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scribblinlenoreI've come to the conclusion that Veronica Mars just covers too much ground too quickly for me to ever really write in the fandom. This is another story that got jossed all to hell. It's Lilly/Weevil, and I started it way back when in the first season when Logan made that tribute to Lilly, and Weevil got a misty look, and the story behind that might actually have been interesting. It was no time before the show had made it totally irrelevant, but I kept going, because I liked the opening. Then we found out more about Lilly and Weevil and their relationship, and the characterizations didn't even fit anymore. So I stopped working. And this thing has been an albatross around the neck of my hard drive ever since.
I could just let it rot on my computer, but it's half finished, damn it! I could wait for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wip_amnesty to dump it. But I'm organizing my files now, and I just feel like letting it go. Goodbye little story idea! You were obsolete before your time.
Lilly's Got A Secret
By Lenore
When Lilly was little, she loved to fly. No kid on the playground worked the swings the way she did, head back, legs kicked out, her body a perfect arch, arms pumping and pumping, carrying her higher than everyone else. Her connection to the ground was never more than tenuous at best, and breaking the last of its stingy hold on her was the goal for every recess.
At eight, she hit on the idea of leaping from the top of the jungle gym. She started at the bottom and jumped from each bar as she went, to make her triumph over gravity all the more impressive when it came.
Duncan watched her with a girls-are-so-silly smile as she went "Geronimo!" the first few times. When she got to the fourth bar, though, his expression grew more serious. "You're going to hurt yourself."
She laughed and kept on going, and by the time she'd made it all the way to the top, Duncan looked downright afraid.
"Lilly, don't," he said in a pinched voice.
She smiled down at him, her heart like thunder, and let go, giving herself over to the ether. For one pristine moment, she was soaring, arms spread out wide, the wind rushing in her face. Crashing into the ground was a rude comeuppance for that glimmer of freedom, sending her sprawling backwards into the dirt, rattling her deep in her bones.
Duncan came running. "Lilly!"
She sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I'm okay."
He helped her to her feet. "I can't believe you did that."
"Just don't tell Mom, okay?" Even at eight, she understood that her mother didn't approve of flying.
Duncan got a mulling look on his face, so long that she finally had to poke him. "All right," he said. "But don't do it again."
She smiled and said nothing, because she didn't like lying to her brother, but it was clear he didn't understand about flying either.
***
Neptune is a town of swimming pools, but for the most part, they're just another useless pretense, slate-edged and serpentine, or built to look like tropical lagoons, hardly conducive to serious swimming. The Echolls have the Olympic sense of grandeur everyone else seems to lack, their pool a concrete fantasy of athletic proportions, as if they have every intention of handing out gold medals in their back yard someday.
Lilly stands balanced at the end of the diving board, her back toward the water. She wiggles her toes, flirts closer to the edge, lifts her arms over her head, lets out her breath and catapults herself up against the blue arc of the sky. She twists her body, once, twice, and the sun stings her eyes as she falls back to earth. Her outstretched hands slice smoothly through the water, no splash, a perfect ten if there were judges. Three strong kicks later, and she's at the pool's edge.
Logan is stretched out on a lounge chair, a tumbler of his mother's Scotch on the table next to him, ice melting furiously in the late afternoon sun, leaving behind a watery mess. His expression is hidden behind dark glasses, but there's a softness to his mouth that suggests the possibility of a smile.
She shakes her head like a vigorous puppy, pelting him with water drops.
"Lilly." His tone is playfully menacing, and it makes her laugh.
"Come in," she demands, resting her chin on her hands, staring up at him, all pretty please eyes.
His lips twist into the promised smile, sly and secretive. "I like the view from here."
Lilly tilts her head. "Is that all you want? To watch?"
He takes a sip of his drink. "Do I have a better offer?"
She reaches behind her, undoes her top and tosses it onto the poolside concrete. "Enticed yet?"
"You know we did find people with cameras hiding in the bushes last week."
She moves her hands through the water, watching the pattern of the ripples. "So?"
He still doesn't budge, too lazy or stubborn, and she glides through the water to the ladder on the far side of the pool, climbs out, and poses there like a beauty pageant contender with only half the swimsuit.
Let them take all the pictures they want, she thinks.
Logan shakes his head and gets up languidly, but Lilly knows that glint in his eyes, and she runs laughing as he chases her all the way up to his room.
Upstairs, she gets him on the bed, naked and under her, right where she wants him, but then she suddenly remembers, "Shit! I left my bracelet down at the pool."
"Get it later," Logan murmurs against her neck.
"My grandmother's bracelet," she clarifies. "That I took out of my mother's jewelry box, that I'm 'too irresponsible to be trusted with.'" She rolls her eyes, her reaction to everything her mother says these days, even when it's just playing back in her head. "She'll crucify me if I lose it." She kisses him. "Be right back."
She slips off the bed and heads for the door.
"Lilly." He gives her a pointed look.
She takes a T-shirt off the back of a chair and pulls it over her head, makes a face at him. "Satisfied?"
He lies there smiling, stroking himself, as if to say "not yet," and Lilly laughs all the way downstairs.
She skirts the pool and heads for the lounge chairs, finds her bracelet in her shoe where she left it. She's about to go back inside when an approaching roar makes her stop and turn around. A motorcycle pulls up at the back gate where Rosalita, the Echolls' housekeeper, is waiting. The boy on the motorcycle takes off his helmet, hands Rosalita her purse and darts a quick kiss to the old lady's cheek, making the corners of her eyes crinkle up with happiness.
Rosalita's grandson, and Lilly knows she must have walked past him so many times at school, but in that canyon of cliques, people have a way of falling into your blind spot. It's only out here in the neutral light of the world that she really sees him, and suddenly there's a surge inside her as if a million butterflies have taken flight in her blood.
He gets back on his bike, and if his sideways smile is any indication, he knows perfectly well that she's watching him. He doesn't pause, though, doesn't return her glance, just thunders away, and Lilly stands there as if in a trance, staring at the trail of dust, until Logan's voice comes booming out of the house, jolting her back to herself.
***
It doesn't mean anything. She goes around thinking this for a good week. The oddest things--things she doesn't expect--can knock her sideways sometimes. If they cross paths again, she's sure she'll barely notice him.
The break after fourth period is the busiest time in the school's hallway, kids streaming back from lunch, classes changing, and Lilly and Veronica have to dodge nervous freshman late for phys ed and slackers half-heartedly flipping through their Cliff Notes on the way to English class.
"I don't know what he sees in her," Lilly says. The whole school has been talking about the unlikely match of Randy Wilkerson and Katrina Sawyer, and Lilly and Veronica are no exception. "I mean, what is with that hair? It's like--"
She sees him then, coming down the corridor that leads out to the shop, surrounded by a bunch of his…friends, associates, she's not sure what to call them. They're all wearing leather jackets, like a uniform, and a fuck-you attitude, but his walk is a smooth glide from the hips that makes the rest of them look like amateurs, extras in a remake of the Outsiders. There's a lonely dignity to him, as if he knows a secret about his own value that no one else guesses. Whatever Lilly was going to say about people who don't belong together goes right out of her head.
Veronica laughs at her abrupt disappearance from the conversation. "Earth to Lilly."
Lilly could just pretend she was distracted by sudden, deep thoughts about her nail polish. It's a well-worn excuse, being a ditz.
"Do you ever think about how the other half lives?" she asks.
Veronica follows her gaze. "You mean the half busily auditioning for America's Most Wanted?"
Lilly bumps her shoulder. "Come on. You have to be at least a little curious. It's like this whole other world. I never see them at the places we hang out. What do they do when they're not darkening the halls of Neptune High? Where do they go?"
Veronica shrugs, and it's clear she really doesn't care. "I know my father spends half his time breaking up fights over at their little clubhouse on Calendonia." Veronica stops and looks her in the eye with put-on seriousness. "You're not thinking about joining a gang, are you, young lady?"
"Well---" She tilts her head and pretends to consider. "Maybe I'll just settle for watching from a safe distance."
Veronica nods. "A wise decision. Although…you would look good in leather."
Lilly preens. "I would, wouldn't I?"
***
It really had been just a rhetorical question. Not that Lilly is above using Veronica's convenient ties to law enforcement for her own purposes--she just isn't the kind to think far enough ahead to have planned it.
Sometimes, though, luck just seems to be on her side, everything falling so neatly into place. She puts on a forlorn face when she goes to offer Miss Worley her apologies for missing pep squad practice--stomach cramps, what woman of child-bearing years is going to argue with that?--and manages to sound perfectly casual when she calls her mother to remind her that it's Wednesday and she has to stay after school.
Somewhere on Calendonia may not be the most precise address in the world, but there's no need to search the part of it that runs past the glass-and-chrome boutiques her mother favors. It doesn't take long driving around the seedier side of town to find the falling down house with neat rows of motorcycles glinting in the sun outside.
Lilly gets out of the car and makes herself laugh imagining Duncan's face if he could see her now, picking her way up crumbling concrete steps to the rotting wooden porch. She knocks, but there's no answer. The screened door is half propped open, so she ducks inside. She's about to call out when someone catches her wrist and whirls her around.
His face is pockmarked, hair slicked back from his forehead. A scar splits his mouth. He has a hardened look that makes it impossible to guess his age. Lilly can't be sure he even goes to high school with her until he says, "If it isn't the homecoming queen." His eyes move over her as aggressively as hands. "It's not exactly your side of the tracks around here, sweet thing. What do you want?"
She pulls herself up to her full height, lifts her chin, flashes her best "we're all friends here" smile--she can be her father's daughter at times--and says, "I'm looking for Eli." She can't bring herself to call him by his nickname, refuses to be light-headed over someone named Weevil. "Have you seen him?"
Her public relations bravado is less successful than her father's. Scarface backs her up against the wall, his lip curling wolf-like away from his teeth. "I don't know where he's at right now, but, hey, I'm here. Why don't me and you get to know one another?"
He sniffs at her hair, and his hands keep her from squirming away. She's starting to think that maybe a lack of planning really does have its drawbacks when a voice calls out sharply, "Paco."
Scarface's shoulders go stiff, but he doesn't move away. "I'm just being friendly."
Eli stands there with all the gravity of a statue, his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn't say another word, and the scar-faced gangster doesn't turn around to face him. He just takes his hands off Lilly and slinks away.
Eli gives her a little smile. "So Miss Lilly Kane." His eyes glide appreciatively over her body, and it feels entirely different than the way the other guy looked at her. "What brings you to our humble side of town?"
"Oh, I was just in the neighborhood. Out--" She waves her hand in the air. "You know."
He arches an eyebrow at her. "Seeing how the other half lives?"
She takes a step toward him. "Something like that."
"I don't imagine your father would be too happy with this situation."
She tilts her head, drifts nearer still. "But, then, he's not here to see it, is he?"
"A girl like you doesn't belong around here."
Lilly is so close to him now she can feel his heat. "How do you know what kind of girl I am?"
He smiles and puts a hand lightly on her neck, strokes his thumb in a circle over her skin, slides his fingers into her hair, and she thinks he's going to kiss her.
Maybe he even wants to, but he lets his hand fall away and jerks his head toward the door. "Come on."
Lilly can't remember another time when a boy gave her such an unceremonious brush off, and she thinks this may be the most humiliating moment of her life.
Outside, things start to look up again when he gets on his bike, a slow, mounting glide that is more sensual than some actual sex she's had.
He holds out his helmet to her and smiles. "You coming?"
Motorcycles, she thinks as they ride along, must have been invented as a form of foreplay. It's such a perfect excuse to lean against Eli, his leather jacket pressed to her chest, making her sweat. She feels the flex and play of his muscles beneath her hands, and the thrill of speed sings all through her. When they're almost to her house, he does a little zig-zag to impress her, and it's nice to know she hasn't lost her ability to make boys do stupid things.
He lets her off a little up the block from her house, out of sight from her parents if they happen to be watching. A wise precaution, and she feels a pang knowing that he knows it.
"Thanks," she tells him. "That was fun."
He gives her an admiring leer. "The pleasure was all mine. Trust me." Then his eyes go darkly earnest. "But I mean what I say. My side of the tracks is no place for you. I don't want to see you around there again."
"How else will I find you?" she asks with a flirty tilt of her head.
His smile is a slow, sly twist of the lips. "Oh, don't worry, Miss Lilly Kane. I know where to find you."
***
Days go by and nothing happens. Lilly has to wonder why she was depending on obscure promises made in a cloud of motorcycle dust anyway. She tries to tell herself it's all for the best, but the voice in her head has the same suspect tone her mother's does whenever she's arguing Lilly out of something she really wants.
Fifth period, and the day has a ponderous feel, like it's just going to drag on forever. At the chalkboard, Mr. Pratt drones on about states' rights and decisive battles and other Civil War stuff that is so stunningly irrelevant to Lilly's life she doesn't even pretend to listen, whiling away the time drawing lopsided flowers in the margins of her notebook.
The final, excruciating ten minutes are starting to wind down when the door opens, and a slight, nervous looking kid slips into class. He has the frightened animal look of a freshman, and Lilly wonders what he's doing there. Apparently, everyone else is in need of some distraction, too. The whole class stares as the kid takes a note up to the teacher.
Mr. Pratt reads it and nods, and the kid scurries from the room in a cloud of relief.
"Lilly Kane," Mr. Pratt says, glancing her way. "Report to the office, please."
For a moment, Lilly thinks about arguing. She hasn't done anything lately, at least nothing the principal could have found out about. When she considers the alternative though, another torturous few minutes being lectured about Antietam, whatever that is, she gathers up her books and heads for the door. At least trouble isn't boring.
She's rounding the corner of the hall when the door to the janitor's closet flies open, and the next thing she knows she's in the dark. She takes a deep breath to yell, but a hand clamps over her mouth.
A voice murmurs in her ear, "It wouldn't look too good if we got caught in here, so you probably don't want to do that." Eli takes his hand away, and Lilly is about to ask what took him so long when he shuts her up again, this time with his mouth.
Lilly isn't used to being taken off guard. Hell, usually she is the surprise. There's a part of her that gets stuck on this, even as Eli is pushing her shirt up, opening her bra with a well-practiced flick of his thumb. When he puts his mouth on her breast, though, that doubting voice finally shuts up. She lets her head fall back and holds him to her chest and makes a sound that she hopes will encourage him.
"Ssssh," he whispers, breath tickling her, not the best way to keep her quiet.
Guys love Lilly's boobs--and why shouldn't they, Lilly is pretty fond of them herself--but no one has ever paid quite such careful attention to them before. Eli learns them with the pads of his fingers, his lips, the tricky tip of his tongue. Lilly squirms deliciously, rubbing against him wherever she can, sending the message, Touch me, touch me everywhere. She feels his smile on her skin, but he doesn't shove her back against the wall and push up her skirt and push his fingers into her the way she's imagined. There's just the slow, exquisite tease of his mouth on her breasts, before he pulls away and starts to refasten her bra.
Words of protest are about to come spilling out of her when he smiles and says, "Bell's gonna ring in five seconds."
He pulls her shirt back down, smoothes it into place, opens the door, and in the light streaming in from the hall, she sees him wink before he walks away.
She makes it out of the closet just before the entire student body comes streaming into the hall at the last bell of the day. She stalls there, beside somebody else's locker, people crushing past her in their desperate rush for freedom. She isn't out of breath exactly, but she burns everywhere Eli touched her.
And a few places he didn't.
***
Then Lilly was going to pull a surprise of her own, and go to Weevil's house, and they were going to have sex. The next day, she was going to be all nervous that he was going to go around bragging about it, but he only gave her this secret smile, and she had this revelation about her expectations about people. There was going to be another scene with Logan, where their relationship is just the same as it always was, and Lilly was trying to convince herself that one thing had nothing to do with the other. But later, when they were bed, she would touch one of Logan's scars (from his father hitting him), and ask him about it, and he wouldn't tell her. And Weevil always did, this life's history every time she moved her hands over his body.
The big climax of the story, such as it was, would be Lilly sneaking Weevil into her room, and having sex with him there. And the realization that this isn't just sex. Later that day, she has the famous conversation with Veronica--"I've got a secret"--and the secret isn't just that she's involved with Weevil, but that it means something.
Story ends with Lilly in the car, driving back home, thoughts of meeting Weevil later that night on her mind, window down, wind blowing in her face, running a red light, on the way to meet her doom, although she doesn't know it. And it ends with her speeding along, thinking that she's taking off at last.
I could just let it rot on my computer, but it's half finished, damn it! I could wait for
wip_amnesty to dump it. But I'm organizing my files now, and I just feel like letting it go. Goodbye little story idea! You were obsolete before your time.Lilly's Got A Secret
By Lenore
When Lilly was little, she loved to fly. No kid on the playground worked the swings the way she did, head back, legs kicked out, her body a perfect arch, arms pumping and pumping, carrying her higher than everyone else. Her connection to the ground was never more than tenuous at best, and breaking the last of its stingy hold on her was the goal for every recess.
At eight, she hit on the idea of leaping from the top of the jungle gym. She started at the bottom and jumped from each bar as she went, to make her triumph over gravity all the more impressive when it came.
Duncan watched her with a girls-are-so-silly smile as she went "Geronimo!" the first few times. When she got to the fourth bar, though, his expression grew more serious. "You're going to hurt yourself."
She laughed and kept on going, and by the time she'd made it all the way to the top, Duncan looked downright afraid.
"Lilly, don't," he said in a pinched voice.
She smiled down at him, her heart like thunder, and let go, giving herself over to the ether. For one pristine moment, she was soaring, arms spread out wide, the wind rushing in her face. Crashing into the ground was a rude comeuppance for that glimmer of freedom, sending her sprawling backwards into the dirt, rattling her deep in her bones.
Duncan came running. "Lilly!"
She sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I'm okay."
He helped her to her feet. "I can't believe you did that."
"Just don't tell Mom, okay?" Even at eight, she understood that her mother didn't approve of flying.
Duncan got a mulling look on his face, so long that she finally had to poke him. "All right," he said. "But don't do it again."
She smiled and said nothing, because she didn't like lying to her brother, but it was clear he didn't understand about flying either.
***
Neptune is a town of swimming pools, but for the most part, they're just another useless pretense, slate-edged and serpentine, or built to look like tropical lagoons, hardly conducive to serious swimming. The Echolls have the Olympic sense of grandeur everyone else seems to lack, their pool a concrete fantasy of athletic proportions, as if they have every intention of handing out gold medals in their back yard someday.
Lilly stands balanced at the end of the diving board, her back toward the water. She wiggles her toes, flirts closer to the edge, lifts her arms over her head, lets out her breath and catapults herself up against the blue arc of the sky. She twists her body, once, twice, and the sun stings her eyes as she falls back to earth. Her outstretched hands slice smoothly through the water, no splash, a perfect ten if there were judges. Three strong kicks later, and she's at the pool's edge.
Logan is stretched out on a lounge chair, a tumbler of his mother's Scotch on the table next to him, ice melting furiously in the late afternoon sun, leaving behind a watery mess. His expression is hidden behind dark glasses, but there's a softness to his mouth that suggests the possibility of a smile.
She shakes her head like a vigorous puppy, pelting him with water drops.
"Lilly." His tone is playfully menacing, and it makes her laugh.
"Come in," she demands, resting her chin on her hands, staring up at him, all pretty please eyes.
His lips twist into the promised smile, sly and secretive. "I like the view from here."
Lilly tilts her head. "Is that all you want? To watch?"
He takes a sip of his drink. "Do I have a better offer?"
She reaches behind her, undoes her top and tosses it onto the poolside concrete. "Enticed yet?"
"You know we did find people with cameras hiding in the bushes last week."
She moves her hands through the water, watching the pattern of the ripples. "So?"
He still doesn't budge, too lazy or stubborn, and she glides through the water to the ladder on the far side of the pool, climbs out, and poses there like a beauty pageant contender with only half the swimsuit.
Let them take all the pictures they want, she thinks.
Logan shakes his head and gets up languidly, but Lilly knows that glint in his eyes, and she runs laughing as he chases her all the way up to his room.
Upstairs, she gets him on the bed, naked and under her, right where she wants him, but then she suddenly remembers, "Shit! I left my bracelet down at the pool."
"Get it later," Logan murmurs against her neck.
"My grandmother's bracelet," she clarifies. "That I took out of my mother's jewelry box, that I'm 'too irresponsible to be trusted with.'" She rolls her eyes, her reaction to everything her mother says these days, even when it's just playing back in her head. "She'll crucify me if I lose it." She kisses him. "Be right back."
She slips off the bed and heads for the door.
"Lilly." He gives her a pointed look.
She takes a T-shirt off the back of a chair and pulls it over her head, makes a face at him. "Satisfied?"
He lies there smiling, stroking himself, as if to say "not yet," and Lilly laughs all the way downstairs.
She skirts the pool and heads for the lounge chairs, finds her bracelet in her shoe where she left it. She's about to go back inside when an approaching roar makes her stop and turn around. A motorcycle pulls up at the back gate where Rosalita, the Echolls' housekeeper, is waiting. The boy on the motorcycle takes off his helmet, hands Rosalita her purse and darts a quick kiss to the old lady's cheek, making the corners of her eyes crinkle up with happiness.
Rosalita's grandson, and Lilly knows she must have walked past him so many times at school, but in that canyon of cliques, people have a way of falling into your blind spot. It's only out here in the neutral light of the world that she really sees him, and suddenly there's a surge inside her as if a million butterflies have taken flight in her blood.
He gets back on his bike, and if his sideways smile is any indication, he knows perfectly well that she's watching him. He doesn't pause, though, doesn't return her glance, just thunders away, and Lilly stands there as if in a trance, staring at the trail of dust, until Logan's voice comes booming out of the house, jolting her back to herself.
***
It doesn't mean anything. She goes around thinking this for a good week. The oddest things--things she doesn't expect--can knock her sideways sometimes. If they cross paths again, she's sure she'll barely notice him.
The break after fourth period is the busiest time in the school's hallway, kids streaming back from lunch, classes changing, and Lilly and Veronica have to dodge nervous freshman late for phys ed and slackers half-heartedly flipping through their Cliff Notes on the way to English class.
"I don't know what he sees in her," Lilly says. The whole school has been talking about the unlikely match of Randy Wilkerson and Katrina Sawyer, and Lilly and Veronica are no exception. "I mean, what is with that hair? It's like--"
She sees him then, coming down the corridor that leads out to the shop, surrounded by a bunch of his…friends, associates, she's not sure what to call them. They're all wearing leather jackets, like a uniform, and a fuck-you attitude, but his walk is a smooth glide from the hips that makes the rest of them look like amateurs, extras in a remake of the Outsiders. There's a lonely dignity to him, as if he knows a secret about his own value that no one else guesses. Whatever Lilly was going to say about people who don't belong together goes right out of her head.
Veronica laughs at her abrupt disappearance from the conversation. "Earth to Lilly."
Lilly could just pretend she was distracted by sudden, deep thoughts about her nail polish. It's a well-worn excuse, being a ditz.
"Do you ever think about how the other half lives?" she asks.
Veronica follows her gaze. "You mean the half busily auditioning for America's Most Wanted?"
Lilly bumps her shoulder. "Come on. You have to be at least a little curious. It's like this whole other world. I never see them at the places we hang out. What do they do when they're not darkening the halls of Neptune High? Where do they go?"
Veronica shrugs, and it's clear she really doesn't care. "I know my father spends half his time breaking up fights over at their little clubhouse on Calendonia." Veronica stops and looks her in the eye with put-on seriousness. "You're not thinking about joining a gang, are you, young lady?"
"Well---" She tilts her head and pretends to consider. "Maybe I'll just settle for watching from a safe distance."
Veronica nods. "A wise decision. Although…you would look good in leather."
Lilly preens. "I would, wouldn't I?"
***
It really had been just a rhetorical question. Not that Lilly is above using Veronica's convenient ties to law enforcement for her own purposes--she just isn't the kind to think far enough ahead to have planned it.
Sometimes, though, luck just seems to be on her side, everything falling so neatly into place. She puts on a forlorn face when she goes to offer Miss Worley her apologies for missing pep squad practice--stomach cramps, what woman of child-bearing years is going to argue with that?--and manages to sound perfectly casual when she calls her mother to remind her that it's Wednesday and she has to stay after school.
Somewhere on Calendonia may not be the most precise address in the world, but there's no need to search the part of it that runs past the glass-and-chrome boutiques her mother favors. It doesn't take long driving around the seedier side of town to find the falling down house with neat rows of motorcycles glinting in the sun outside.
Lilly gets out of the car and makes herself laugh imagining Duncan's face if he could see her now, picking her way up crumbling concrete steps to the rotting wooden porch. She knocks, but there's no answer. The screened door is half propped open, so she ducks inside. She's about to call out when someone catches her wrist and whirls her around.
His face is pockmarked, hair slicked back from his forehead. A scar splits his mouth. He has a hardened look that makes it impossible to guess his age. Lilly can't be sure he even goes to high school with her until he says, "If it isn't the homecoming queen." His eyes move over her as aggressively as hands. "It's not exactly your side of the tracks around here, sweet thing. What do you want?"
She pulls herself up to her full height, lifts her chin, flashes her best "we're all friends here" smile--she can be her father's daughter at times--and says, "I'm looking for Eli." She can't bring herself to call him by his nickname, refuses to be light-headed over someone named Weevil. "Have you seen him?"
Her public relations bravado is less successful than her father's. Scarface backs her up against the wall, his lip curling wolf-like away from his teeth. "I don't know where he's at right now, but, hey, I'm here. Why don't me and you get to know one another?"
He sniffs at her hair, and his hands keep her from squirming away. She's starting to think that maybe a lack of planning really does have its drawbacks when a voice calls out sharply, "Paco."
Scarface's shoulders go stiff, but he doesn't move away. "I'm just being friendly."
Eli stands there with all the gravity of a statue, his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn't say another word, and the scar-faced gangster doesn't turn around to face him. He just takes his hands off Lilly and slinks away.
Eli gives her a little smile. "So Miss Lilly Kane." His eyes glide appreciatively over her body, and it feels entirely different than the way the other guy looked at her. "What brings you to our humble side of town?"
"Oh, I was just in the neighborhood. Out--" She waves her hand in the air. "You know."
He arches an eyebrow at her. "Seeing how the other half lives?"
She takes a step toward him. "Something like that."
"I don't imagine your father would be too happy with this situation."
She tilts her head, drifts nearer still. "But, then, he's not here to see it, is he?"
"A girl like you doesn't belong around here."
Lilly is so close to him now she can feel his heat. "How do you know what kind of girl I am?"
He smiles and puts a hand lightly on her neck, strokes his thumb in a circle over her skin, slides his fingers into her hair, and she thinks he's going to kiss her.
Maybe he even wants to, but he lets his hand fall away and jerks his head toward the door. "Come on."
Lilly can't remember another time when a boy gave her such an unceremonious brush off, and she thinks this may be the most humiliating moment of her life.
Outside, things start to look up again when he gets on his bike, a slow, mounting glide that is more sensual than some actual sex she's had.
He holds out his helmet to her and smiles. "You coming?"
Motorcycles, she thinks as they ride along, must have been invented as a form of foreplay. It's such a perfect excuse to lean against Eli, his leather jacket pressed to her chest, making her sweat. She feels the flex and play of his muscles beneath her hands, and the thrill of speed sings all through her. When they're almost to her house, he does a little zig-zag to impress her, and it's nice to know she hasn't lost her ability to make boys do stupid things.
He lets her off a little up the block from her house, out of sight from her parents if they happen to be watching. A wise precaution, and she feels a pang knowing that he knows it.
"Thanks," she tells him. "That was fun."
He gives her an admiring leer. "The pleasure was all mine. Trust me." Then his eyes go darkly earnest. "But I mean what I say. My side of the tracks is no place for you. I don't want to see you around there again."
"How else will I find you?" she asks with a flirty tilt of her head.
His smile is a slow, sly twist of the lips. "Oh, don't worry, Miss Lilly Kane. I know where to find you."
***
Days go by and nothing happens. Lilly has to wonder why she was depending on obscure promises made in a cloud of motorcycle dust anyway. She tries to tell herself it's all for the best, but the voice in her head has the same suspect tone her mother's does whenever she's arguing Lilly out of something she really wants.
Fifth period, and the day has a ponderous feel, like it's just going to drag on forever. At the chalkboard, Mr. Pratt drones on about states' rights and decisive battles and other Civil War stuff that is so stunningly irrelevant to Lilly's life she doesn't even pretend to listen, whiling away the time drawing lopsided flowers in the margins of her notebook.
The final, excruciating ten minutes are starting to wind down when the door opens, and a slight, nervous looking kid slips into class. He has the frightened animal look of a freshman, and Lilly wonders what he's doing there. Apparently, everyone else is in need of some distraction, too. The whole class stares as the kid takes a note up to the teacher.
Mr. Pratt reads it and nods, and the kid scurries from the room in a cloud of relief.
"Lilly Kane," Mr. Pratt says, glancing her way. "Report to the office, please."
For a moment, Lilly thinks about arguing. She hasn't done anything lately, at least nothing the principal could have found out about. When she considers the alternative though, another torturous few minutes being lectured about Antietam, whatever that is, she gathers up her books and heads for the door. At least trouble isn't boring.
She's rounding the corner of the hall when the door to the janitor's closet flies open, and the next thing she knows she's in the dark. She takes a deep breath to yell, but a hand clamps over her mouth.
A voice murmurs in her ear, "It wouldn't look too good if we got caught in here, so you probably don't want to do that." Eli takes his hand away, and Lilly is about to ask what took him so long when he shuts her up again, this time with his mouth.
Lilly isn't used to being taken off guard. Hell, usually she is the surprise. There's a part of her that gets stuck on this, even as Eli is pushing her shirt up, opening her bra with a well-practiced flick of his thumb. When he puts his mouth on her breast, though, that doubting voice finally shuts up. She lets her head fall back and holds him to her chest and makes a sound that she hopes will encourage him.
"Ssssh," he whispers, breath tickling her, not the best way to keep her quiet.
Guys love Lilly's boobs--and why shouldn't they, Lilly is pretty fond of them herself--but no one has ever paid quite such careful attention to them before. Eli learns them with the pads of his fingers, his lips, the tricky tip of his tongue. Lilly squirms deliciously, rubbing against him wherever she can, sending the message, Touch me, touch me everywhere. She feels his smile on her skin, but he doesn't shove her back against the wall and push up her skirt and push his fingers into her the way she's imagined. There's just the slow, exquisite tease of his mouth on her breasts, before he pulls away and starts to refasten her bra.
Words of protest are about to come spilling out of her when he smiles and says, "Bell's gonna ring in five seconds."
He pulls her shirt back down, smoothes it into place, opens the door, and in the light streaming in from the hall, she sees him wink before he walks away.
She makes it out of the closet just before the entire student body comes streaming into the hall at the last bell of the day. She stalls there, beside somebody else's locker, people crushing past her in their desperate rush for freedom. She isn't out of breath exactly, but she burns everywhere Eli touched her.
And a few places he didn't.
***
Then Lilly was going to pull a surprise of her own, and go to Weevil's house, and they were going to have sex. The next day, she was going to be all nervous that he was going to go around bragging about it, but he only gave her this secret smile, and she had this revelation about her expectations about people. There was going to be another scene with Logan, where their relationship is just the same as it always was, and Lilly was trying to convince herself that one thing had nothing to do with the other. But later, when they were bed, she would touch one of Logan's scars (from his father hitting him), and ask him about it, and he wouldn't tell her. And Weevil always did, this life's history every time she moved her hands over his body.
The big climax of the story, such as it was, would be Lilly sneaking Weevil into her room, and having sex with him there. And the realization that this isn't just sex. Later that day, she has the famous conversation with Veronica--"I've got a secret"--and the secret isn't just that she's involved with Weevil, but that it means something.
Story ends with Lilly in the car, driving back home, thoughts of meeting Weevil later that night on her mind, window down, wind blowing in her face, running a red light, on the way to meet her doom, although she doesn't know it. And it ends with her speeding along, thinking that she's taking off at last.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 07:48 pm (UTC)I'm sorry your story got jossed (or maybe the appropriate term would be robbed, for this fandom!), but maybe you'll be able to write in vmars between seasons, when things aren't going at such a breakneck pace canon-wise?
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Date: 2005-12-08 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-04 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 10:00 pm (UTC)