Lillies (Veronica Mars fic, Logan)

[Bongo]

This is kind of a very cutesy, very PG, PWP. It takes place towards the end of season one, where Logan and Veronica are happily dating for all of about five minutes. I don't own Veronica Mars, of course. Just a huge fan. And I don't know what prompted me to write this, but I couldn't get it out of my head. More plot than sneezing, but I thought it was kind of cute. 

 

Veronica’s knee was an inch deep in mud, but she didn’t care.  It’s not like her jeans were anywhere as expensive as her 09er classmates, whose wardrobes were worth about as much as her family’s apartment, and it’s not like mud is the worst thing she’s ever had to kneel in.

And, rare as it was, she was kneeling in mud for pleasure, not business.

She raised the camera to her eye again. Adjusted the lens. Lowered the camera and frowned.

“What is this neighborhood coming to?”

Veronica didn’t stand up, but she did angle her head up to her boyfriend and smile. “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve been in this neighborhood kind of a long time.”

Logan crouched next to her. He nodded at the flower she was trying to photograph. “What did he do? Talk to the other flowers? Maybe his pistol sent some pollen into the wrong stamen, and his actual lady flower is mad?”

“It’s a soap lily.” At Logan’s shrug, she elaborated. “Lilly used to love lilies. A beautiful flower, beautiful girl, same name. I would photograph them for her, print them out. She had little collages of them all over her room.”

“I remember. They were yours?”

“I took them. But they were hers. I loved to do it. I used to love spring. Everything in bloom, all the colors and the smells. Spring is so….I don’t know. Hopeful? Clean?”

“Clean? I had to wipe three inches of yellow crap off my windshield just to drive home yesterday.” Veronica glared at him. “No, I know what you’re trying to say. Like a fresh start.”

“Who knew you were such a softie?” Veronica joked.

“Who knew you were?”

“Everybody. I’m a well known softie. Veronica Mars: marshmallow.”

Logan gave a short chuckle, followed by a quiet sniffle Veronica, who had not too long ago become accustomed to the sound of his crying, looked up sharply, camera dropping to her side. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned Lilly. Not when you have so much crap going on.”

His hand had been on his face, over his eye, but he dropped it immediately to Veronica’s shoulder at the concern in her voice. “I’m fine. Really.  Are you?”

Veronica started to nod, but stopped. “I can’t get the picture.”

Logan reached over and hit a button on her camera. Dozens of tiny flowers appeared on the screen in review. “You have a thousand of them.”

Her fingers shook a little as she shifted her camera back into photo-taking mode. “They aren’t good enough. I know I’m a good photographer, and this is usually so easy, but this is the first new lily I’ve found and I just need it to be perfect.” She lifted the camera back up, but Logan pulled it away from her with one hand, while goading Veronica into a standing position with the other. “Take a break.”

“Hmm. And whatever shall we find to do on this break.”

Logan waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure we can think of something.” His arm went around her shoulders and, pulling her into his side, they began to walk down the trail. “Where did you find this place? I’ve never been here.”

“Backup and I went for a walk last night, and he had apparently decided he needed some new trees to pee on and kept pulling me away from our usual walking spot. We ended up here. I think it’s technically part of the nursing home’s property. But you walk somewhere with a 120 pound pit bull, people tend not to bother you about little things like trespassing on the elderly.” She didn’t bother to ask how he’d found her. He always managed to.

“Nice. Secluded. I’ve never been big on traipsing through the flowers though.”

“No?”

“No. Look where it got Dorothy and the scarecrow.” He mimed yawning and falling asleep, using his hands as a makeshift pillow. The charade ended when he used his ‘pillow’ to rub his eyes and sniffle again, louder this time, causing Veronica to give him a hard look.

“What?” he demanded.

“Nothing. Geez.”

They had wandered their way to a bench. Logan sat down, arms stretched over the back, and beckoned for Veronica to join him. She settled herself into the crook of his arm. There was silence between them for a minute. Two. Then,

“Do you ever see her?” She didn’t look at him, kept staring forward, at nothing. But he felt the weight of her question.

“No.” A breath. “I wish I did.”

“I do.” His arm tightened around her shoulders. “She’s in my dreams when I sleep. She’s in the crowd when I’m awake. I hear her voice, smell her perfume…”

“She’s haunting you.”

“She’s helping me. I will find her killer, Logan. She’s helping me weed through clues.”

Veronica craned her head up to see her boyfriend’s reaction. He gave her a small, sad smile. He sniffled again, wetly, and blinked several times. Veronica could teardrops at the ends of his lashes. She was going to apologize again, when he abruptly turned his face away from hers and pinched his nose shut with his free hand. “Tshh!” This was followed by more teary blinking.

“Bless you?”

He sniffled again, hard, and rubbed his hand against his nose. “Why the question?”

“Honestly, wasn’t sure that was a sneeze.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “I am human, V. I can sneeze.”

“I know you can, I just didn’t think you’d sound like an eight-year-old girl.”

“Well I am adorable.” Logan shifted uncomfortably. “Can you get off me?”

That was certainly a request Veronica had never gotten from him before. She scooted a foot away to the edge of the bench. Logan too the opportunity to turn his back to her and give into a series of the itchy sounding little sneezes she had just witnessed. “Htchh! Tsch! Tsch! Tsch!”

“Jesus, Logan, are you okay?” She laid a hand on his back, could feel his breath hitching uncontrollably under his shirt.

He started to nod. It was cut short with a see-sawed breath “huhh..ugh..”

“Yeah, adorable. Bless you.”

“Thanks.” Congestion was starting to seep into his voice. Veronica realized, with a sinking heart, exactly why he didn’t spend much time in the flowers. It wasn’t because he was afraid of poppy poisoning, and it wasn’t because it reminded him of Lilly and made him sad. That was just her cross to bear.

He turned back around, having apparently gotten temporary control over his angry sinuses, and gave her the same sad smile/smirk she was so familiar with. “I guess I can smell her perfume after all.”

If he had been anyone else teasing her, she would have been furious. As it was, she was just slightly annoyed he was undermining his own comfort for hers.

“I never knew you had allergies.”

“Well, if I eat shellfish, I’ll die. But that surprisingly never came up in our years of friendship.”

“Not what I meant.”

Logan shrugged. “Then I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” He shook his head. “Your eyes are red.” He waggled his eyebrows, mimed smoking. “Funny. Your nose is running too.” She gestured to her own nose, and was pleased to see him have the sense of mind to blush a little, before wiping his nose on the cuff of his sleeve.

“I’m fine.”

“I think you have hay fever.”

“Can’t.”

“You can’t have hay fever? Why’s that?”

“Because if I did…Hold on…”

Veronica was once again presented with her boyfriend’s back. She sighed, and rubbed his back as he succumbed to another fit. “Htschh! Htschh! Htschh!”

It continued for nearly half a minute, before he turned back to her. His eyes were tearing and he was panting slightly. Veronica gave him a prodding look. “Because if I did,” he continued, “you wouldn’t let me sit here with you, and I think you need me. Or you’d take me back, and you want to watch the lilies.”

Veronica pulled his arm back over her shoulders. “Fine. You don’t have hay fever for a few more minutes.” He smiled, pulled her in closer. “But once I get my picture, you suddenly magically do and I am definitely taking you back. I’ll get you some antihistamines, we’ll both take a shower, and then for the magical cap to the night….trig homework!”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad night.” Logan cleared his throat and wrinkled his nose, prompting Veronica to steak her camera back and resolve to get her perfect picture quickly. “Minus the trig homework, and we shower together. Purely to save water, of course.”

Veronica turned her camera backwards to snap a photo of his face, blindly. “So when my dad kills you, the police have a current picture to find you. In all your red nosed, puffy eyed glory.”

But he was just teasing, and so was she. So they settled back in together, with the occasional sneeze or sniffle, and the more than occasional click of the camera shutter. And they watched the lilies.

 

 

[queenie]

This is so cute! Their banter is #1