I’m nineteen. Yeah, I’m pretty much always hungry. Where can we get something to eat around here? Doesn’t have to be fancy.”

Tyra steers the truck under the freeway and into downtown San Antonio, which isn’t much, mostly a collection of mid-rise modern buildings squeezed in between the Spanish-style remnants of the old city, with roads twisting and curving right up to the walk along the San Antonio River.

“The Alamo is really still here?” Logan asks, grinning. “As in, remember the?”

“As in, big tourist trap,” Tyra says acidly. She finds a parking spot in a paid lot just across from the Riverwalk and pulls in, sticking the little jewelry box under the front seat before locking the doors.

Down a flight of steep, narrow stairs, and they’re at river level, surrounded by brick and adobe and cart vendors, wrought iron and little café tables with umbrellas like poppies sprouting all along the walk. A live band plays some kind of jazz/mariachi fusion music a little further down.

Despite the heat, the walk is jammed with people: tourists and families with sweating, red-faced children; young lovers with hands shoved in each others’ back pockets; groups of rowdy, self-absorbed college kids drinking and calling to each other and moving through the crowd like young royalty, heedless of the disapproving stares that follow them.

It’s late afternoon; the sun is lower in the sky and the temperature approaches bearable under the shade of the trees and umbrellas. Logan and Tyra search for a restaurant with an open outdoor table, and find themselves at a Tex-Mex place near the end of the walk, away from the worst of the crowds. Tyra has a fake ID, too – her sister’s old one, she says – so they order icy cold bottles of Modela and a plate of fajitas to share.

After a couple of beers, the greenish river water glistens just a bit more in the sun, and the edges of both past and present are just the tiniest bit softened. Logan puts his beer down decisively and levels his eyes at Tyra.

“So how is it that you’re able to swan off to San Antonio with me on a day like today? No boyfriend back in Dillon wondering where you’ve run off to?”

Tyra’s leaning back in her seat, one golden leg propped up on the chair next to hers, looking out over the river. Without turning her head, she raises one eyebrow. “So I get smacked down in the truck when I ask about your girlfriend, but you get ask about my theoretical boyfriend?”

Logan grimaces. “Hey, I’m sorry about that,” he says seriously. “Look, OK: thing number three about me. There’s a girl. I loved her – oh, forever. But we don’t work together. We’ve tried.” He shrugs, takes a long swig of beer, and sighs. “I’ve tried, anyway. And now I’m just trying to, I don’t know, figure out how to move on.”

Tyra’s expression doesn’t change, and she doesn’t look at him. “Is she one of those things that scares the crap out of you?”

Logan blinks, startled. His heart thudding on a balcony, adrenaline coursing from the moment her lips brush his cheek; the jittery, breathless, don’t-know-where-to-put-my-hands moment when she links her arms around his neck at the Sadie Hawkins dance; his stomach bottoming out like he’s on a roller coaster headed straight down when he finds her, unconscious, on a parking garage floor.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tyra says, yanking him back to reality. She’s looking at him now, smirking.

Logan smiles faintly, nods, concedes the point. “Your turn,” he says. “Tell me about the guy.”

Tyra snorts, but her cheeks pinken. “Oh. The guy. Tim. I don’t know; he’s just always been around. We dated and fought, and broke up and got back together again, for like four years. But we don’t work together, either. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that he represents pretty much everything I need to get away from in Dillon.”

“Harsh.” Logan sits back, takes a swig from his beer.

Tyra shrugs, rolls her eyes with a half-smile. “He was a football player,” she says, glancing at him in embarrassment. “He’s, I don’t know, fucked up. Even more than me. No parents at home, drunk half the time, no direction, no purpose. In the end he did something I couldn’t forgive.”

Logan feels his smile fade, wills away the pricking behind his eyes. “Sounds like someone you should definitely stay away from.”

Something in his voice gets her attention. She turns and studies him. “Somebody told me,” she says slowly, “that a lot of who we are is just reacting to the people around us, being what they expect us to be, you know? Tim can be a really good person. Sweet and funny and kind. He probably needs to get out of Dillon as bad as I do, I don’t know.”

Tim the football player, recipient of such clear-eyed forgiveness. Logan wonders if he appreciates it.

“My dad flew planes,” Tyra goes on. “Loved to fly. Still does, I guess, not that I’ve seen him more than, like, twice in the past ten years. But when I was little he used to take me up with him. Told me it was the only way he could get perspective: to get far enough up and away that he could see everything for what it was. See the curve of the earth, even. He always said seeing that curve made everything else seem not important.” She shrugs, pushing her hair back from her face. “I think if I can get that far away from Dillon, from the people and the things that have hurt me, maybe it’ll all stop being important. Maybe I’ll be able to, I don’t know, forget.”

Logan swallows past the tightening in his throat. Thick grey clouds have moved in from the west to obscure the sun, and at that moment one of them shifts so that a ray of sunlight breaks through and lights Tyra from the side, making the gold of her hair and skin and the blue of her eyes seem to glow. He feels a physical yearning he hasn’t felt for anyone besides Veronica in a long time, and something more than that: a kind of emotional safety, a kinship that makes it easier to dispense with the caution of early acquaintance.

She stretches in her seat, long arms curving gracefully overhead, and he sees something that makes his spine prickle in recognition: two small, round, puckered scars on the inside of her arm just above the elbow. As she relaxes, he reaches across the table and takes her hand, turning it so the underside of her arm is exposed.

She stiffens in surprise, and then, realizing what he is looking at, snatches her hand away.

***

Tyra takes several deep breaths, closes her eyes. Logan’s knowing gaze is unnerving. There are probably hundreds of people sitting nearby, milling around on the walkway, yelling to each other on boats on the river, but when he looks at her like that, she feels they might as well be the only two people on the planet. Like she used to feel, still sometimes feels, when Tim steps out of his truck, all hip-slung with his hair hanging in his face, and looks at her with that broody hunger of his. How can somebody she’s known for less than a day make her feel that way?

The clouds are covering more of the sky and the temperature’s dropped slightly; she shivers.

“Who gave you those?” he asks quietly.

Tyra shakes her head. “Remember: there are some things I don’t tell,” she says.

He nods. “OK.”

They sit for a moment, tension simmering. And then Logan slides over to the chair next to hers, and pushes the sleeve of his t-shirt up above his shoulder. On the smooth skin of his upper arm, Tyra sees three faint, round scars, very like the ones she has.

“My dad,” he says in a voice just for her, so low she can barely hear it over the noise of people shouting and laughing nearby. “When I was ten.”

Tyra nods quickly, sucking on her lower lip. Not meeting his eyes.

He pushes the shirt back down. “He’s dead now, so it gives me some … distance, I guess. Some perspective.”

“Enough to forget?” she asks, surprised at the sound of her own voice.

“No,” he admits. After a moment he reaches over and links his fingers with hers. They’ve been out all day, riding in the pickup and walking in the sun, and both their hands are gritty and warm. Tyra takes a deep breath.

“Why did you stay?” she asks. “After he died, and you were free. Why didn’t you just get out of there?”

Logan takes a minute before answering. “Well, at first there was this murder charge ... which you probably know about since you Googled me and all.” He glances at Tyra, mouth quirking up. “And then, the girl, of course. Veronica. I stayed for her, even when she didn’t want me. Which was, well, pathetic in retrospect, since that I didn’t figure at all into her reasons for staying.”

Tyra’s watching him now, and sees his face change, fall back into the lines of pain and fatigue she’d seen there yesterday.

“She had some really shitty years there,” he says quietly. “But she stayed. Told me once that she wasn’t going to let all the people who had hurt her run her out of town. So she stayed, and took the place back on her own terms. It was the making of her.” he shakes his head, a faint smile flickering on his face. “It was one of the things I loved about her.”

Tyra squeezes his hand in mute sympathy and he squeezes back, hard. They sit in silence, two still figures in the middle of all the chaos.

“It wasn’t my dad,” she says finally. “He never – he was just not there, he didn’t hurt me like that. But one of my mom’s boyfriends, he used to put his hands on me, starting when I was around eleven, when I started to … well, you know. And then if I complained or told my mom about it, he’d … hurt me.”

Logan’s hand is warm and steady on hers. She can’t help it, the tears well up before she can stop them. She blinks furiously. “And she didn’t … she didn’t …”

“She didn’t stop him,” Logan murmurs. “Your mom. She told you not to provoke him, maybe, or that things would get better if you tried harder.”

Tyra clings to his hand, head ducked down, blinking hard. “She was weak,” she grits out. “She thought she couldn’t live without him, and she didn’t care what it did to me. I won’t be like that, I can’t, not with Tim, not with anyone.”

Logan opens his mouth to reply, and at that moment, his phone rings.

Tyra laughs, a little hysterical, as he pulls it out of his pocket with a muttered curse. And as she watches in disbelief, he draws his arm back and throws the phone hard, out into the middle of the river, where it immediately sinks, with only a growing set of concentric circles to mark its passing.

Logan’s face is pale. She gets the feeling that he’s just severed ties with something far more important than a cell phone. She puts one hand on his arm, face open, questioning, and when he turns and looks at her, his eyes are a little shell-shocked.

“Perspective,” he says vaguely.

Just then the clouds cover the sky completely, and it begins to rain.

***

“Damn,” Logan says. “When it decides to rain here, it doesn’t screw around.”

Water comes down in sheets; the temperature’s dropped twenty degrees in ten minutes and the crowds that had jammed the Riverwalk area have scattered like glass shards flying out from a bottle dropped on the pavement. Logan and Tyra are pressed under an overhang near a shop that sells t-shirts and sunglasses.

Tyra eyes the sky doubtfully. “I don’t know if it’s gonna let up anytime soon.”

“It’ll be dark in an hour,” Logan says. Tyra’s shivering; the thin tank top that had been perfect for ninety-degree sunshine is now soaked through, as is his borrowed t-shirt. “Maybe we should find someplace to stay? Get dried off?”

They dash through the streets, ducking from overhang to overhang, finally just giving up and walking in the rain because they can’t get any wetter, until they arrive, laughing and dripping on the marble floor of the foyer at the Hotel St. Anthony.

The concierge radiates disapproval as he dials housekeeping for some towels, but the appearance of Logan’s black Amex transforms displeasure to solicitous clucking.

Tyra takes in the crystal chandeliers and gilt-framed art that dominate the lobby of the hotel; she has to check herself before her mouth falls open like some country hick’s. Another double take, and a hard swallow, as Logan quietly books a suite. She can feel the security guard, subtle in his dark suit and tie, eyeing her. He gives her a little wink, not unfriendly, as housekeeping arrives to deal with the puddle she and Logan are leaving on the granite tile floor.

“We’ll send up some extra towels, Mr. Echolls,” the service desk girl tells him.

“Thanks,” Logan says. He turns to Tyra. “One suite, two bedrooms OK?” he asks in a low tone.

She blinks, and nods, oddly touched by the solicitousness of his question.

They’re still dripping; Tyra’s shoes squeak loudly on the floor as she shifts her weight. The concierge is standing to one side, his face schooled into pleasant tolerance, but his eyes are dark with barely veiled displeasure. Logan smiles widely at him, then offers Tyra a lopsided grin and a wink before taking her hand and pulling her towards the elevator. Once inside, they both dissolve into laughter, leaning against the paneled walls for support. Tyra wraps her arms around her belly, trying to hold herself up.

Up on the sixth floor, they burst into the super-cooled hotel room with its dark paneling and heavy drapes, stumbling and laughing and dripping on the thick, patterned carpet.

“Did you see the way that guy looked at us?” Tyra wheezes. “I thought his eyes were going to fall out of his head.’

Logan drops into a gold brocade armchair, heedless of his wet and muddy self, and eyes her appreciatively. “Wasn’t me he was staring at, I promise.”

Tyra looks down. Her tank top is plastered to her skin, its thin shelf bra having ceased to do its job entirely. In the sudden cold of the room, her nipples jut out clearly through the thin fabric. She glances back at Logan; his eyes are warm and avid, but not remotely predatory. She’s spent years in Dillon cultivating the glassy stares and open mouths of the male population; drawing that kind of attention always made her feel important, made her feel powerful. But Logan has flirted with starlets and dated heiresses, and she likes that he’s appreciative, but not awed. She likes that she doesn’t feel like she has to awe him to keep him interested.

Logan gets up and goes into the bathroom, returning with a stack of towels. They’re thick, perfect and pristinely white, the nicest towels Tyra’s ever seen, and she looks down doubtfully at her own skin and clothing, covered in a fine layer of dust-turned-mud.

“I should probably shower or something first,” she says, taking a step backwards.

Logan smiles and pulls a towel off the top of the stack. He crosses to where she stands and tucks it gently around her shoulders, his hands lingering a little. His finger traces the line of her collarbone and she bites her lip. Meeting her eyes, he gives the towel one final pat, shoves his hands safely in his pockets and rocks back on his heels.

“So, those dolls you keep under your bed,” he murmurs. “The ones you can’t get rid of?”

She blinks, looks up at him in surprise. “What?”

“I don’t …” he breaks off, sighs, his eyes dark. He pulls one hand out of his pocket, and reaches across and catches just the tips of her fingers. “I don’t want to hurt you that way. To be one more person who disappears from your life.”

Her eyes narrow. “You think that’s why I keep the dolls? Because everyone else disappears?” But she’s distracted. She looks down at where their hands are joined. It’s just a few centimeters of skin touching skin, but her body’s response is immediate and unmistakable. It isn’t hard to imagine the supple firmness of the muscles under his shirt, the satisfying coarseness of the hair on his thighs as his legs tangle with hers. Tyra shudders, and it runs right from her body into his; she can tell by the way his fingers twitch convulsively against hers.

Logan is silent, barely breathing; he’s also staring at their hands. “I can’t stay here,” he says softly, regretfully. “And I think maybe you need to. For a while, anyway. I got us two bedrooms here because I don’t want you to think that I expect …”

She reaches out and pulls his other hand from his pocket, linking the fingers there, too; completing the circuit. They are standing so close, motionless, but crackling the air between them with electricity. She swallows. “Those risks you take? The things you do because they scare you?” she whispers. She can feel her own breath reflected back at her off his skin, can sense rather than feel his breathing speeding up, his heart thumping along in his chest. “Do you think about them a lot first? Or just, I don’t know, jump in. And see what happens.”

Logan’s hand jerks involuntarily in hers. With mesmerizing slowness, he closes the last few millimeters between them, takes a little step forward to fit together the puzzle pieces of knees and hips and arms, and he leans down and brushes her cheekbone with his lips. She smells mud and cerveza and boy.

“This doesn’t have to happen,” he murmurs against her hair, one hand sliding down to settle on her hip, but going no further.

She leans back slightly, meeting his liquid gaze. “No, it doesn’t,” she agrees.

They pause, leaning and not leaning towards each other in the airless silence, suspended, motionless. It doesn’t have to happen, but she wants it to. So she leans forward just the tiniest bit, just enough to brush his lips with hers.

For me, she thinks fiercely. This is for me. Not to snare a boyfriend or keep him, not to offer solace or inspire fidelity or any of the other things she’s used sex for, but just for her.

She pulls away slightly, and turns and drops the towel. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

***

The bathroom is too bright; light bounces off white tile and chrome and it’s almost blinding. Tyra stands in the middle of the room, hugging herself, her bravado slipping just a little. A fine tremor runs through her when Logan’s hands skim up over her arms. He slides the strap of her tank top off of her shoulder and bends to kiss the golden skin there. He nuzzles in further, tastes the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and feels her fingers dig into his arms.

When he pulls back, her eyes are a little wild, a little freaked, but she reaches out and pops the button on his shorts as he wrestles with his sodden shirt. Soon he’s naked in front of her, and he’s surprised when she wraps her still-clothed self around him, pressing her cheek against his chest. She’s trembling still, and he realizes it’s as much trepidation as excitement. So he folds her into his arms, kisses the top of her head, her cheek, and her lips. Her mouth opens under his and, holy fuck, there’s nothing tentative about the way she kisses.

He can’t help it; his hips press hard into hers and his fingers seek the beckoning hard point of her nipple. She groans into his mouth and breaks the kiss, laughing, breathless. “Shit, too many clothes,” she mutters, and then he’s laughing too, and together they peel her out of her wet things and leave them with his in a little heap on the floor.

He follows her into the oversized shower. She grabs him for another open-mouth kiss under the water, full-body contact, and he feels her mouth curve into a smile when his knees buckle – just for a fraction of a second – at the sudden hot, slick slide of skin on skin.

He watches greedily as she leans back into the spray, the hot water sluicing away the last traces of dirt from her skin. Unable to keep from touching her, he lets his fingers follow the water downward, trailing over the swell of breast and curve of hip, then turns her to face him and presses her into the shower wall for another kiss, soaking in her moan as his hands cup her ass, pulling her tight against him.

Her hands slide up over his arms, fingers digging hard into his biceps. He’s fully erect, the length of him pressed between them, and the heat and pressure and friction as she moves against him make him a little dizzy.

Wanting to prolong the moment, he steps away from her, and finds the little bottle of hotel shampoo on a shelf behind him. He squirts a fair amount into his palm, and then turns Tyra so he can rub it into her hair. She lets out a little “eep” of surprise before relaxing back against him with a groan as he massages her head, piling the long blond hair up on top as he goes. He brings his slick hands down to palm her breasts, tweaking the nipples just to hear her gasp, and slides one hand between her legs. It’s his turn to smile against the back of her neck when he finds her wet and swollen.

When he turns her again so she can rinse the soap out, she opens her eyes and looks at him. Her eyes are heavy with pleasure, but clear. No uncertainty, no questions or hidden motives. She brings her two hands up to cup his face, lets her thumb trace the line of his mouth. “Are you thinking about her?” she murmurs. There’s no jealousy in her voice, only curiosity and, he thinks, tenderness.

“No,” he says, and it’s the truth.

They dry each other with the big fluffy towels, exploring as they go. Tyra’s hands are everywhere, coaxing, soothing, and her tongue flickers in the hollow at the base of his throat as her right hand snakes down his belly, and when she sinks to her knees, he has to clutch the sink behind him for support.

Her mouth on him is just the right mixture of gentle and insistent. It would be so easy to let her keep going, but his control is circling the drain fast, and he realizes that he wants to be inside her, see her face light and feel her frantic underneath him. So he pulls her up for another long kiss before backing her, stumbling and laughing, into the bedroom.

***

In the big master bed, Tyra feels like warm honey poured on the sheets, languid and boneless after the hot shower, watching Logan from underneath her lashes. He’s kneeling on the end of the bed near her feet, just looking at her. She feels the intensity of his gaze in her belly, pooling between her thighs, and when he uses one finger to trace a line up her calf, slowly, over the inside of her thigh, she wants to scream with anticipation.

He’s no clumsy high school boy; he knows exactly what he’s doing with his fingers and tongue, and Tyra opens herself wider, greedy, not wanting to miss even a tiny bit of this sensation. And later, when she craves something richer, something deeper, and she pulls at his shoulders until he crawls up her body and settles himself between her thighs. A moment fumbling with the condom, and then he’s inside her, and Tyra pushes her hips up to thrust back against him, and God, it’s been so long she feels like she wants to consume him whole.

Her hands slide up over his back; she can feel slight ridges and indentations in the skin. She hadn’t looked closely when they were in the shower, but now that she feels those marks she realizes what they are: scars.

Logan pulls back slightly. Their eyes meet for one soul-startling moment, and Tyra realizes that this isn’t just a friendly fuck or a physical diversion. She knows this person, shares some of his hurts, recognizes a lot of the little nooks and crannies of his mind, and if she let herself, she could become very, very attached to him.

He stills deep inside her, panting a little. Tyra can’t stop her wordless noise of protest. They’re as close as two people can be, stretched taut and trembling, both dangerously near to something she thought was just physical completion, but now seems to be a lot more. She looks into Logan’s face, gone fearful and wondering, and sees her own heartfelt terror reflected back at her.

But he bends and kisses her softly, lips lingering on hers, murmuring, “This is the part where we just jump in, right?”

Oh. She clutches at his shoulders, angles her hips, anything to get him moving again, and when he does she presses her face up into the crook of his shoulder and hangs on, because it’s fast and reckless and raw. She’s so close, and Logan is right there with her, she can feel it in the ragged hitch of his breath and the flex and pull of his muscles under her fingers.

Her orgasm flashes out like heat lightning, spreading from where Logan is still thrusting, pushing her higher, higher, until he jerks and comes with a kind of sobbing groan. They cling to each other, shuddering, and Tyra feels the slow heat of a tear trickling down the side of her face.

***

Logan rolls over to look at the girl sleeping beside him. The past year has taught him that if there’s one thing he craves, it’s the comfort of someone who knows him completely and accepts him as he is. He reaches out to trace the line of Tyra’s shoulder. She could have been that person, he thinks. If he was whole in his heart, if he had anything to offer another human being right now, it could have been her.

***

Tyra sleeps, and wakes later in the dark to hear Logan’s voice, low and sibilant. He’s got the hotel room phone pulled just outside the bedroom and is talking to someone on it.

She wonders vaguely why he’s talking to anyone at two in the morning. It occurs to her that he might be calling a cab. Would he leave her now, make it a clean cut? The thought leaves her unexpectedly panicky.

She’s struck once again by the force of what she feels for him. He’s going to leave; she knows that. And she knows it’s for the best: she is still too fragile, still needs to be too selfish with herself to offer him anything real or lasting. So he will go, but her mind and body are both screaming, not yet. She wraps herself tightly in the sheet and waits.

He hangs up and slides back into bed, spooning himself up against her back and throwing one arm over her possessively. Not yet, then. Exhaling, she allows herself to relax into the warm solidity of his body and slide back into sleep.

***

The next time she wakes, sunlight is streaming through the openings in the heavy blinds. She raises her head and looks around. Logan is dead to the world next to her, his face endearingly soft in sleep and his hair sticking up in all directions.

She hears distant knocking, and realizes that it’s what must have woken her. Sliding cautiously out of bed, she pulls on one of the thick terry bathrobes from the closet and pads out into the main room, to the door of the suite.

“Room service,” says a voice from the hallway.

She cracks open the door, frowning. “We didn’t –“

“Mr. Echolls placed the order last night,” says the uniformed man with the cart. Tyra blinks, bemused, and opens the door fully so he can wheel the cart inside.

Logan’s ordered up pancakes and eggs and crispy bacon, and freshly squeezed orange juice that gleams like sunlight in its carafe.

“He also ordered these,” the server says, giving her a handled shopping bag with a boutique name on it. Tyra peers inside and sees clothing, both men’s and women’s, shorts and shirts and even underwear. She feels mild embarrassment.

The hotel server leaves, and Tyra takes the bag back into the bedroom. “Logan?”

“Hmm?” His voice is sleepy; one bare leg and the curve of an ass cheek are visible where he’s kicked off the blanket. Tyra trails her finger up the fuzzy length of his leg, watches him twitch, and sits down on the bed as Logan opens one bleary eye. “Hey,” he says, a warm smile curving the corners of his mouth.

“Hey.”

At once she is enclosed in a pair of strong arms, flipped over and into the bed so they are lying nose to nose. Logan grins as Tyra laughs. “You,” he tells her, pulling at the bathrobe, “are wearing entirely too many clothes.”

She sighs as his lips trail down to her neck. “Logan?” she says again.

“Hmmm?” His mouth is busy elsewhere.

“You didn’t have to have them bring clothes for me,” she says against his hair.

He stops, pulls back. “I know. I just thought … our stuff is wet from yesterday. And I didn’t know how soon you’d want to get back home.” He blinks, studying her expression. “I’m sorry. Did I overstep?”

She sighs. “It just surprised me, I guess. The room, the breakfast you ordered, the clothes – they probably cost more than the rest of my wardrobe put together, by the way – a girl could get used to stuff like this. Used to letting someone else give it to her.”

He bends and kisses her collarbone before he speaks. “And would that be so bad?”

“It would for me.” Tyra brings her hand up, smoothes it over the prickly angle of his jaw. “I need to, you know, make my own way.”

Logan’s eyes crinkle. “You damned independent women.”

“Hey …” 
“I know, I’m sorry.” He kisses her again, lips feather-light on her cheek. “I just wanted you to have some dry clothes, OK? If I could have borrowed some crappy old ones somewhere, I would have. But I didn’t know anyone in town, so I checked the sizes in your clothes and asked the concierge to find something for you.”

Tyra flushes. “Given that you’ve seen me naked, I’m trying to get past the fact that you read the labels in my clothes and underwear.”

“Believe me,” he quirks up an eyebrow and slides one hand into her robe, cupping her breast experimentally, “I’m far more interested in what you put in them.”

Tyra laughs, and lets him pull the robe open and devour her, bit by bit, as their breakfast grows cold in the other room.

***

“I do have to work tonight,” Tyra says later, when they’ve showered and dressed and eaten a replacement breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Her throat feels tight and her eyes, itchy.

Logan nods, and reaches across the table to link their fingers. “I should probably call and find out if the mechanics are done with my car.”

He drives the truck on the way home, with Tyra tucked up tight against his side on the bench seat. They’re quieter this time, riding in comfortable silence. About ten miles outside of Dillon, Logan pulls them off onto a back road and drives a little way before parking in the grass. It’s a little after noon, and the sun rests high and bright at its zenith; it’ll be too hot to sit here for long.

Tyra looks up at him, questioning, but he doesn’t say anything, just brings one hand up to cradle her face and leans in to kiss her. It’s thorough, invasive and insistent; her fingers dig into his shoulders and his hands tangle in her hair and when they finally break the kiss, gasping, neither of them lets go.

“I wish …” he says, but doesn’t finish the thought. He pulls her hard against his chest, and she tucks her face into his shirt and breathes him in. Her fingers trail over his face, learning, memorizing, as he hugs her tighter, kisses the top of her head and her hands as they brush over his mouth.

“Will you go back to Neptune right away?” she asks.

He sighs, loosening his grip on her enough so that she can lean back and see his face. “I think so. At least for a while. But I might look into transferring to UCLA or San Diego State or just take a year off, I don’t know.”

They exchange e-mail addresses on scraps of paper. Tyra folds hers carefully into the pocket of her shorts, and watches Logan as he does the same. She thinks about the scars under his shirt, and the ones hidden deep inside. And about how it feels when he looks at her with those eyes, presses his body against hers, slides his hands over her skin.

It would be so easy to ask him to stay for a week, for the summer, for just one more night; or to climb into his car with him and ride the long miles to California. Dip her toes in the ocean and never look back.

But she can’t, she won’t. She needs to be the only one steering her life right now. She needs to let go of a lot of things she’s been hanging onto, before she can hold tight to anyone else. She’ll let him go.

***

At the dealership, Logan’s Range Rover sits in the lot, repaired and washed and ready to go. It’s a shiny, arrogant, statement of a car, as out of place in among the Fords and Chevys of Dillon as he would be, he realizes with some disappointment.

At least ten times during the miles between San Antonio and Dillon, he started to say that he’d stay for a while, get a hotel room, whatever, but the words never quite formed. He doesn’t belong here. And maybe she doesn’t either, but for now there’s something keeping her here, and he thinks it’s the same thing that pulls him back to California.

Home.

When he comes out of the service center office, he sees Tyra leaning against her truck like something out of a beer commercial, and he has to grin. “If you ever come to California …”

“I know,” she says softly. She leans up and kisses him gently, wistfully, her eyes squeezed tight shut. “Be safe, OK?”

The last thing he sees in the rearview mirror is Tyra standing in the dealership parking lot, blond hair floating up behind her in a sudden breeze, long legs braced and steady, one hand raised in farewell.

The road that stretches ahead of him is pitted and rutted with long use, and it shimmers in the growing heat of the day. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine the ocean, the terrifying blue vastness of the Pacific, at the end of that road. He presses his foot down hard on the accelerator, speeding towards it.

***end***

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Possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:25:41 GMT

Seriously. Warning: graphic smutty content. Um, sort of.

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FIC: The Curve of the Earth (Logan/Tyra) 2/3, R

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:08:49 GMT

itle: The Curve of the Earth (2/3)
Author: embellished_me
Characters: Logan/Tyra (Veronica Mars/Friday Night Lights crossover)
Rating: R (language, mild sexuality)
Words: ~4200 this section
Spoilers: Veronica Mars through 3x15, anything later than that is spec; Friday Night Lights through 1x22 generally, but no explicit spoilers for anything past the first few episodes.
Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights belongs to Peter Berg, Brian Grazer, David Nevins and NBC; Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas and the CW. No infringement intended.

Summary: Tyra Collette usually feels like there's nobody in Dillon who understands her. Logan Echolls is pretty sure he's lost the only girl who ever did. When Logan finds himself stranded in Dillon, he and Tyra figure out that how things really are depends a lot on your perspective.

Author's Note: Enormous thanks and gratitude to secrets_and_lie, for amazingly thorough and helpful beta, and for hand-holding and late-night IMs. You rock, chica!

Also, thanks to all of you who have read and commented so far - as far as I know, this is the first time this pairing has been written, so I appreciate y'all taking a chance on it and leaving such lovely comments.

Part 1 can be found here.

***CHAPTER 2***

She knows the guy who works the desk at the EconoLodge where Logan is staying; he graduated two years ahead of her. He smirks when she asks for Michael Buford’s room, and opens his mouth to comment, but her glare shuts him down.

A moment later, she knocks hesitantly at the door of room 225. In her left hand is a brown paper bag filled with breakfast tacos from Lupe’s stand; in her right, a plastic WalMart bag with some clothes she made Julie borrow from Matt. She thinks maybe they’re about the right size. His cell phone – her airtight excuse for showing up here – is in her pocket.

“Hang on,” she hears him say from the other side of the door, and then he’s standing there, shirtless and sleepy, scratching the back of his head.

She looks down, feeling a flush of embarrassment crawl up her neck to color her cheeks. Logan seems surprised to see her, and then a little shy; he looks quickly back into the room and she can see his shirt hanging over the back of a chair, obviously still damp. He must have washed it out, she thinks, and raises the bag containing the clothes she’s brought.

“I borrowed some things for you to wear,” she says, feeling about three shades of stupid. It occurs to her at this moment that Matt Saracen’s discount store t-shirt and shorts won’t exactly be what a movie star’s son is used to. “They’re not, you know, fancy, but they’re clean, and I think they’ll fit OK.”

He studies her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Let me guess …you brought me a shirt with a NASCAR logo.”

She exhales. “No, but it does say Dillon Panthers,” she tells him, saucy. “To help you fit in and all. You can tell people you’re a new recruit, maybe pick up a rally girl or two.”

They grin at each other. Logan pushes one hand through his hair, making it stand up on end. “So how’d you know I left all my stuff in the car at the dealership?”

She bites her lip, caught. “You didn’t have a bag with you at the restaurant?”

“Oh. Very observant.”

“And it’s Sunday morning, everything’s closed. You won’t be able to buy anything else till this afternoon. Plus you don’t have a car to get to the store, and the closest one is miles from here.”

“Observant and forward-thinking.”

They stand there looking at each other until Logan nods toward her left hand with a gentle smirk. “Gonna tell me what’s in the other bag?”

“Oh! I forgot.” Tyra holds the bag up, does a Donna Reed-fake smile. “Only the best breakfast tacos in Pecos County! I didn’t know if you even got to have dinner last night …”

“I didn’t,” he says, eyeing the bag with intent. “And I’m starving. Come in?”

She nods, and ducks into the tepid dimness of the motel room.

Logan goes into the bathroom to change. He emerges in Matt’s gray t-shirt and long khaki cargo shorts. “I got a toothbrush and stuff at the gas station last night, but the clothing selection there left a lot to be desired,” he says with a grin. “The three-for-ten Texas Wildflowers t-shirts … well, you can imagine. So thanks.”

She smiles, carefully not noticing how he fills the shirt out a bit differently than Matt does. “Oh!” she says. “I forgot. You left your cell phone at the restaurant yesterday. I brought it.” She pulls the phone from her pocket and hands it to him.

He takes it with a nod and some reluctance. She watches him turn the phone over in his hands a few times and then shove it in his own pocket without checking the messages.

“There was, um, a call,” she says cautiously. “I answered, because I thought it might be you, calling to see if we’d found the phone.”

He looks up at her, eyes nearly black in the half-light. “Yeah?’

“It was a girl,” she says. “There wasn’t any name on the caller ID, so I don’t know who.”

His hand goes involuntarily to his pocket. “Veronica,” he murmurs.

“Yeah, maybe. She didn’t say.” Tyra can see something’s wrong; it doesn’t take a valedictorian to figure out there’s something between him and this Veronica girl, and that he’s running from it. “She just wanted to know … if you were OK?”

He takes a deep breath in, and lets it out, not looking at her. She thinks she sees a little smile stretch his lips, but it might be pain. It’s hard to tell. “How, uh, how did she sound?” he asks.

His voice is small, trying for nonchalant and not quite making it. Tyra’s fingers twitch to reach out and stroke his hair. It’s too much, too intimate a gesture for this boy she barely knows, another boy who probably needs more help than she can give him. She flattens her hand against her thigh to still the impulse. “Scared,” she says simply. “And a little pissed, actually.”

Logan looks back at her, eyes sharpening. With visible effort, he shoves his thoughts aside, and gives her a faint grin, quirking his eyebrows in the direction of the paper bag. “Stay and eat with me?”

They eat breakfast tacos, tender homemade tortillas stuffed with beans, eggs and chorizo, at the tiny Formica table, with SportsCenter on the grainy TV, sharing the little cups of homemade red and green salsa back and forth between them.

Tyra tells him stories of life in Dillon to make him laugh. Soon they are chortling together, laughing so hard between bites that Logan has to put his taco down to wipe his eyes. She’s never talked to anyone outside of Dillon about life here, and somehow telling it all to this relative stranger has a confessional effect, as if the telling removes the experiences from her consciousness, erases their marks from her psyche.

“You really dumped him in the lake?” he wheezes, after she tells him about one of the many nights she and Tim and Lyla and Jason spent out on Jason’s family’s boat. She doesn’t tell him that Jason’s in a wheelchair now, or that he and Tim don’t talk like they used to, or that she and Lyla never liked each other and now don’t even pretend to do so. Somehow those facts cheapen the whole memory, and it’s one of the few memories she wants to keep, whole and unsullied.

“So what is there to do around here on a Sunday afternoon?” Logan asks when the tacos are gone, spreading his hands wide to encompass all of ‘around here.’ He pushes his chair back, balancing precariously on its rear legs, and chews on a leftover stem of cilantro.

“Um, not much,” Tyra says with an apologetic shrug. “There’s church, and fishing, and drinking … or recovering from last night’s drinking …” her voice trails off. Before, the Garrity family had always gone to afternoon service, and the Streets had Family Time, regular and immutable as that geyser she’s read about.

But on a summer Sunday afternoon like this one, Tyra and Tim, without church or much in the way of family to stay them, would have driven out on a dirt road somewhere and parked under a tree well out of sight, and stretched out on blankets in the truck bed. They’d have laughed, and kissed, and drunk cheap beer, and slapped mosquitoes, and had lazy sex there in the tree-dappled light until they were both tipsy and sated with alcohol and endorphins.

“OK, so let’s go somewhere, get out of here,” Logan says brightly, jerking her out of memory.

Tyra’s eyebrows go up.

“What?” he asks. “You have someplace important to be today?”

“Actually,” she says, swallowing, smoothing her hands over her legs, “I have to drive to San Antonio this afternoon. To pick up something from my Gramma.” And endure thirty minutes of unbelievably awkward polite conversation and thinly veiled barbs.

Logan’s face, which had been alight with potential fun, falls. “Oh. Well – how far’s San Antonio?”

Tyra shrugs. “Couple hours.”

“Want some company?” he asks quickly. But he sees her hesitation and makes a rueful never-mind face. “No, sorry – it’s family time. I didn’t think.”

“No,” she hedges. “It’s really not. I just – it’d be weird, don’t you think? You don’t really know me …”

The grin reappears, along with a glimmer of mischief behind the dark eyes, and he pushes the chair back again. “Tell me three things about you,” he says suddenly. “Any three things, but only three, so they have to be important. The essential Tyra.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “I don’t …”

“I’ll go first,” he offers. “I’ll tell you something about me, and then it’ll be your turn.”

He pauses, deciding. The chair leans so far back that Tyra thinks he’ll fall any second and crack his head open on the baseboard. He sees her watching him and grins wider.

“When I was a kid, I was terrified of the ocean. It was so big, so endless, it just freaked me the hell out.”

Tyra blinks. “That’s it? That’s, like, the essential Logan Echolls?”

“That’s one thing. You have to figure out what it means,” he tells her. “Your turn.”

Her eyes narrow as she pauses, considering. “I still have all my dolls from when I was a kid. Under my bed in a box.”

“Oooh,” he crows, turning his head to look at her sidewise. “A strong opening. Subtle. Mysterious. Could just mean that you’re a packrat. Could mean that you still play with them …”

“Your turn,” she says, throwing a wadded-up paper napkin at him. “Stop analyzing and start telling.”

“OK, OK. If we were in Neptune right now, on a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, I’d be out surfing.”

“But …”

“I know,” he says gleefully. “Surfing. Fear of the ocean. It’s a puzzle.”

She snorts. “Big puzzle. You’re sitting there balancing on that chair like you have a death wish. You like to do things that scare the crap out of you. And other people, too.”

Her two-second analysis surprises him into a laugh. “You wound me,” he says, with a fake-pained expression that makes her roll her eyes. He crosses his arms, no-hands balancing now. “I’ll be over here cultivating my air of mystery. Your turn.”

Tyra chews her lip, and presses her palms down on the table in front of her. This one is bigger. “When I was eight, my mom left my sister and me alone for four days while she went chasing after some guy.”

“Oooh,” Logan says, eyes darkening. “Pulling out the big guns now, with the childhood trauma. Are you sure you want to go there? Because I –“

“I know, you had a shitty childhood,” Tyra retorts. “I Googled you last night. If you want to develop that air of mystery, you’re going to have to come up with something I can’t find out about you on the internet.” It’s a little ballsy, dismissing his past like that, but she senses that he doesn’t want pity. She waits, watches him, to see what he’ll do.

It’s the right way to play it. Logan laughs, delighted. “Fair enough. Nothing Maury doesn’t already know. But tell me something.”

She raises her eyebrows, waiting.

“What did you and your sister do when your mom left you that time?”

Tyra thinks, and then chuckles softly, shaking her head in disbelief. “Exactly what we were supposed to. We made dinner, and cleaned up, and went to school and did our homework.”

His expression turns warm and sympathetic, and she realizes suddenly that he gets it. He lets the chair drop back onto all four legs, and leans across the table. There’s no pity in his face, only recognition and … kinship, she thinks.

He quirks up one corner of his mouth, but his eyes are still kind. “Bet you never made that mistake again.”

***

Two hours later, they’re on the road to San Antonio. Tyra drives her mom’s old truck and sings along with the Dixie Chicks. Logan thinks that it’s a miracle, it’s a fucking revelation, that he can be this relaxed and happy on a hundred-degree day in a pickup truck with no air conditioning speeding along a west Texas highway.

“So what are we going to get at Grandma’s house?” he asks her offhandedly as they drive out of town. “Cookies?”

Tyra gives him a half-smile. “Something my aunt left me in her will. She died – my aunt, my mom’s sister – about a month ago. Mom and Gramma don’t talk, so if I want it, I have to go get it myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Logan says. “About your aunt. Were you close with her?”

“Um, yeah,” Tyra says on a sigh. “I was, actually. She was – she always said I reminded her of herself at her age. She was there for me sometimes when my mom wasn’t, you know?”

Logan knows. Well, imagines that he knows. It’s not like he has any experience with extended family, but he thinks it might have been nice.

He’s not sure why this girl intrigues him, with her cutoff shorts and dry humor and her flat Texas voice. She’s a little damaged, like him, and it makes him comfortable around her, easy, knowing that the hurts and worries in her own head don’t give her much time to judge his. And the fact of the matter is that he doesn’t think much about Veronica when he’s talking to her, and that relief is as welcome as cool rain.

In the truck with the windows rolled down, the dusty wind blowing across the scrub-grass fields dries their sweat as soon as it forms, leaving them overheated and parched. They gulp the water and Cokes that Logan bought at a gas station on the way out of town. He also bought three kinds of pork rinds, and a bag of Fritos, some Skittles, and the pink Zingers with the coconut on the outside.

“Do you not have junk food in California?” Tyra had teased him. “Because I can ship you a case of Slim Jims when you get home.”

Logan had just smiled and tossed a Frito at her before he resumed munching.

“So who were you in high school?” she asks him, somewhere between Segovia and Kerrville. “Besides being, like, famous and all. Were you a jock? A rebel?”

Logan shrugs. He’s not sure how he’d tell her about social stratification at Neptune High without sounding like an idiot. “Not really,” he says. “I wasn’t, like, a joiner.”

“A law unto yourself?”

He snorts. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“And you’re in college now?”

“Yeah, I spent last year at Hearst College. In Neptune. But I don’t know … I might transfer somewhere else.” He surprises himself in saying it; he hadn’t even though of such a thing until just now. “I think I’d like to get out of Neptune for a while, just start over.”

Tyra grins. “I knew it. You’ve seen Texas and found your heart’s true home.” She laughs, peals of laughter that make him smile involuntarily.

“Yeah, no,” he says dryly, sending her off into more laughter.

“So what about you?” he asks. “You weren’t a cheerleader, or a – what’d you call them? – rally girl. Let me guess. Debate team? Math club?”

Tyra makes a face at him, shakes her head. “Also not a joiner. I was –“ she shoots him a look of sparkling evil “—a bad girl. The bad girl, actually.”

“Oh, really.” Logan’s eyebrows go up and down, campily lascivious. “Tell me more.”

Tyra grins, shuts him down with a look. “I’ve reformed.”

Logan leans back in his seat, smiling. Just as he opens his mouth to ask another question, his phone rings. He pulls it out and checks the screen. Veronica, of course.

He feels his mouth tighten and fingers clench. Ruthlessly, he thumbs the ‘end’ button and shoves the phone back in his pocket.

Tyra’s watching him, biting her lip. “That girl have anything to do with why you were driving around in west Texas with nowhere to go?”

Logan leans his head back against the seat and closes his eyes. “Don’t, OK? Just don’t.” His voice comes out a more sharply than he intends. He hears her suck in a quick breath, surprised.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she stumbles. “I didn’t mean to, well, to be nosy. I’ve got things I don’t tell, too.”

Logan opens his eyes, shifts them sideways without moving his head. Strands of hair whip around Tyra’s face, which is focused squarely on the road in front of her, her cheeks flushed with heat and embarrassment. Fuck. Logan closes his eyes again.

Too quickly, before he figures out how to make things easy between them again, a scattering of buildings shimmers on the horizon ahead of them, and the freeway begins to widen and grow spurs and interchanges. Tyra takes an exit not too far from downtown, and drives them into an old neighborhood where the genteelly run-down houses have red-tiled roofs and immaculate yards. Here and there a statue of the Virgin Mary or St. Francis peeks from a bed of Mexican heather or hostas.

Tyra parks on the street in front of the last house on the block, a two-story with big bay windows that sparkle fiercely where the sun filters through the trees to touch them. She pulls the key from the ignition and tucks it into her purse, and then folds her hands uncharacteristically in her lap.

She doesn’t look at him, but says, “Would you, um, come in with me?” in a voice so low he can hardly hear it.

“Sure,” he says, surprised, and on impulse reaches across and squeezes one of her hands. “I’m fabulous with tense family situations.”

He gets what he was going for, a little laugh, and in another moment he’s following Tyra up the wide stone steps to the front door.

The door is opened by a blond woman in a sleeveless blue sundress; a woman so perfectly maintained and preserved that he’d swear she wasn’t a day over forty-five, except for the tiny spidery veins that mar her pale arms and the slightly shriveled look of her beautifully manicured hands. She looks perfectly, disturbingly, exactly like Tyra, right down to the subtle, eloquent lift of her eyebrow as she sees her granddaughter standing on the doorstep.

“Tyra,” the woman says gently, her accent more rolling South than Texas wiregrass.

“Gramma,” Tyra says. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her arms, crossing and uncrossing them nervously. “I came for Aunt Cheryl’s things. The ones she left me.”

The older woman’s gaze has turned from Tyra to Logan, and her whole expression changes. She is at once smiling, almost simpering. “Are you going to introduce me to your young man, dear?”

“He’s just a friend, Gramma,” Tyra says tightly.

Logan puts on his best meet-the-parents smile and extends one hand. “I’m Logan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Barbara Collette Alvarado.” She takes Logan’s hand, not to shake, but in a gesture that implies she expects him to bend and kiss it. He shoots a startled glance at Tyra – really? – and she rolls her eyes and shakes her head in a movement so subtle it could be taken as an accidental twitch.

Logan grins, and squeezes the older woman’s hand before gently releasing it. She gives Logan a faint shrug, an it was worth a try sparkle in her eye, and turns back to Tyra.

“Come in out of the heat, dear, before we let every bug in this godforsaken place into the house.”

And so Logan finds himself seated at an enormous oak dining table, drinking lemonade and eating cookies with Tyra and her grandmother. The heavy sideboard with its glass-fronted hutch is filled with old, near-translucent china, and the room is dim, the sunlight heavily filtered through brocade drapes and several layers of sheers.

“Has the house been in your family a long time?” he asks between bites of cookie.

Tyra makes a sputtering noise in her lemonade.

Barabara turns and smiles gently at him. “It was my late husband’s house, dear. I’ve lived here alone for five years now, since he passed.”

Tyra mutters something under her breath. It sounds like, “From trailer to treasure in one easy step.”

Logan coughs, and Barbara Alvarado’s eyes narrow. “No sass from you, young lady. Your momma and you, both no better than you should be – you’ve got no right judging me.” As she speaks, her voice goes from rounded, cultured South to flat Texas hick, and Logan studies the polished surface of the table.

Tyra and her grandmother face off across the table, identical blue eyes narrowed. Barbara looks away first with a little huff, and then stands up in one fluid motion, knees pressed together, charm-school perfect. “I’ll just go get Cheryl’s things from the back bedroom,” she says with icy precision, the cultured accent back in force. “Finish up your cookies, now.”

Logan listens to the click-click of her heels down the maple floorboards before turning to Tyra. Her face is flushed, lips pressed together, and Logan thinks he sees the shine of tears in her eyes before she blinks and shakes her head angrily.

“So that’s your grandmother,” he says lightly.

Tyra huffs, shaking her head, eyes still closed. “The original Collette woman. Kept trying on men for size until she found one that would keep her in style and then die before he realized what she was really like. My mom can’t forgive her for getting exactly what all us Collette women are supposed to be after: a man to make everything all better. And now that Gramma’s got what she wanted, she’s decided that her own daughters aren’t good enough for her anymore. Or her granddaughters, either.”

Logan doesn’t say anything. There doesn’t seem to be much to say. Tyra opens her eyes and looks at him, assessing. “Gramma’s trash, just like momma and just like me. Bred in the bone. Don’t let all her airs and graces fool you.”

Before Logan can respond to that, Barbara returns and puts a small cloth-bound box in front of Tyra. A jewelry box, in pink; one that might have belonged to a young girl.

“Don’t know what you want with that, Tyra; it’s mostly junk. But it’s yours.”

Tyra hugs the box to her chest and levels her blue-laser glare at her grandmother. “Yes, it is. We’re leaving now, Gramma. Thanks for the cookies.”

She stands and leaves the room so quickly that Logan is left scrambling to get up and follow her out. He nods quickly at Barbara, but the older woman’s eyes are glued to Tyra’s retreating form.

Tyra has the truck in gear and halfway down the driveway before Logan even has his door closed. She backs out with a squeal of tires, and speeds down the street to the end of the block before stepping hard on the brakes and pulling over to the curb. The little pink box is on the seat beside her. She picks it up, flips open the latch, and Logan can see several pieces of jewelry, most with semi-precious stones. She pulls out a bangle bracelet in silver and turquoise and slips it on her slender wrist.

“I always loved this one,” she says, biting her lip. “Gramma’s right, the stuff is worthless, but Aunt Cheryl used to let me play with it all when I was little. All the stuff she’s collected from her boyfriends since she was a teenager.”

Logan nods, listening.

Tyra studies the bracelet. “It’s not enough. The stuff they gave her, even if it was diamonds, it’s not enough. She deserved honesty and commitment, and she settled … for this. Junk. Trash.”

She plucks the bracelet off and drops it back in the box, closing the lid with a decisive thump. She picks the box up as if she’ll toss it in the back, but Logan puts out a hand to stop her.

“Keep the stuff,” he says. “To remember. It doesn’t mean that you approve, or agree with the things she did. But you loved her. Keep her things to remember that.”

Tyra turns on him, opening her mouth to object, but something in Logan’s face seems to stop her. She relents, and sets the box gently down on the seat between them.

“So,” Logan says, giving her a half-smile. “Where can we get something to eat around here?”

~*~*~*~
Continued in part 3

Feedback is love!

FIC: The Curve of the Earth (Logan/Tyra) 1/3, R

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 05:07:36 GMT

Title: The Curve of the Earth (1/3)
Author: embellished_me
Characters: Logan/Tyra (Veronica Mars/Friday Night Lights crossover)
Rating: R (language, mild sexuality)
Words: ~4500 this section
Spoilers: Veronica Mars through 3x15, anything later than that is spec; Friday Night Lights through 1x22 generally, but no explicit spoilers for anything past the first few episodes.
Disclaimer: Friday Night Lights belongs to Peter Berg, Brian Grazer, David Nevins and NBC; Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas and the CW. No infringement intended.

Summary: Tyra Collette usually feels like there's nobody in Dillon who understands her. Logan Echolls is pretty sure he's lost the only girl who ever did. When Logan finds himself stranded in Dillon, he and Tyra figure out that how things really are depends a lot on your perspective.

A/N: Consider it therapy. I had to find a way to combine a show I've loved and lost with a show that I love so much it scares me. What better way than to bring together my two favorite snarky, tough, damaged, wonderfully human characters and see what they'd do?

More A/N: If you only watch one show or the other (VM or FNL), I hope you'll consider reading this; I've tried to make the narrative clear enough that you can follow even if you aren't familiar with both shows. And let me take this opportunity to say: if you didn't watch Friday Night Lights this season, do whatever you have to to get your hands on the episodes, and WATCH THEM. What an amazing, warming, beautifully dramatic season of television. I haven't been quite so taken by a TV show since, well, Veronica Mars. But we won't talk about that right now.

FYI: this fic is completely finished, and will be posted in three sections, one appearing every 2-3 days or as soon as the fabulous secrets_and_lie can beta them and get them back to me. Thanks so much to her for making sure I don't embarrass myself all over the internet. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

And for those who are still interested, I do plan to finish Fractured. Really soon.

Oh, and a plea - anyone out there want to make a me a Logan/Tyra icon to post with chapters of this fic? I would love you forever!

***THE CURVE OF THE EARTH***

Two months and fifteen days.

Not that she’s counting or anything. But if she were -- counting, that is -- she’d notice that only two months and fifteen days remain until she starts classes at Dillon Community College.

Which, well, big deal. It’s Grade Thirteen as far as anyone around here is concerned, and she’ll already know half the people in her classes.

But every day she spends at DCC, every passing grade she gets, every class she takes, is a step closer to getting out of here. A step closer to a four-year school and her ticket out of Dillon forever.

Tyra smiles.

***

“Logan, I … I’m not sure if you’re getting my messages. And I just, I’m worried, is all. You’ve been gone for three weeks, and Dick and the other guys came back a week ago without you. They said you just took off one day. I understand why you don’t want to talk to me, and that’s fine. Please just text me so I know you’re safe, OK? Please.”

***

Logan stares with disbelief at the hood of his Range Rover, or more accurately, at the white smoke or steam (he doesn’t know which) issuing from under it at an alarming rate. Just to be on the safe side, he takes several steps back from the truck before pulling out his cell phone. A slow bead of sweat snakes its way from his hairline into the collar of his shirt, and he squints up at the sun. It’s only ten o’clock in the morning, but it must be ninety degrees already.

He glances up and down at the monotonous stretch of interstate. Before, he’d been driving, zoning to some music, the hum of tires on asphalt a more effective sedative for his thought-crammed mind than any pill or drink he’s tried. Focusing only on the road in front of him, he’d taken almost no notice of his surroundings. Now, he sees that they’re not confidence-inspiring. A shimmering, pitted stretch of four-lane highway with deep tire ruts in the right-hand lanes; dusty, scrubby fields and barbed wire on either side. Off to the right, he can see some dark, vaguely bovine shapes in the distance.

This is seriously interrupting all the Not Thinking About It he’s been doing for the past three weeks. Drove out of Neptune with Dick and the others the day after finals ended, headed for Mexico and some oblivion of the aquatic and alcoholic varieties, and when that got old, he got in his car and started driving east. Re-entered the U.S. in southwest Texas and now here he is.

Wherever the hell here is.

He’d erased Veronica’s message as soon as he heard it, and the one before that, and the one before that. He’s pretty sure her worry is more guilt than actual concern, and he’s not going to relieve it for her. He imagines Piz comforting her, acting somber and suitably concerned over Logan’s whereabouts because he’s the Bigger Person who won’t let a little thing like Logan having fucked his girlfriend first (and best) get in the way of Doing the Right Thing.

A battered Chevy pickup zips by, no time to stop for the stranded stranger with the California plates. Logan flips it off, shouting, “Thanks, motherfucker!” to its retreating form. He can see an eighteen-wheeler way down the highway in the other direction, still far enough away that he can’t yet hear the rumble of its motor. It almost seems to appear and disappear as waves of heat rise off the black asphalt.

He’s somewhere in Texas, that much he knows. Other than that? Middle of fucking nowhere. He looks, without much hope, at his cell phone. Miraculously, four bars appear along the edge of the screen. If cell service exists in the freaking wasteland, and there’s no one there to use it …

Lame, Logan thinks, frowning. He pulls out his wallet and dials the number on his roadside assistance card. The call connects.

Forty-five minutes later, Logan sits sweat-soaked and wilted against a fence rail, watching as a freakishly shiny tow truck pulls up in front of the Range Rover. The driver, a man with bushy red eyebrows and a Dallas Cowboys cap, flops out of the truck and ignores Logan completely as he checks the make, model and license plate number of the SUV. He finally looks at Logan, and then back at the car, from which tendrils of white steam are still floating.

“Looks like your radiator,” he says mournfully. “Gonna have to tow you into town.”

“Great,” Logan responds, pushing himself up off the ground. “Think I can get it fixed today?”

The tow-truck driver eyes him, assessing. “Maybe.”

“Maybe I can get it fixed, or maybe today?” Logan can’t resist asking.

No answer.

Logan grimaces. They go through the process of getting his car hooked up for towing. Standing on the paved road in this sun seems to concentrate and intensify the heat; he feels like a bug trapped under a magnifying glass in the sun.

When they’re done, he hops into the passenger side of the tow truck and melts gratefully into the vinyl seat as the air-conditioning washes over him.

The driver glances at him in what looks like amusement. “Kinda hot today.”

Logan huffs in disgust, doesn’t say anything. The next sign they pass reads Dillon, 30. He settles in and closes his eyes.

He’s jerked out of half-sleep when the truck stops sharply. The driver thumps him on the shoulder. “This is Garrity’s dealership,” he says. “No Range Rover dealer in town, but his mechanics are the best. They should fix you up fine.”

The next stop is the service center, where a bored teenager tells Logan that they maybe could work him in this afternoon, but there’s a big backlog already. And they’re closed tomorrow, of course, being Sunday and all, so it could be as late as Monday before they get to his car.

“Are you fucking serious?” Logan asks, irritation beginning to color his voice.

The boy shrugs. It’s nothing to him.

“Is there another service station in town?”

“Not that’s open on Saturday,” the boy tells him. “So I just need you to sign here and here …”

For a moment, just one moment, Logan considers pulling out his wallet and sliding a hundred dollar bill across the counter to light a fire under this beefy high school kid who apparently doesn’t realize that if he stops here, he’ll have to think, and that is something he really can’t do right now.

Two things stop him: one, he spent his last cash in Mexico, and hasn’t bothered to get more since plastic works just as well in the U.S., and two, it’s something his father would have done. So he grits his teeth, and signs, and asks where he can get something to eat around here.

“You want, like, something nice?” the boy asks, flicking a glance at Logan’s watch, and out at the Range Rover sitting lumpishly in the lot.

Logan smiles tightly. “Yeah, nice. What is there?”

“Well, there’s Applebee’s a half-mile or so down. That’s nice,” the boy says, without apparent levity. “I can get one of the guys to give you a ride.”

And so Logan Echolls finds himself ducking into the cool darkness of an Applebee’s in Dillon, Texas on a June Saturday, when the only thing in the world he wants to do is keep driving until he can’t think anymore.

***

Tyra’s station is only half-full, which is good because it gives her time to think, but bad because it means fewer tips. She makes good tips: the winning combination of her brightest smile and the entire town’s pity means that an extra dollar or five often finds its way into her apron pocket.

She saves it all. No new clothes, no CDs, just grim determination and a growing bank account that she’ll use to pay her first semester’s tuition. These days, Tyra is nothing if not focused.

She sees the strange guy come into the restaurant out of the corner of her eye. He goes straight into the bathroom, which isn’t that odd, but emerges five minutes later looking like he’s given himself a hasty bath in the shallow men’s room sink. Which, ew.

He doesn’t look familiar, and he doesn’t look like a trucker, and there aren’t very many other kinds of men who come in here, so she looks at him harder. His clothes and shoes, which are worn, but trendy, clearly not cheap, and the way he carries himself, tell her that (a) he is not from around here and (b) he probably has money. She catches the eye of Courtney, the hostess, and nods for her to put him in her section. Tyra’s been here the longest; by unspoken rule she gets her pick of the potentially lucrative customers.

“Hi,” Tyra says, approaching the table, turning up the smile. “I’m Tyra, and I’ll be your server. You look like you could use an iced tea.”

The guy looks up at her. Through her, really. “Um, water, please. Bottled.”

His hair is damp and curling around the edges, his eyes are dark and kind of dazed looking, and his leg twitches restlessly under the table. She has the impression of a kettle boiling covered, its lid just starting to jiggle.

Now that she sees him more closely, he does look vaguely familiar. But bottled water? No. Definitely not from around here.

She fishes under the bar for a bottle of Aquafina and brings it back to him, on a tray, with ice, condensation already filming the outside of the glass. He’s studying the menu, frowning, but glances up in acknowledgment when she puts the water in front of him.

“Need a few more minutes?”

He looks up at her, sees her this time, shuts the menu with a snap. “I’ll just have a cheeseburger. No onions, no pickles. Double fries.”

As she turns to put in his order, she hears his cell phone beep.

***

Thought I’d try texting you in case you’re not able to pick up voice mail. I’m worried. I know you don’t think I have any right to be, but I am. Please just let me know that you’re OK, and I promise I’ll leave you alone.

***

Logan shifts uncomfortably in the vinyl booth, trying not to notice its slightly sticky feel. The air conditioning vent is right over his head, its frigid breath simultaneously drying his hair and raising goosebumps on his arms.

He feels a little better after his impromptu splashdown in the men’s room, but mostly his skin still feels gritty and he’s afraid that, upon close inspection, he might smell less than daisy-fresh.

Still. It’s not like he has any place else to go.

He keeps his cell phone out on the table, as if leaving it where he can see it will ensure that it will ring, and the kid at Garrity’s dealership will tell him he can pick his car up at five, no problem, sir. So far, it’s not working, and Logan’s running out of hope.

He reads Veronica’s message and deletes it immediately. A big part of him – the part that’s like a billion swarming ants inside of him, ready to tear through his skin – wants to just throw the damn phone away and be done with it. Done with her. Another part of him takes wicked pleasure in not answering her calls every few hours. Another, very tiny, part of him relishes the contact, the sound of her voice, the words that link her to him whether either of them likes it or not.

So.

The waitress brings his burger and fries and, without being asked, another bottle of water. He notices in an offhand way that she is pretty, that she has the blonde hair and honey skin he usually associates with California, and that she uses her thousand-watt smile sparingly. He thinks she might be around his age, and it occurs to him to wonder if she likes it here, in this town, working in this place, or if she’s got someplace else on her mind. Her blue eyes are restless, like Veronica’s; he thinks she’d probably rather go.

He lifts the bun to inspect the burger for appropriate toppings, and looks up just as she’s turning to leave. “Could I have some ketchup, please?”

“For your burger?”

Logan quirks up an eyebrow. “Um, yeah. Is that a problem?”

“Nope,” she says, in a tone that says, freak, but the raised corner of her mouth takes the sting out of the word.

She comes back with the ketchup bottle and puts it in front of him. He’s curious, and it’s a distraction, so he asks, “Do people not eat ketchup on hamburgers here?”

She smiles, not the thousand-watt one, but a slyer, more honeyed one. “Not unless they’re from someplace else.”

“Ooh-kay. Just doing my part to reinforce the stereotype.” Pointedly, he opens the ketchup bottle and squirts a fair amount of it on his burger. Picks the whole thing up and takes an enormous bite.

The blonde-haired waitress rolls her eyes, just the barest hint of a smirk lifting her lips, and walks away.

Not having much else to do, Logan watches her surreptitiously as he eats and she moves through the restaurant, serving other customers. She seems to do the job on autopilot, and he can tell that she’s smart, working for the biggest tips. She’s just slightly flirtatious with the men, nothing over the top, and respectful and deferential to the women, her lilting “yes, ma’am, yes, sir,” carrying over the sounds of clinking silverware and the country music playing in the background. He can tell also that it’s all an act: when she’s back at the waitress station, rolling silverware, her face is still, eyes shuttered and mouth turned slightly downward.

The waitress returns after a bit, and raises her eyebrows at his clean plate. “I guess ketchup is the way to go. Can I get you anything else?”

He glances at his phone, still dark and quiet on the table, and looks around. He’s pretty full already, but he doesn’t have anything else to do. “Got any ice cream?”

She brings him a huge bowl of what the menu says is Genuine Blue Bell Vanilla, with lots of hot fudge. “So,” she asks, smoothing her apron. “What ketchup-eating part of the country are you from?”

He smiles, shakes his head. “You really don’t each ketchup here?”

“On fries, yes. Not on hamburgers. Mustard only, and pickles. Welcome to Texas.”

“Oh.” Logan puts on his best instructional tone. “Well, in the rest of the country, the ketchup on burgers thing is pretty common. I’d go so far as to say it’s traditional.”

She laughs. He’s aware that she’s working him, aiming for a good tip. She’s bright enough to see that he’s alone and from out of town, and to figure that a little banter-y conversation with a pretty girl is probably enough to earn her an extra five on the table when he leaves. He wonders what she spends it on, what there is in this town to spend it on. Drinking? Clothes? He looks at her eyes, her face, her smooth arms: she doesn’t look like the type to have a habit, but you never can tell.

“So what brings you to Dillon?” she asks, leaning on the booth across from him. Her station is emptying; the lunch rush is about over.

He shrugs, pokes at his ice cream with the back of the spoon. “Car broke down about thirty miles from here. Shop isn’t sure if they can fix it today; it might be Monday, they said.”

She groans sympathetically. “That sucks. Where were you headed? Dallas? Austin?”

“Um –“ he hedges.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she backpedals. “It’s none of my business.”

“No, ‘s’okay,” he says around a mouthful of ice cream. Swallows experimentally. It’s good. “Honestly, I don’t know where I was headed. I was just kind of … driving.” He makes a straight-ahead motion with one hand.

She nods, apparently satisfied. “So you’re stuck here? Well, you can sit here as long as you want. I’m working a double today, so I’ll be here till at least nine. Or you can sit at the bar, if you want.”

“And watch NASCAR?” he asks in disbelief, jerking his head toward the TV mounted over the taps.

“Is that a problem?” she asks airily, just a hint of mockery in her voice.

Grinning, he meets her gaze, lets his eyes go warm and faintly wicked. “Nope,” he says, perfectly mimicking her earlier tone.

She steps back out of the way with an exaggerated flourish so that he can take himself and his ice cream down to the bar.

***

“They’re really that into football here?” It’s four o’clock, and Logan is only on his second beer. He doesn’t want to push his luck with the bartender, who accepted his fake ID with a frown and an eyeroll, and find himself hauled away to a dusty concrete cell by Dillon’s version of Don Lamb.

The blonde waitress shrugs. She’s been sitting with him off and on, passing the time between the lunch crowd and the dinner rush. “They really are. During the season, no one thinks about anything else. Mostly because in this town, there isn’t that much to think about.”

“So what were you, like, a cheerleader –" he glances at her nametag “—Tyra?”

She snorts. “Um, no. Not ever. And not a rally girl. And not –“

“What’s a rally girl?”

Tyra makes a face. “Oh, they have fundraisers, and make cookies and do stuff for the football players. Like a pep squad, without the pep.”

It’s funny how things hit him without warning. One minute he’s in an Applebee’s in Dillon, Texas, talking to a girl who would probably qualify as Seriously Hot on Dick’s babe-o-meter, and the next minute he’s sitting in the XTerra across from the car wash, watching Lilly and Veronica in those stupid green outfits, all smooth, pale legs and golden girly hair and …

“You OK?”

… another girl with golden hair and knowing eyes is sitting next to him, hand poised over his shoulder but not quite touching, face puckered with the beginnings of concern. He looks at her and blinks. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Sorry. Too much driving and too little sleep, right?”

She nods, still watching him warily.

“So … they’re like a pep squad? The rally girls?” he asks, trying to shift the focus off him and his momentary checkout.

“If a pep squad also did the players’ homework and provided pre-game blow jobs, yeah, that would pretty much be it,” Tyra says, mouth curling, glancing at him to see if he’s shocked.

Logan is startled into a laugh. “Sounds like we’re really missing out on an essential part of the high school experience in Neptune. If I’d known, I would have transferred. And learned to play football pronto.”

Tyra grins, knuckle-punches his arm. “I don’t think ...”

His phone rings. He palms it off the bar, hoping against hope to see the dealership number with its unknown area code on the screen, but no. It reads: Veronica Mars.

“Do you want to take that?” Tyra asks, already halfway off the barstool. She flicks at look at the screen and smiles, teasing. “Your girlfriend?”

Logan looks at her, and back at the phone, and thumbs the ‘end’ button to send it to voice mail. “No, not my girlfriend.”

***

“Logan, I could tell by the way it rang that you sent the call to voice mail manually. That’s, um, fine, and I’ll take that as confirmation that you’re still alive out there somewhere.”

A long pause, then some shuffling, and a sigh.

“Be safe, OK?”

***

“Did you look at the name on his card before you brought it over here?” Courtney asks her, barely suppressed excitement bubbling out in a giggle. “Do you know who he is?”

Tyra’s eyes narrow. “Who?”

“Logan Echolls!” Courtney tells her in a near-hysterical hiss. “Remember? Aaron Echolls’ son? The actor? The Lilly Kane murder? It was, like, a huge thing at the end of sophomore year. I totally have to call Megan and Jess.”

Tyra vaguely remembers reading about the actor Aaron Echolls and the murder trial in a grocery store tabloid, seeing the case on TV. It had all seemed so far away as to be fictional, and, well, Tyra generally had bigger things to worry about. But the sorta familiar face at her station now resolves into one she remembers from grainy, cheaply printed photos and the TV tell-alls her mother likes to watch.

Logan Echolls. ketchup-eater from California. She looks over at him, sees the lines of fatigue on his face, the way his shoulders are tense under his shirt, and she takes Courtney’s arm and steers her into the little entryway, out of his sight. Sinks her nails into the other girl’s flesh, hard enough to leave marks.

“Ow!” Courtney protests. “What the hell, Tyra?”

“If you call Megan or Jess or anyone else to tell them he’s here, I will ruin you,” Tyra tells her tightly, leveling her stare at Courtney to make sure she gets it.

Courtney laughs weakly, rubbing at her arm, but her eyes are big and white all around the edges. “God, Tyra, dramatic much? What do you care?”

“Doesn’t matter why I care,” Tyra says. “Don’t do it.”

Courtney huffs, putting on a little bravado. “I’m not afraid of you. I’ll do what I want.” But she turns and goes back to the hostess stand, and doesn’t pull out her phone. For now.

Tyra crosses over to the bar, slides onto on a stool next to Logan. Says in a low voice, “Look, the girl at the hostess stand? Courtney? She realized who you are when she ran your credit card.”

Logan looks up at her in surprise, and flicks a glance over at the hostess stand. Then looks back at Tyra, expression equal parts wary and resigned.

“She was gonna call, like, everyone, but I think I’ve scared her enough to buy you an hour or so.”

The wariness changes to surprise and – admiration? Logan puts down his beer carefully. “Well then, I guess I’d better find someplace to go. If I don’t want to meet – everyone.”

Tyra flashes him a smile, brief, complicit. “There’s um, a hotel – it’s not fancy or anything – across the highway. And an ATM at the gas station next door. In case you want to pay in cash, you know, not use your real name.”

He actually grins at her, eyes crinkling at the corners, and it changes his whole face. “Michael Buford it is, then.”

“What?”

“The name on my fake ID,” he stage whispers. “Useful for buying beer, and apparently also for avoiding the curious eyes of Dillon, Texas.”

“Oh.” She grins back at him.

“Um, thanks,” he says, meaning it.

She shrugs a little, embarrassed. “It’s no problem.”

Tyra hops off the barstool and goes to make herself busy at the waitress stand, not wanting to seem like she’s watching him. He pays his tab at the bar, steps down and stretches for a moment, just long enough for her to involuntarily admire the strong, lean lines of his back and arms.

“The last thing you should be thinking about right now is boys,” Mrs. Taylor told her in one of their last sessions before school ended. “You’ve come this far. You need to focus on school. Pretty as you are, there will be plenty of time for boys later on.”

Tyra nodded miserably.

“And I don’t have to tell you that Tim Riggins is not the best choice for your affections right now, anyway. He’s got plenty of issues of his own that need to be worked out.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Taylor leaned toward her over the desk, her eyes warm. “I am so proud of you, darlin’. You’ve really accomplished something here. You’re going to graduate, and you’re going to go on and make something of yourself. I believe you have a lot to give, Tyra, a lot to offer the world.”

Tyra shrugged. “I’ve barely got myself together, Mrs. T.”

“And you absolutely have to figure out how to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else, baby. I want you to spend this summer working, and planning, and taking care of you. Don’t go wasting your energy on some boy who needs more help than you can give him.”

Tyra blinks. Mrs. Taylor had been talking about Tim again. Tim, who, as far as Tyra can tell, has spent the days since graduation in a drunken haze. He comes to the restaurant once in a while, but mostly she sees him out in town in that truck of his, on his way either to or from the liquor store. When they see each other, his eyes follow her, and she can remember the feel of his mouth on her throat, and his hands, big and not quite gentle. She has to close her eyes when she sees him; the attraction is still that strong.

Of all the broken people in Dillon, they’ve always been the two who had it the roughest, the two least likely to succeed and to end up marking time between drinks and punches in a trailer on the edge of town. The knowledge of it has drawn them to each other since they were old enough to feel that kind of a pull, and it draws Tyra still, even as she struggles against the fate the whole town thinks should be hers.

Through the big windows at the front of the restaurant, she can see Logan Echolls break into a jog to cross the highway. He runs lightly, easily, without a football player’s steam and muscle and full speed ahead. She sees him angle towards the gas station, presumably to the ATM.

He could take you away from here, whispers her mother’s voice inside her head. Tyra grits her teeth. She’s past thinking that any man is going to be her ticket out of this town. She’s not relying on anyone but herself for that.

She goes back to the bar to help clear up, and immediately notices that he left his cell phone next to his beer glass.

As she stares at the phone, frowning, it rings, and she jumps. Waits for the caller id to display: unknown caller. He’s probably calling the phone himself, from the gas station pay phone, to see if someone found it. So she answers.

“Hello?”

There’s a long pause, and she can hear a shuddery kind of breath.

“Hello?” she says again. “Logan?”

“Um, no,” says a girl’s voice, very small. “Is this Logan’s phone?”

“Yeah,” Tyra says. “I just –“

“It’s fine,” the other girl says. “Don’t … I just need to know, is he OK?”

Tyra blinks. “He’s fine, I just …”

“No! No, it’s OK. Thanks. I, um, please don’t tell him I talked to you.”

The connection goes dead, and Tyra is left staring at the phone in dismay.

***continued in Chapter 2.***

feedback is hugged and petted!

sigh

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:55:43 GMT

I really, really liked last night's episode. I don't think I've had tears in my eyes so often for so many different reasons during any single hour of TV, well, ever. The sheer emotion of the whole thing was just overwhelming.

I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about football, so the game sequences are just a kind of tense waiting period for me, to find out the outcome. And I felt the same way about last night's game sequence, which I found a little far-fetched with its second half comeback. But then I read this post by ladycat777, which contains a beautifully explained analogy of the game as the continuation and culmination of some of the strongest character arcs this season, and I became convinced that this was one of the best hours of TV I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong; the episode was fantastic overall, but if you don't understand football very well (or even if you do), you should read that analysis and tell me if you don't fall even harder in love with this show.

I was very wary about the Tami/pregnancy story after last week's previews, but I have to say the whole thing was handled beautifully, as one facet of the realization of a dream theme that played so heavily in the episode. That another baby was something Tami and Eric had dreamed for, and hoped for, but given up on, made Tami's discovery all the more poignant. It also worked well as a plot device in terms of giving Eric a very strong reason to want to stay in Dillon. (Side note: as a woman whose husband's initial responses to her pregancy announcements have been more more along the lines of "Shit!" than anything resembling excitement, I was extremely enamored of Eric's response to Tammy's news. Just a lovely moment there.)

I hate that Tim jerked Tyra around with the tickets thing, but love that he wanted Bo to have them. And to be fair to him, he probably assumed Tyra wouldn't use them because Tyra probably gave him a smart-ass answer when he offered them to her and then re-thought her response without telling him. That's my girl.

OK, Landry. Poor Landry. So in love, so misguided, given false hope by Tyra who's been (we find out later) once again jerked around by Tim. The scenes in his station wagon with Tyra's family, and Lorraine, and then Lyla, were hilarious ("Did you bring the booze, honey?") and the perfect comic relief to what was otherwise a very tense and emotional episode.

I admit to getting more than a little choked up when the team walked into their locker room at Texas Stadium, and again when they walked out onto the field. The actors really sold those moments; the looks of awe and pride on their faces were just so real, and since they've really made us invest in their characters, all the more touching.

I loved Eric's speech to the players at that very awkward dinner (loved Buddy saying that he's just going to miss him, too). It went over like a lead balloon, of course; the players were pissed at him and he acknowledged that he understood why, but at the same time he didn't apologize for wanting to follow his own dreams. I thought it was a nice continuation of the angle he took with Julie in the car before the father/daughter dance ("You're fifteen and you're not going to dictate where this family lives"). He'd taken their feelings into account, and was sorry for causing them pain, but in the end, he had to be true to himself and the path he felt was right for him. It's a nice change from many TV families, where parents are often either portrayed as completely disinterested in their children's thoughts/feelings/needs, or else completely lax buffoons who let the kids run the house. Eric's take felt very real and very mature and, I flatter my adopted home state, very Texan. :)

My only nitpick in the entire episode was that I didn't care much for Lyla and Tyra's truce. It's been clear from episode one, I believe, that their mutual dislike pre-dated Lyla sleeping with Tim, so it didn't ring quite true to me that Tyra would be mollified by the news of Jason having cheated. The grudging conversation between them was fine, but Lyla's offer to drive Tyra home (in what car, BTW?) was a bit over the top.

I'm so in love with this show right now that I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I want it to be renewed. That was a fantastic season of TV, as near to perfect as I've seen in quite some time in terms of its story telling and the depths of character that we got to see. I would hate to see a second season come along and mar my love for the first one with less-stellar stories, more teen drama/soap type storylines to appeal to a broader audience, etc. I just can't watch that happen to another show. So I'll say that I would love for the show to be renewed, conditionally. The condition being a continuation of the great TV that we've seen this season, and nothing less.

I'm baaaack!

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:54:25 GMT

Thanks to the fine people at Time Warner, my TV and internet are back on tonight, just in time for my DVR to record the FNL season finale while I get the kids to bed.

I'm a little disgusted at how attached I've become to both internet and TV - the acquisition of my wonderful MacBook Pro and the ability to be online anywhere in the house have contributed in no small part to this - and how disjointed I feel when neither is available to me. The small part of me that engages in intellectual snobbery is looking down its nose at the rest of me even as I type. I may have to smack myself upside the head.

Help! My cable's broken! No TV or Internets at home!

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:43:23 GMT

So, for some unknown reason, my husband asked the lawn guys to dig up the beds in the back yard yesterday. I have no idea why. It's not like we're going to plant anything back there. Anyway. Of course they managed to put the pointy end of a shovel right through the buried cable, thus depriving us of both cable and internet in one horrific second.

It's hardly their fault. After all, my idiot husband TOLD them to dig there. So.

I volunteered to call the cable company, but my husband is all like, no, I can splice it myself, it's not a big deal.

(Side note: we had no overhead light in our kitchen or dining room for FOUR MONTHS last year because of an electrical problem that was "no big deal." After he tried to fix it without success several times, I gave up and called the electrician. Amazingly, the lights now work.)

I've resigned myself to having to watch FNL online after it airs, either surreptitiously at work or at some later date at home. I told him he has till the end of the week to fix it, and then I'm calling the cable company. Seriously, folks. I'm not as TV-addicted as some people, but we are coming up on May sweeps here.

ETA: I just did Live Chat with Time Warner (how cool is that? no waiting on hold for hours) and they're going to come out and fix it tomorrow for FREE! Whee! They're coming between 4 and 6 so hopefully I will have TV back in time for FNL at 7 (keeps fingers crossed).