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VM fic: Interference 1/3 (Veronica, Lilly, Logan, Ensemble) PG13

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:21:06 GMT

Fic: Interference 1/3 (Veronica, Lilly, Logan, Ensemble) PG13

Title: Interference 1/3
Author: Kaze
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Lilly, Logan, Ensemble
Word Count: ~3,300
Rating: PG 13
Summary: sequel to ‘Finger in my pie’ (which you should read to get this one). Veronica gets drawn back into the Kane troubles. One in particular. AU future fic.
Spoilers: Season 1. But AU pre-series.
Warnings:
A/N: I just couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to continue this baby. I hope I can measure up again to the level I set myself with FimP.
As always, thanks to the wonderful fickledame and blue_icy_rose for their beta work.

Being an office aide for a big company must be the most boring job in the world. Unluckily, it is mine for the time being. I rotate in my desk chair, blowing away the hair that has fallen loose from my ponytail and wait – rather impatiently – for something to do. I could use a mental challenge right now, but I’m not greedy, I’d settle for making coffee if it got me out of this stupid chair for five minutes.

Suddenly, a blurred shape leans over my desk. I stop the chair and recognize Chelsea, the arrogant executive assistant of the first floor, who keeps treating me as if I were her personal secretary. Just fucking great.

“Finish up those visitor passes and get them to me by two p.m.,” she bitches. Yes, milady, very good, milady.

The visitor passes to the company are a thing of pure evil. Cards the size of a credit card, they are equipped with a magnetic stripe and a chip that allows security to track every single step of their visitors, feed them for free in the canteen and allow access to restricted areas based on a profile. The evil part? They are to be encased in plastic clip-on cases that has to be cut open so that the cards can be put inside. More than one first aid kit was opened because of those cases.

Still, I smile when taking out my scissors. I was asking for something to do and bingo. I use all my force to try and cut the case open, but, of course, I slip and the tip of the scissor … stabs directly into the chip of one of the visitor passes. Just perfect.

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This is my first time to security after my initial check when I started the job. I don’t recognize the guy watching the row of surveillance screens, but he doesn’t look as if he’s had a date since his last girlfriend had a hole and all the air got out. I should be able to make this work…

“Hi, um, sorry, can you help me?” I ask, putting on my best puppy eyes combined with a shy smile. The guy blinks and stares, then suddenly jumps up and is at the counter in the blink of a second. Go, me.

“Yeah, yes, sure. Uh, what can I do for you?” he asks in return, smoothing out the wrinkles in his pants.

“I accidentally went all chainsaw massacre on one of the visitor passes I was supposed to finish up, so I need a replacement,” I said, smiling sweetly.

“No problem, sure. I just need the form and you’re set,” he replies eagerly. I gnaw on my bottom lip, staring at him worriedly.

“See, there’s the problem. I don’t have the authorization to request a new pass. And if I go to my boss to sign the paper, I’ll get fired. You see, she doesn’t like me, she’s just waiting for an excuse to get rid of me. Can you, I don’t know, just give me a new one without the form?”

“I, uh, I really can’t do that,” he stammers and I gnaw my thumbnail as tears start to well up in my eyes. He’s staring at me, panicked that I might lose it, then looks around the room. I think I’ve won.

“Okay, okay,” he whispers, although there’s no one around but us. “But you absolutely can’t tell anybody, okay?”

I squeal and jump up to hug him over the counter as repayment and he blushes.

“Totally, I swear to God,” I say and make a zipper motion over my lips. Blushing guy stares at me for another second, then, obviously distraught, takes out a box from a locked cabinet that contains blank passes. He takes one out and heads for a backroom.

“I just have to encode this one. I’ll be back in a minute,” he says, walking backwards towards the door.

I mouth ‘thank you’ and give him another brilliant smile and he blushes even more. As soon as he’s gone, I try the cabinet. He didn’t lock up again. Score. I find the off switch for the cameras, grab a blank card and get to work.

Blushing guy returns exactly two minutes and 41 seconds later and hands me the card. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice that I’m out of breath. The missing two minutes on the security tapes can be explained with a power glitch. I smile to myself as I leave the company that night for the last time, my camera full of pictures of their newest top secret development, and nobody having any clues that their ideas just left the building.

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As I open the door to my office, I’m instantly greeted with a chipper voice.

“Mars Investigations, how can I help you?” my assistant practically sings into the receiver. I smile as I wave at him and enter my office, closing the door behind me. Investigative reporting might have been my first love, but the P.I. business simply paid better. Especially considering my sideshow stints, like the last one, into industrial espionage.

After a short knock, my assistant pokes his head in, not bothering to wait for a reply.

“Your 4 o’clock just cancelled”, he says while handing me my mail. “Oh, and there was a call from…”.

“I come bearing gifts,” an annoying voice interrupts in an overly-cheery tone from the anteroom, dragging the ‘i’ into a singsong. I roll my eyes and Wallace shoots me a sympathetic smile, just as Lilly barges into my office, balancing a multitude of shopping bags and a donut carton that precariously tilts to the side. Wallace instinctively grabs the carton and puts it in the relative safety of my cluttered desk.

“Oh, you’re so sweet, I could dress you up and carry you around in my purse,” Lilly exclaims and pinches Wallace’s cheek. He just shakes his head and moves away.

“I’ll leave you two ladies alone,” he says and closes the door behind him.

“Rowr,” Lilly says with a feral grin. “I could go for him as a secretary.”

“Assistant,” I correct automatically. Then, with a distinct look at the bags: “Weren’t you supposed to be job hunting?”

“You wouldn’t imagine what’s considered proper work attire these days. I practically had to renew my whole wardrobe! But look at this, isn’t this adorable?” Lilly cooed over a very tiny, very flimsy schoolgirl outfit that only resembled an office outfit in the tie hanging around its neck.

“Lilly,” I said as sternly as I could. “ You do remember that you don’t have any money, don’t you?”

You wonder how this came to pass? How Lilly ended up sans credit card and I her reluctant keeper? Well, it seems trouble for me always starts with the ringing of the phone…

I never learn. Seriously, Veronica, you should check the caller ID even if you are preoccupied and stressed out and you can’t tear your eyes from your screen. You never know when your half-sister /ex-best-friend might call. And here I thought I had left the Kane drama behind after my glorious exit off of an almost moving plane into the (not really, but I like to think so) waiting arms of Lilly’s ex. Isn’t that what you call sense of family?

But as it is, I never learn, which led to an uncomfortable (on my part) phone conversation with Lilly and me giving in to her whining (again). Which led to me accompanying Lilly on her furniture hunt. Yes, it’s official. Lilly Kane, eldest daughter of software mogul Jake Kane and wild child of the family decided to move out of the comfy family villa. My heart is virtually breaking.

Too bad that Lilly is absolutely nonviable on her own, as well as all her high society friends, which is why she turned to the only fully fledged girl she knew – me. Leave it to Lil to copy my grand escape.

Of course, Lilly hadn’t counted on either the price or the time of delivery for furniture. And she also hadn’t considered that credit cards only work as long as someone is paying for them. Which is how I ended up on the middle of the floor of Lilly’s new one room apartment, surrounded by ominous parts of Swedish furniture and an instruction sheet with many funny pictures but no actual information on it.

Considering the circumstances, my newly-escaped half-sister was as cheery as can be, excitedly digging through the cartons and packages, making an even bigger chaos.

“This is gonna be so awesome! No more Celeste cramping my style. I’m so gonna rock this!” she said with glowing cheeks. I looked at my hands for a while.

“You owe me two thousand dollars for the furniture,” I said, then got up and left. When I returned the next day, Lilly had already charmed her neighbour into setting up all the stuff she bought with my money. That’s Lilly Kane for you.

“… this would be a total blast. Come on, V, you know you need me here. We could be like Charlie’s Angels, we just have to find some butch boots for Wallace.”

What? What the hell have I missed here during my trip down memory lane?

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yeah, real subtle, Mars. But I couldn’t help it, I felt fear creeping up my spine.

“You know I need this job, Veronica, I can’t do anything else. My only alternative is writing a book about my cockface of a father who was willing to kill me to save his pathetic little existence and do the talk show and PR angle. I don’t want to end up like this, Veronica. Some washed-up has-been in my twenties. I can only be a celebrity as long as I don’t need to be one. I can’t let myself be that… cheap.” Lilly looked me straight in the eye, all signs of her chipper mood gone.

I could feel my mouth hanging open and shut it with an audible click. I wasn’t used to an earnest Lilly. And she did have a point. Compared to celebrities like Paris Hilton and such, who only lived off of her famous name (okay, and the family wealth), Lilly had one advantage: class. If she lost that she might as well scratch ‘fabulousness’ off of her flag, relish her fifteen minutes and disappear into oblivion, with the obligatory desperate tries to hold onto her former fame. Unbidden, a picture of Trina Echolls rose before my inner eyes and I knew I couldn’t let it get that far, no matter how much I still blamed Lilly for the decisions she made as a teenager.

But she had somehow proven herself better than those vapid girls when she made a stand against our father after I had revealed his schemes, hadn’t she? No matter how half-baked her plan had been. Oh God, I couldn’t actually be considering…

“Wallace has a surveillance job tonight. I assume you could tag along and see what you can learn. But remember: he’s in charge and you’re the apprentice,” I finished in a stern voice.

Lilly squealed and clapped her hands.

“You’re not gonna regret this, V!” Lilly jumped up and was around my desk to hug me within the blink of an eye. Yeah, sure….

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There were some advantages in my line of work. Like a certain… experience in breaking and entering. No matter where the target checked in, I could track them. And I could get into every hotel room I wanted. Be it by simply charming the concierge or complicated lock picking complete with a stealthy entrance and elaborate costumes.

This hotel room was no different and I couldn’t contain my grin as I slipped inside, not turning on the lights in case they’d be visible under the door crack.

‘Mmm, tasteful,’ I thought as I ran my gloved fingers appreciatively over supple leather and polished marble. The room was tidy, giving away no signs of life except for a closed suitcase in the corner, next to a wardrobe that I didn’t have to check to know was empty. The whole place was anonymous and cold. I knew I had found the right room. With a sly grin, I made my way to the bathroom.

About one hour later, my skin was already shrivelled from the hot water and the candles had almost burned down. Then, I heard the lock click and a tall shadow appeared in the bathroom doorframe.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here? And I thought this would be a safe hotel for once,” Logan drawled and I felt shivers running down my spine despite the steaming hot water.

“Naaah,” I replied and scrunched my nose up in that way I knew he couldn’t resist while sliding deeper into the tub.

“Did the bellboy fall hopelessly in love with you or did you manage to get in without breaking too many hearts this time?” he asked while casually striding closer and crouching down next to the tub. He ran a careless hand through the bubbly water, as if testing the temperature.

“Do you care?” I shot back, rising one eyebrow in challenge. I had to act quickly, while I was still on my adrenaline and victory-induced high. Just like the smart boy he was, Logan got the drift and pulled me out of the bathtub with one swift motion and carried me to the bedroom.

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I knew that I wasn’t being fair. I was hiding behind the truths I had revealed, wrapping them around me like a blanket while I let myself curl up in a dark corner of my mind. I offered Logan some crumbs, a meaningless shadow of what could be, all because I knew that he would never, could never push me.

The tale of my lost innocence had shocked him deeper than he let on and every twitch of mine, every flicker of possible panic in my eyes made him pull back in an attempt to soothe me. He willingly lived off the meagre crumbs I offered while lavishing me with a feast of his attention. I couldn’t help the feeling of relief, of breathing easy when he surrendered all that power to me.

As I said, I knew that I wasn’t being fair.

After what had happened with Jake’s PR gig gone wrong, I had noticed one thing. I thrived on adrenaline. Or rather, I thrived on the feeling of power when I outsmarted someone. The rush of perfect exhilaration, the excitement that vibrated through my nerves. It was the only way I could let go of my inhibitions and give my body freely. When I wasn’t Veronica Mars, victim, but Sydney Bristow, spy extraordinaire, or Catwoman, the feline villain. I was a thief, a spy, a hero, a con-woman, whatever gave me the necessary rush. Most of all, I was a seductress.

So, yeah, Logan did get something out of our arrangement. More than anyone before him ever had. But I knew I couldn’t give him what he wanted. Hell, it was an effort on my side to stay until sunrise, let alone have breakfast with him. Slowly, I became comfortable with staying even after the rush had worn off, talking to him some, maybe even letting him hold me while doing so. I knew it wasn’t enough for him, enough of a commitment from my side. Sometimes, things were tense, when I could tell that he had trouble holding back, when his temper was getting the best of him and when I was feeling especially squirmy and thrumming with the need to just breathe.

Tonight wasn’t like one of those nights. Tonight, Logan laughed so hard that my head bounced off his chest when I told him about hiring Lilly.

“Like you weren’t a sucker for her puppy look,” I grumbled half good-naturedly, half annoyed at him for thinking my decision was that ridiculous. Which I knew it was. Damn it.

“Oh, I can just imagine her work ethics. ‘Well, Mr Smith. Do you really want to find out if your wife’s cheating on you? I mean, where’s the fun in that? You should so totally pay her back’,” he simpered in a falsetto, complete with a wink and puckered lips. I hit him on the chest, even though I couldn’t suppress a grin at his performance.

“Dork,” I said and he kissed the tip of my nose, “I think she really means it this time. She was … desperate.”

“Let’s not talk about Lilly,” Logan mumbled, his face buried in my neck.

“I should go,” I whispered, a little breathless. His grip on my hips tightened for an eye blink.

“Don’t,” he said. I complied.

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The next morning, I was in a bad mood when I entered the office. The sun was too bright and my shades too cheap to really protect my eyes and the loud music blaring from the office really didn’t help my headache. I let myself in through the glass entrance door to see Lilly, in the shortest skirt I’d ever seen, dancing to some disgustingly cheery music while filing away a batch of manila folders. I let the door slam close to alert her of my presence. And state of mind.

Lilly looked up and brightened immediately.

“V! Hello! You won’t believe it! I was sooo awesome yesterday. Wallace even let me take the money shot!” Lilly jumped up and down and probably would have hugged me to join her if I hadn’t extended my arm to keep her away.

“Yeah, okay, where is Wallace anyway,” I asked.

“He just left to have the pictures from last night developed,” Lilly replied, all chatty.

“Coffee,” I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose. Lilly’s face fell.

“You forgot,” I whined. Wallace always had a coffee ready for me when I arrived. He wouldn’t have forgotten to tell her.

“I’m sorry, I thought I had some more time before you arrived. We can get one right now,” she added hopefully. With a sigh, I picked up my bag again and made for the door, Lilly on my heels.

The sun attacked me again in full force as soon as I left the office building. Lilly linked arms with me and dragged me towards the coffee shop on the opposite side of the street while I tried in vain to focus my sight again. Suddenly, I felt a shiver on my spine and the fine hair on my neck stood up. I had an intense feeling of being watched and I whirled around, just as we’d reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street. I’d forgotten all about Lilly, who, caught by surprise, was pulled around in a half circle around me by the force of my turn. She stumbled and caught herself on the hood of a parked car, mere moments before she’d have fallen on the floor.

“What the hell, Veronica?” Lilly yelled, but I barely heard her. My eyes were fixed on the roof of my office building, where I would bet I’d just seen a shadow, although I couldn’t be sure thanks to the glaring sun. Confused and feeling just a little bit sick, I turned around, just to stop short all over again. In the parked car next to me, right where we would have been had I not whirled us around, was a perfect little hole in the body. And it was still smoking.

Tbc

A/N2: Feedback is very welcome, constructive criticism is cherished.

Random, VM and NYC

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:04:42 GMT

Yesterday, I realized that there are two expressions I really love. 'Whatever, bitch' and 'piece of shit'. I'm not sure what kind of person that makes me, but I just love the sound of those. Especially, when Olga says 'Piece of shit' in that fake snobbish voice, it's hilarious! It's strange I haven't used them in fics already...
Well, the stuff you think about when spending almost 5 hours stuck in a car in a snow chaos.
Today's Michi's birthday and I sent her a hilarious greeting card ;P And I came as close to one of my favorites as I could get, by wishing her a 'happy birthday, bitch!' ;P
Anyway, fanfic. I finally continued the 'finger in my pie' sequel and got a bit further along. I'm wondering whether I should make it a one shot or multi-parter... hm
I also had a new WIP idea, but I'm not sure if I can pull it off alone... we'll see. But I love the idea, full of mystery, twists and turns. Yummy.
Another random and strange thing: today was the first time I realized that Francis Capra actually is in the season 3 credits. Well, I guess JD always made me swoon and I blinked when Francis came on *shrugs*

On to the rest of the NYC tale:

Jan 2, we finally, finally made it to the Empire State. Since the sign at the entrance said it was only 1,5 hrs waiting time (before, it had always been 2 hrs + when we passed) we decided to go in. Well, the sign lied. So, after 4 hours of royally sucking waiting time in a place you weren't allowed to at least sit on the floor for fire regulations, we made it to the observatory. What a letdown. Okay, so you get to see the city from above, Whoohoo. All I saw was dirty roofs with AC or water reservoirs on it. The skyline from a boat is sooo much better.
When we left again, it was already mid-afternoon and we were hungry. We found a Pizza place (haha...) and had some rather mediocre pizza...
After that, we decided to stop by Madison Square Garden, okay, not much to see, but well... and then went on to the United Nations. This was my highlight of the day so far. First, I love the building even though it may not seem that impressive. Second, I got to sing the national anthem under our flag. Heh. Third, they have a great view on the riverside. But the most important reason is fourth, the meditation room. I first read about this room in Katherine Neville's 'Eight', my favorite book ever. I read it about 10 times. So, seeing this room for real... it was awesome.
The sun was already setting when we left so we hurried back to the hotel to change and went to see Rent, w00tw00t! I'm not sure if we were extreme assholes, but when we arrived at the theater, there was a big line that we simply bypassed. We didn't know if it was for tickets or the line of people with tickets, so we went passed and entered without having to wait.
The show was awesome! At first, I was bummed when Roger came on stage, because I had wanted to see Cary Shields so much. But the new Roger? Has a VOICE, people! His tunes alone made me swoon, and I soon forgot that he so didn't look like Roger ^_- Mark was amazing, as well as Mimi and Maureen. The only one that didn't sit right with me was Collins. He had a good voice and everything... I guess it was the looks. What was really annoying was that some guy in the row behind me had to comment everything that happened on stage. >_< That made me so mad, but he just wouldn't shut up. Also, 3 cellphones rang. Why can't people just shut their damn phones off? Otherwise, the show was amazing.
We were very tired when it was over, so we grabbed a small bite and returned to the hotel. We had to get up early the next day, because...
...we started January 3 with a morning helicopter flight! This was great for many reasons. First, the security guy was so funny! He teased Tobi mercilessly about traveling with 2 girls, then told him that we're gonna leave him soon when Tobi admitted to already being broke ;P Also, the flight itself was amazing. Not so much for the view, mostly for the flying itself. I'm not much of a plane fan. I'm not afraid of flying or anything, I just have no passion for it. But flying in a heli is totally different! Being able to stay still in the air must be the coolest feeling ever! I want to take heli flying lessons!!!
The next stop was the big lady herself. Also, much better from afar. The statue had looked quite impressive when we had circled her on the boat, but close up, not so much... At least we found some great pictures in battery park that we bought. That night, we met Olga again at Macy's, where we got some make-up. Michi actually wanted to buy the gloves she'd seen, but they were out of stock in her size. After Macy's, we went to Victoria's Secret. They had a sale going on and it was packed. Also, unorganized, which I hate in a store. We were disappointed and left again ;P Then Olga took us over the Brooklyn Bridge by the Subway and we had a great view of the skyline again!
We were all pretty beaten and headed home then. We planned to meet up the next day, the day of our departure, for a Central Park carriage ride. We could have quoted Gambit and Rogue ;)
Sadly, the next morning I called the shuttle service and they only had one slot for us, which was at 10.50 (our plane left at 4.50). So we had to cancel the carriage ride, which really sucked because I had wanted to see more of Central Park.
Also, Olga couldn't make it in time and we had to say our goodbyes over the phone. I just really really hope she can come over soon or we can go back to NYC sometime again. It was great to finally meet her in person and I wanted it to go on, damnit!
So, yes, we left early on the shuttle bus and spent 6 hours in the airport. Also, by then, we were all sick with a cold and feeling awful. I had a headache and a light fever on the plane and couldn't get to sleep even though I was exhausted. The stop in Amsterdam was even worse, because we had to wait about 2 hours for our connecting flight and couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep some. We arrived home at about 9 am, neither having slept any in too long a time. Luckily, Michi's parents were there to pick her up and they dropped us off at home even though it was out of their way.
We went to bed almost instantly, but unlike Tobi, I couldn't sleep much, which carried on the whole weekend. So, I couldn't get over my cold as quick as he did, and spent one week really sick and another feeling better but not well. That was a sucky end to a great experience. Still, let's go again!

New York Part 2

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:52:16 GMT

Yes, I'm finally going to finish my NYC tales ;P
After some memory-triggering....

January 1 was the only day with bad weather we had on our trip. It was drizzling, cold and foggy. Since the weather would be disturbing on any of the plans we had left for the trip, we decided to not care and go downtown to see some more of the city. First, we went to Greenwich, which was a welcome break from the skyscrapers. Still, I liked Soho a lot more, whcih is where we went after. Soho, for me, was that image of New York I recognized from movies and series when something wasn't about the skyline. The red brick houses and fire escape stair were really charming. Afterwards, we went to Chinatown, which sucked... You couldn't do a single step without beind accosted: 'DVDs', 'Purses', 'Backrubs',...
We decided pretty soon to call our downtown exploration off and return to the hotel so we could change (we were wet, despite our umbrellas). We went by Grand Central, which was also on our list of things to see. They had a lightshow going on for the holidays, which was nice enough.
Back in the hotel, Michi and Tobi went for some Subways and Olga arrived with her boyfriend while they were gone. She brought some wine and pastries, but we decided to go out some more, before we spent the rest of the day holed up.
We went towards 5th Avenue, our first stop, the Apple store. Despite its architecture, it doesn't have much to offer, though. Sadly, the famous toys shop next to it was closed, so we continued on down the 5th. When we were inside the Trump Tower, Olga's boyfriend had to leave, so it was just the four of us for the rest of the night.
We went to Times Square, desperately looking for a place to grab some pizza, since Olga had told me so much about the amazing NYC pizza ;P
Well, we couldn't find any and ended up at the hotel again, having a glass of wine before Olga had to leave.

TBC...

Home sweet home

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:16:03 GMT

So, I spent New Year's in New York City and I have to record my itinerary before I forget everything ;P
But first things first:

There's one thing I really hate about christmas. Suddenly, I get emails from people I haven't talked to all year, with best wishes and such and expecting an answer. I know that it's probably all well-meant and such, but what the hell? What is so special about that day that people send mass emails to everybody they've ever met? Okay, this had probably a lot to do with me being in no particular holiday mood, but this was really annoying.
Okay, so christmas wasn't really my thing this year. I had lots of work trouble in November and December and was simply stressed out. I was on business trips a lot, up to five days a week, which was really annoying.
Also, I've been brooding again recently, about what I want to do in life and where I'm headed. I have some new options, job-wise, which made me think about what job I would love and I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing anymore...
Also, my 5 hours chats with Olga made me think about what I want to do with my life in general, and since neither Superhero nor Space-Adventurer are realistic job-options, I have to figure something out and soon.
So, all of this meddled with my lack of christmas spirit and led to this version of the Grinch.

On with:

I was really, really looking forward our trip to NYC. Actually, it wasn't really my plan to spend New Year's there. Michi and I had wanted to travel there for years, but it was always either inconvenient or too expensive or whatever. Then we finally settled on late November / early December 2006, do some christmas shopping. But then Tobi said that he wants to go away with my for New Year's. And I simply couldn't afford two vacations so close to each other. So, the three of us decided to kill two birds with one stone and go to NYC for New Year's.
My brother picked Tobi and me up at 3 am on Dec 28 to drive us to the airport. There, we met Michi at around 4 am. We checked in and had breakfast first ;P Michi was really nervous about the flight, but we managed to distract her with stupid stories on the first flight to Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam, we transferred and were on our way to the Big Apple, and Michi was much less panicked in the big plane.
I had actually planned to sleep some on the plane, but I couldn't, so I ended up watching loads of movies or playing some of the games they had in their entertainment system. We were all pretty beaten when we landed, but it was only noon in NY (stupid time lag). We had to wait some time for our shuttle to arrive and were then stuck in our first and only taste of a NYC traffic jam.
After arriving at the hotel, I phoned Olga and we made plans to meet the next day, had some sandwiches and went to bed at 6.30 pm ;P
My first impressions of NYC were sort of disappointing. My dad had always told me about his first trip there and how he felt like a little farmboy there. I didn't really share that sentiment. It's a city like every other, just a bit bigger, and the skyscrapers weren't that impressive to me. But it was noisy (mostly firefighters' sirens) and dirty.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, which was really expensive but also so very good. We then waited for Olga to arrive, but she had overslept. So we met two hours later and went to the Rockefeller Center to look at the EXTREMELY ugly but still famous christmas tree. The place was packed, so we decided to leave real quick and went to Saks, then to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art). This was really great, because you could see art of pretty much everything in there. We saw some Medieval Armor and Japanese Armor there, that was really fascinating.
And I finally met my Olga! Actually, meeting Olga was one of my foremost reasons for wanting to go to NYC and it was great to finally seeing her in person after years of chatting and emailing. We spent the day talking about every possible topic, walking around the museum, occasionally even glancing at some artwork ;P
We finished with some great Thai food and I got 'Watchmen' from a comic book store at Union Square and even scored Lost season 2 DVDs. But, stupid me, I didn't realize that there was a tiny heater on the floor in the Thai space and melted my DVDs >_< Well, just the case, the DVDs themselves seem okay, but the case (that I had just bought, damnit!) was very dented. Argh!

The next day, Dec 30, though, Olga wasn't feeling good because she'd been dressed too lightly on our day out. So, Michi, Tobi and I were on our own, which was also okay, so that I could talk to them some more.
We went to Macy's first, but this, as well, was sort of disappointing because it's not really different from the shops at home, just (again) bigger. The Empire State Building was packed, so we decided to return another day. In the afternoon, we did a boattour, which was great. We drove down the Hudson River, around the Financial District in the south of Manhattan and up the East River. On the tour back, we also did a little detour to the Statue of Liberty while the sun was setting, which was a captivating sight. The tourguide was really great and managed to impress everybody on the ship with his stories and even though I'm normally not that easily touched, he managed to send shivers down my spine with his tales.
We finished the day with a disgusting dinner at the Burger King (I wouldn't have thought that Fastfood would taste that bad in the land of it's origin).

New Year's Eve, Dec 31: We got up REAL early to get on our bustour. I was feeling especially crappy, though I don't really know why. The bus took us first to uptown Manhattan, Harlem and the Central Park. All of which weren't that impressive. Sorry, I don't care which celebrity du jour lives where. Then, we went to Ground Zero and stopped for frigging 45 minutes to look at a construction scene that was really creepy. I mean, they're still finding bodies there, but they're already building something new on top of a graveyard?
By then, my back was really hurting and I was happy when the bus drove on. We drove past Battery Park and finally stopped again in Midtown in the afternoon. We took a walk in the Theater District, stopping by 42 street and the Merriot Hotel with it's famous restaurant 'the View', which was closed for the public for the night (hotel guests only). By then, the police had already started to blockade the area around Times Square, but we managed a peek into the M&M store there. We decided to go for Korean Barbecue that night, but couldn't find Little Korea again... My back was getting worse by the minute and I could barely stand up anymore. So Michi and Tobi went on alone and I returned to the hotel to lie down some. We were supposed to meet up with Olga later that night, around 1.30 or something, so it was just the three us us for dinner and a hotel room crashing party with Olga later.
Michi and Tobi came back some time later with a Korean BBQ reservation (YAY!) and some party groceries to pick me up for dinner. We went to the Korean place around 9 pm. Korean BBQ is really one of the greatest experiences I had with cuisine experiments. We had shrimps and beef and some side-dishes that I mostly can't name. Ohh, tasty.
Afterwards, we walked around some but couldn't find a place anywhere. All bars were either closed for private parties or demanded and entry fee we couldn't or wouldn't afford. In the end, we ended up on Herald Square, a couple of streets down from Times Square and watched the fireworks with a small group of people there. 5 minutes after midnight, everybody left and we also headed back. New Year's is really not the same there...
In the hotel, Olga called to inform us that she was too drunk to come over anymore ;P So, beaten as we were, we went to bed. That was really one of the lamest New Year's Eves ever, but I guess it was our fault for getting up so early and not making advance plans that could actually be realized... Oh well.

Welcome 2007! The rest will have to wait for another entry, my fingers are bleeding... ;)

Update

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 16:46:13 GMT

I've been pretty absent from anything LJ-related lately. I'm really sorry. I know I owe some feedback and some stories, and I intend to deliver, honestly! Life's just been crazy lately, and I definitely miss the train rides, where I was most prolific. But the car is so much faster...
I've been working on a new story, a sequel to 'Finger in my pie', the next chapter of 'Ask me no secrets' (Yes! I know!) and (at least 'plot-in-my-head-wise') on a one-shot sequel to 'Black Veil'. Also, I put my VM-training in use and finally updated one of my old X-Men-fics, which is archived at fanfiction.net (http://www.fanfiction.net/~kazerogue).

Oh, and I'm very much in love with VM's season 3! I know that I'm pretty much alone with this opinion, but I love, love, love it. And I love Veronica. Yes, I really do. She's a bitch, but she's the same bitch as in season 1, where I fell in love with her. I felt just like 'back in the days', during the second half of season one, when I couldn't watch VM without a buzz and was incoherent for the next 2 days.

In other news, I'll go to New York City for New Year's! I'll spend seven days there and I'll finally get to meet my dear Astrid, X-Men fics editor extraordinaire and all around great friend. I'm really excited!

VM fic: Where to run without my sneakers? (Veronica, Ensemble, PG13) Prologue

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:34:18 GMT

I didn't think I'd get it done, but here it is, my entry for the 'Where in the world is Veronica Mars' challenge. I wished I had more than the prologue, but well.. better this than nothing. I hope I'll get part 1 done soon.

Title: Where to run without my sneakers? (Veronica, Ensemble, PG 13), Prologue
Author: Kaze
Characters: Ensemble, Veronica POV
Word Count: 1,760
Spoilers: none
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: None (in this chapter)
Summary: Completely AU. Veronica grew up in East Germany and got caught in political tidings that changed her whole life. Written for the ‘Where in the world is Veronica Mars’ challenge. My prompt was ‘Germany’. Go figure.
Disclaimer: VM and its characters belong to Rob Thomas.
A/N: First, many thanks to fickledame and blue_icy_rose for their super-speed beta work and for encouraging me to post this. Second, many thanks to Mizu, my dasq-team partner in crime, who provided me with inside info about life in the GDR.

Vocabulary: ‘Stasi’ is a colloquial acronym for the ministry of ‘Staatssicherheit’, a secret police that pursued political crimes in the GDR.

The harsh light of the desk lamp made her squint. She would have laughed at the cliché, had the situation allowed it. As it was, she simply stared at the woman opposite her, refusing to let light in her eyes disturb the directness of her look. She noticed all the little details of the woman shuffling her papers – a curse of the life she’d lead so far – pin-striped business suit, short dark haircut, thin-rimmed glasses. All screaming ‘take me seriously and forget I have a vagina’. She smirked to herself, a slight uplifting of one corner of her mouth, almost unperceivable and certainly unexpected considering the thin line there that indicated her usual expression was not one of mirth.

“You are aware that I have to record this?” the suit asked and she inclined her head in silent affirmation. The suit presses a button on her recorder and the farce begins.

“June 3, 2006. This is Assistant District Attorney Katherine Baker speaking on case number 13908-YF. Please state your name for the record.” The suit speaks in careful neutrality, not letting on about her personal thoughts on the case.

The woman in the ripped jeans and washed out shirt leans forward, then hesitates. This is not the time to say the name she is accustomed to by now. For this, she has to use the name of the girl she was seventeen years ago.

“Veronika Mars,” she says, deliberately pronouncing it the harsh, German way, so very much unlike the softer ‘Veronica’ she’s used to now. If the suit’s surprised, she doesn’t show it.

“Please tell me what lead to the events of February 22,” she says in a clinical voice.

Veronica leans back in her chair.

“That’s quite a long story,” she says, slouching into the armrest.

“I have time,” the suit replies, keeping a straight face.

******************************************************************

I should maybe start with explaining that I lived in the GDR, the east of Germany, which used to be under the USSR’s hegemony. You might not believe me, but I lived a normal life as a teenager, watching TV, doing some sports, obsessing over stars or clothes or wondering if my new skirt made me look fat.

Life was good until my mom decided that it wasn’t good enough for her. She decided that she deserved to live in the golden west. Where everything is brighter, shinier and all around greater. At least that’s what she thought. I don’t know if she made it past the wall or what happened to her on the other side in case she did. I just know that she forgot to mention her plans to Dad or me.

That night, our house was raided.

They found nothing, of course. Dad was a firm believer in the system, you know? A cop, but a good, a decent one. Not one of those Stasi guys. He was adamant about not sneaking around the interdictions, like watching West-TV.

I had to go to my friend’s house to get my dose. You know what the first West-TV-show was that I saw? The West German version of ‘the Price is Right’. They had a Dutch presenter, some Harry Wijnvoord. Well, this was quite a letdown.

Anyway, my dad wouldn’t have allowed anything opposing the system in our house, so their search remained fruitless. But from then on, he was on their watch list. We didn’t know that of course, or he might have been more careful.

One of his co-workers was a snitch. He used one thoughtless comment to get my father arrested. As if he weren’t loyal to the regime. My father believed in socialism, but that never bothered anybody.

I never saw him again.

This is how I came to live with my best friend, Lilly, for the short months until the fall of the wall. You wouldn’t have pegged Lilly for politically interested, but in fact, she was an activist. She wanted to get out from under Honecker’s, the GDR’s state president, thumb so bad. She wanted to be free to express her opinion without fear. I never got that until later, when it was too late.

Back then, I didn’t understand the way Lilly did. I went to demos with her, for sure, but never for the cause. It was a teenage rebellion thing, a great ‘fuck you’ in the face of the people who had taken my dad away.

When we were reunited with the West of Germany, I thought ‘why not?’ but Lilly was disappointed. She’d aimed, like most others, for a sovereign state and not having yet another belief system pulled over our heads.

Those were confusing times. Suddenly, everything that came natural to us wasn’t worth a dime anymore. Our clothes weren’t good enough, our food wasn’t good enough, everything you were used to suddenly disappeared and was replaced by goods from the West. It was no wonder that some of us snapped…

“Vera,” Lilly yelled, dragging on the ‘e’ for additional effect. I could tell that she was annoyed. “Come on, dumbass, we’re late!”

I stumbled out of my room, dragging up the zipper of my boots. “Coming,” I said, in between huffs and puffs, while Lilly rolled her eyes.

She flicked back her perfectly smooth hair and I couldn’t help but think that despite all her bitterness towards the reunification, she still found some use for form-fitting jeans and the possibility to use more bling to stand out from the crowd. Typical.

We rushed out of the house to meet with some of Lilly’s friends at a party. Lilly had met this cute guy from art school, who had introduced her to his circle of friends, and of course, Lilly was suddenly totally into it. And as usually, I tagged along.

We met the others in the basement of the old art school, where they’d set up a cassette player with speakers to play some punk music. Lilly grabbed a beer and started dancing to the music. Last week, she’d been the perfect, elegant New Wave queen, but tonight she was totally into punk. Her new boyfriend grabbed her hips from behind and pulled her to his chest, swinging to an imaginary melody within the heavy drumbeats.

I picked up a beer for myself and retreated into a dark corner. I wasn’t in the mood for socialising; in fact, I probably wouldn’t leave the house much if it weren’t for Lilly. So I sat in the shadows and watched my best friend have the time of her life while I counted the minutes until I could ask her to leave with me.

~

After two hours of mind-numbing noise and alcohol, I was fed up with the party and told Lilly that I wanted to go home. After some annoyance on her part and her boyfriend’s comment that he’d bring us home later, if we were to wait for another hour or so, I finally managed to make my case and drag her out.

“What the hell, Vera?” Lilly asked, frowning at me as soon as we had closed the door behind us. I shrugged.

“I just wanna get home before the pointy heads crash the scene. You don’t want your brother to see you here with them, do you?” Pointy heads was a common word for Neo-Nazis in the socialist scene. The only advantage about them was that you could recognize one from rather far away, with their uniform appearance. After the reunification, some of the ‘lost’ ones, who didn’t know what to believe anymore, were easily roped in by the surge of right wing extremism. Unfortunately, Lilly’s brother was one of them.

Lilly huffed, but eventually starting walking, so we made our way back to her family’s house. Life with her brother, who succumbed to his ‘friends’ more and more each passing day, wasn’t easy, but so far Lilly had managed to hide her disapproval of him and her own opinions. It was just too dangerous these days, maybe even more so than when you had to fear Stasi snitches.

So, back then, we were quite attuned to the sound of combat boots on concrete, as the first indication that we’d better take to our heels. Only this night, we were too late, too slow.

The group of pointy heads cornered us not even half a mile away from Lilly’s home. They must have known about the party and followed us until we were far enough away that screaming for help was useless.

“We warned you before, but you wouldn’t listen. Now it’s time for a lesson,” one of them snarled. I couldn’t recognize any faces in the darkness, but I recognized the silhouettes of the Baseball clubs some of them lifted while brass knuckles blinked on the hands of others. I was frozen in place and watched them approach, when suddenly Lilly threw herself at me and covered me with her body.

I heard our attackers yell and felt a blow to my ribs, softened by Lilly’s body. She screamed and I opened my mouth to join her, but no sound would come out. I felt something sticky flow into my eyes and after a moment of utter confusion realized that it must be my best friend’s blood. I heard the sickening sound of bones breaking and suddenly, Lilly’s screaming stopped.

The pointy heads still swung their clubs at her, kicking and hitting her wherever they could reach and I watched, horrified but frozen, my mouth opened in a silent scream, unable to move.

Then, I caught a glimpse of one of the boots kicking at Lilly’s ribs. Black, worn away leather, adorned with red hearts. I had seen these boots before, could remember Lilly’s giggle as she’d shown me her handiwork. Her brother had been furious, especially when he noticed that no amount of scrubbing could effectively cover Lilly’s painting.

“Duncan!” I screamed, again and again until I heard a familiar voice yell, “Stop!” in response. A few moments later, Lilly’s motionless body was pulled off me and I looked into the face of her brother, who stared at his bleeding sister in horror.

“That’s my sister,” he whispered.

“She’s a damn red sock,” another one of his gang answered gruffly.

“She’s my damn SISTER and she has nothing to do with lefties!” Duncan yelled and surprisingly, the other guy backed off.

Clumsily, I pulled myself up and crouched over to my best friend.

“Lilly?” I asked, my voice weak and thin and so very young. I received no answer.

Lilly was dead.

~to be continued

A/N 2: Erich Honecker was the communist state president of the GDR at the time of the reunion. He was on trial later on because he gave the firing order at the German/German border, but the proceedings were closed.
All of the events in this story actually took place, although not in that combination.
About the names: I wasn’t really sure whether I should change the names, but I figured it made the story more authentic. Veronica was easy to change, since ‘Veronika’ is a common German name, same as Lilly. Duncan was difficult though, because there’s no real German equivalent. So instead of picking something entirely different, I kept the American name. Blame Celeste.

VM fic: Going down (Veronica, Ensemble) PG13, Part 6/6

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:23:39 GMT

Finally, it's done!

Title: Going down (Veronica, Ensemble, PG 13), Part 6 of 6
Author: Kaze
Characters: Ensemble, Veronica POV
Word Count: 3,913
Spoilers: Season 1
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: None (in this chapter)
Summary: Seven years after graduation, Veronica thinks she escaped her P.I. past, but when a friend needs her help, she goes back into investigation mode.
Disclaimer: VM and its characters belong to Rob Thomas.
A/N: First, many thanks to fickledame and blue_icy_rose for their beta work. This would be a lot less fun without them.
So, this is the end. I wanted to see this done so bad, but now I kind of feel sad that it's over...

Previously: Veronica has to babysit her godson, Dick Casablancas Jr, son of her good friend Cindy, when the latter is abducted after a late night meeting at work. Logan offers to look after Dickie-boy but leaves Veronica to it, which results in a fight that remains unresolved.
Chapters 1-5 in my memories

It was time for a plan. Cassidy Casablancas had abducted his sister in law, whom he was creepily in love with. And he had hired some muscle to keep her in place and kidnap her son, too. At least, that’s what I had figured in the two minutes since the motel room door had closed. Bow before my sleuthing talents!

Well, in fact, I didn’t need a plan. I knew the plan. The only plan that made sense was to call Detective Miller and have him storm the building. Funny thing though, my hands simply wouldn’t dial his number. There wasn’t really a reason for that. Miller was a good cop, competent and reliable. And it’s not like I’m known for my supreme strength or invulnerability that makes me predestined to storm dingy motels that currently host a hostage situation.

But the mere thought of this fucking little creep having Cindy holed up in this rat hole, not even a mile away from my apartment, while my life fell apart because of that situation, just made me so mad I couldn’t see straight. I can guess what I looked like as I stared at the motel door with my best wall-penetrating evil glare. Jaw muscle ticking, hands clenched around the steering wheel, no wonder Dickie hadn’t dared to say a word to me in what must be a new record time for him.

Well, there was no arguing the fact. I simply couldn’t wait another second, knowing that Cindy was in that room, that her creepy brother in law, who was in love with her, and a shady guy were with her. God knows what Cassidy would do to her during the time it would take Miller and a SWAT team to arrive. Also, I had to dish out some pain. Big time.

I dialed Miller’s number and informed him about Cindy’s whereabouts. He insisted, quite convincingly, that I should stay far far away from the motel and let him handle the situation. I gave my consent, quite convincingly as well, hung up and told Dickie to stay in the car, no matter what.

I packed up my taser, my pepper spray and for good measure the tire iron out of my trunk and set on my crusade to free Cindy and beat up Beaver for destroying my life with this stupid gig.

I silently approached the door of Beaver’s room and pressed my ear against the splintered wood, while trying my luck with the lock and two bobby pins. I heard Beaver’s enraged voice, berating the kidnapper about his failure in capturing Dickie. Oh, he’s so going to suffer.

I lifted the tire iron and carefully leaned over towards the doorknob, trying it ever so lightly. Not locked. Bingo. The argument going on inside would hopefully distract Beaver and his hired muscle long enough for me to stage a surprise attack. So I ripped open the door and did the one thing my dad had always taught me not to do. I barged into a room full of criminals.

Everything happened very fast then. Beaver looked dumbfounded, but he wasn’t the threat anyway. The kidnapper reacted much faster and reached into his pocket, presumably for a weapon. I smashed his wrist with the tire iron and he howled, falling to the floor, cradling his hurt hand. Beaver finally woke up and approached me, only to get a face full of pepper spray. Cindy shrieked, a sound I wasn’t aware she was capable of, and I tasered the men on the floor a couple of times for good measure (and my own satisfaction).

Suddenly, my hand was yanked away from them and the taser fell to the floor due to the vice grip on my wrist. I turned, pepper spray ready, and froze.

What the hell?

****************************************************************

I scowled at my wrist, rubbing at the angry red marks, only making them redder. How the hell does a Software firm CEO get such strength? Cindy almost casually pointed the gun at the kidnapper, who I had learned by now was named Gus, and wouldn’t stop ranting about psycho blondes who should be stopped from ever touching tire irons again. Permanently. Luckily, he respected his own gun enough to not test Cindy’s aim.

Beaver held an icepack at his ribcage, where I had tasered him, while trying to convince Gus that he was the one paying and he would decide whether or not I left this room breathing.

“Right now,” Cindy said, “I’m the one with the gun, so I make the decisions.”

“Well, then enlighten me,” I barked out. “Why exactly are we still in this room with my hand hurting like a bitch and not getting away from your kidnappers?”

Cindy’s eyes softened when she looked at me.

“I didn’t mean for things to get this far, Veronica, to drag you into this mess. But I can’t go back,” she looked at me pleadingly as if that would make me forget the hell I’ve been through, the things I’d lost, because of this ‘case’. My thoughts strayed to the little boy in my car outside and suddenly, I wasn’t so eager to organize a mother and son reunion.

“You staged this,” I accused Cindy, barely controlling my anger. “You were never kidnapped, you wanted to get away!”

“Oh please, Veronica,” Cindy snarled, all softness gone from her expression. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to get as far away from Dick Casablancas as possible.”

She spat out the name like an insult and suddenly, the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. But I had to hear from Cindy herself, I needed her to confess because a part of me couldn’t imagine that I had been so blind about her.

“Why don’t you just divorce him then?” I asked, lifting my chin stubbornly, challenging.

Cindy, no - Mac, the girl I knew since high school, laughed bitterly. “I’m not quite ready to throw away my company just yet. I’ve worked too hard to come this far to see everything taken away from me by a perpetually stoned halfwit.” Cassidy cringed, but Cindy didn’t notice.

“Last time I checked, your company was yours,” I said sarcastically, refusing to feel anything close to sympathy for Mac.

“Oh, really? Well then, you must have different sources than I do. Because the company, my work, everything I built there, belongs to Dick. I was desperate back then for a startup loan. But I had a record, I was once caught hacking into the police department to erase a ticket.” She laughed again, but I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “A fucking $20 ticket and I had shot all my chances for getting a loan from a respectable bank. When you introduced me to Dick, he was my only chance to make my dreams come true.

“At first, it was just a business arrangement and I was willing to sign everything for that chance to finally make it out of this suburban hell I had grown up in. I didn’t really think about the consequences of Dick being the silent owner and me the CEO, after all, he had provided all the money. When I asked to pay him back his loan and buy him out of my company, he refused to accept my money.

Instead, he asked me to marry him, so everything that ‘belonged to him would automatically belong to me’. Hah!” Cindy wiped her eyes furiously, while I felt the bile starting to rise in my throat. What the hell had I gotten myself into here?

“So, I did it,” Cindy continued. “I agreed to marry him so I could at least keep up the pretense that I was in charge at the company. In return, Dick made me sign a prenup. If I divorce him, the company is his.”

“Well, from what you just told me, the company in fact does belong to him,” I said.

“But I DESERVE it!” Cindy yelled at me, jumping up from her chair. She waved the gun around agitatedly and my stomach dropped to new depths.

“I was SUPPOSED to be rich! I was supposed to have everything I ever wanted and not tutor stupid rich kids to stock up my allowance money. But no, Madison Sinclair has to come and take my spot away from me,” Cindy spat and for the first time I got a glimpse at the well of hatred and frustration that had built in her for more than eight years.

So, what’s the plan? Ask him nicely to let you run away with his little brother and throw in the company for good measure?” I asked. Cindy’s lips thinned.

“We prepared a ransom demand. A public demand. He will be forced to pay even if he doesn’t want me back. It’s all about PR. Of course, he doesn’t have enough money, with all his whoring around and giving little presents to his numerous mistresses. He will be forced to sell most of his shares. And who better to buy them off than his own brother? At least this way, it stays in the family.”

I shook my head in disbelief. All this had played right under my nose and I had been so ignorant! Where was the intrepid girl detective that couldn’t be fooled by facades? Cindy noticed my expression and looked at me in a way I couldn’t interpret.

“Do you know what he called me after we married? Cinderella. It was his nickname for me. The poor ashtray girl that finally found her prince. As if I should be thankful that he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars with my developments. I’m done being Cinderella, V.”

I nodded as if in acceptance, but there was still one more thing bugging me.

“Why kidnap Dickie then? Unless, of course, you don’t plan on returning after Dick follows your ransom demand.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Cindy said, and with a start I realized the danger I was actually in, being the only one standing between Cindy and her freedom. “I plan to live off my achievements in a faraway country.”

“What about Dick? He’s the boy’s father after all,” I bit out, mostly because I had nothing else to say, not out of sympathy for Dick, who was just as sleazy as his wife.

“Oh, come on, Veronica, Dickie is a smart little boy. You don’t believe he got that from Dick, right?”

“But he looks exactly like Dick,” I exclaimed, trying to wrap my mind around what Cindy was saying.

“Actually,” Beaver chimed in, “he looks exactly like his grandmother.”

Oh God. I couldn’t help but picture Dickie’s reaction to the revelation that his creepy uncle Beaver, who had rabies, was in fact his father. Only when I lifted my good hand to cover my face did I notice that it was shaking. Everything I had learned in this motel room just left one conclusion, and no matter how hateful Cindy had become over years of not having what – in her opinion – was rightfully hers, I couldn’t believe that she would do that to me her friend.

“So, what was the plan?” I asked her. “Were you gonna let me in on the fake kidnapping before or after you snatched your son from under my nose?”

Cindy actually had the grace to look a bit ashamed. “No, the plan didn’t include on telling you.”

I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore to find that knife in my back.

“So what? I was supposed to freak out because Dickie had been taken when he was in my care? Blame myself for the rest of my life while you were living it up in some millionaire’s resort? What did you think I’d do, Mac?” I noticed with satisfaction how she cringed when I used her old nickname, reminding her that she used to be that: a Mackenzie.

“It’s not like you care so much for my son, Veronica, so don’t play this righteous card on me now. You would have dismissed this tragedy like you have every other in your life and moved on with ease.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. How the hell did she get that impression? Everything that had ever happened to me weighed me down every fucking day of my life. I wished I could go back to the girl I used to be, I wished…. Oh God.

“That’s… that’s why Logan left me,” I whispered. Cindy took a deep breath summoning up all the faux concern she could muster.

“I’m sorry, V. I really am. But you can’t blame me for that. You had this coming a long time. Now… I just need to know what you’re gonna do.”

I sighed and looked at my hands. Then, I faced the two men in the room.

“Could you leave us alone for a moment?” I asked. Both seemed reluctant to leave me with Cindy and I rolled my eyes. “Come on, she has a gun and I’m not exactly known as fighter bunny. I assume she is quite safe from me. You can go outside and pick up Dickie, he’s waiting in my car.” After a nod from Cindy they got up and left the room, Gus casting one last hateful glare at me.

“So, what’s it gonna be?” Cindy asked, impatiently.

“Well…,” I said, dragging the word long for effect. “Right now, I assume Detective Miller, who was waiting outside for the last ten minutes, is shackling up your backup. So, I guess you’d better think quickly and decide what you are gonna do now.”

Cindy blanched and gaped at me. I kept my face carefully blank, hoping that Miller had in fact brought Dickie to safety and overpowered the two kidnappers. But I was confident. I watched as Cindy’s mind worked overtime when she realized that her plan was shot to hell. Slowly, she got up and methodically wiped her prints off the gun with the bed cloth. She went to the bathroom and splashed some water in her face, then gathered her belongings and slowly walked towards the door.

The afternoon sun stood low and bathed her in an orange glow as she stood in the doorway and looked at me.

“Coming?” she asked. I took a deep breath and moved to catch up with her. We left the room together only to be gathered by cops, dragging us away from the door.

“It’s okay, let them go!” I heard Miller bark and we were released. The detective strode towards us, his face red with anger.

“Didn’t I explicitly tell you not to go into that room?” he asked and I merely shrugged. I saw as Cassidy and Gus, until now shackled and thrown on the floor, were hauled up and shoved towards a cop car.

“Thank you, thank you so much. You can’t imagine how scared I was.” I heard a teary voice and saw Cindy, crying and distressed, talking to a paramedic. Cassidy stared at her before the car door was slammed shut, hurt evident on his face. But Cindy was ignorant.

“Mommy!” A voice squealed and I watched as a blond ball of energy jumped towards Cindy and tackled her. I couldn’t watch the heart-warming scene of the reunion of mother and son. I felt I might puke otherwise.

“I knew you’d save her.” I looked down to see Dickie standing in front of me, having dragged Cindy along with him. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, out of shame or anger, I wasn’t sure.

“I promised you I would,” I answered and watched as the two were led away to an emergency van, probably so that Cindy could be checked out.

“Can I leave now?” I asked Miller when I saw him approaching. He frowned

“We still need your statement.”

“I’ll be in first thing tomorrow, promise. Right now, I just want to get home, take a shower and sleep for at least ten hours,” I said, giving him my best puppy dog impression.

He nodded, albeit reluctantly and I used the chance to take off as fast as possible before he could change his mind.

Inside my car, I picked up my laptop and checked the recording of the bug I was wearing. I rewinded for a few moments and pressed play.

”I was SUPPOSED to be rich! I was supposed to have everything I ever wanted and not tutor stupid rich kids to stock up my allowance money.” Cindy’s voice cackled out of the speakers. I shut it off and closed my eyes.

Dickie’s face appeared before my inner mind, full of joy at seeing his beloved mommy again. I opened my eyes again, took a deep breath and pressed delete. I didn’t intend to ignore my surroundings anymore, but I wasn’t going to go back to my ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. After all, I had changed. And I finally knew what I had changed into.

*************************************************************************

I leaned my forehead against my apartment door and let myself fall forward as it swung open when I unlocked it. I was weary, physically and mentally, disillusioned, friendless and alone. But I felt strangely peaceful for the first time since I had seen my best friend’s dead body.

“Veronica?” a voice asked and I was jolted out of my semi-trance. Logan appeared in the living room door, a worried expression on his face. “Are you okay?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to wrap my mind around this new development after a day full of mind blowing revelations, most of which were about myself.

“Dick called. The detective had informed him about the failed kidnapping attempt this morning and he told me that you’d been in a fight to save Dickie. I came as soon as I could. I tried to call, but you didn’t pick up.” Oh, yeah, I had turned off my cell to prevent interference with the bug.

“Are you okay? “ Logan asked again, and touched my arm lightly. I couldn’t help it, I started laughing.

“I will be,” I said, wiping tears of mirth from my eyes. Logan looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had.

“I found Cindy,” I said and his eyebrows shot up. He obviously hadn’t thought me capable of that anymore. Well, join the club. “She’s a bitch.”

Logan looked positively rattled now, but I decided to keep explanations for later. Right now, we had other matters to discuss.

“I never really got over Lilly’s death, you know?” I continued conversationally. Logan could only gape at me. We never talked about Lilly. “Or, rather, I never got over everything it cost me. I felt like I was being abandoned by everyone, which was mostly the case. The investigation was all I had. I told myself that things would go back to normal as soon as Lilly’s killer was behind bars.”

“You can’t turn back time, Veronica,” Logan said, not looking at me.

“I know that. It’s just… I didn’t just lose Lilly, or my mom, or my innocence back then. I also lost myself. Everything I’d believed in was turned upside down and I was tumbling through life with nothing to hold onto. I needed that idea, that chance that I would eventually be able to piece my life back together. But then, I almost died.”

Logan flinched at the thought of me in that fridge, but he kept listening, for once.

“I almost died for a girl I hadn’t known at all, a girl who kept secrets from me, from you and who was so selfish that it eventually got her killed. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Lilly and a part of me always will, but she wasn’t a victim and I almost lost my life because she was like that. And I lost my place in life all over again. I just couldn’t go on like that anymore. The people you love let you down, so I wasn’t gonna let anyone get close again.”

Logan’s eyes softened and I knew that he understood, had probably understood for years now without saying anything.

“I pushed everyone away, my dad, Wallace… you. I just couldn’t risk to be that vulnerable again.”

“What changed?” Logan asked silently.

“Cindy betrayed me, and it hurt like hell.” I laughed again, albeit somewhat bitterly. “All the pushing away had been of no use, I’m still as vulnerable as I ever was. For nine years, I’ve been unhappy, miserable and alone. And it got me nothing at all.”

“So this is why you couldn’t be home three days in a row,” Logan said, staring into my eyes as if he was searching for something. “I thought you were running from me.”

“I was just trying to prevent myself from starting to depend on you,” I answered, looking at the floor. Suddenly, I felt his fingers on my chin, lifting my face up so I met his eyes.

“Is that why you wanted to knock me up so badly?” I asked, not being able to keep back the question that I could never find an answer to. Logan shrugged.

“Sounded like a good idea at that time. Bind you down to keep you at home for a while. Bind you to me,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

“That’s a pretty stupid idea,” I said, right before my lips met his.

************************************************************************

Two months after Cindy’s daring rescue, I’m still struggling to figure out what is actually me and what is the fake front I put up to keep people away. But I’m getting there. I visited my father for a couple of days and I even called Wallace.

It’s still strange at times, but I haven’t felt that free in a long time and that’s exhilarating.

Logan and I still fight, a lot actually. But now it’s all fire and spite, not frustration. And the make-up sex is so worth it. We never talked about the children issue again. I guess he’s glad too that he found another way to keep me.

Cindy and I put pretty much a stop to our friendship. She returned to Dick and they still keep up their illusion of the perfect marriage. I couldn’t go on ignoring what I knew and participate in their game, so, I’m staying away from them. Logan’s still at Dick’s side, though, and sometimes he brings our godson over and we spend the day together. That’s about all the mushy family time I can stomach, but it’s good to see that Dickie is happy and blissfully ignorant of his parents’ true characters. Yet.

The cynical part of me can picture the next years and how things will change in Casa Casablancas, but this is Dickie’s journey and it’s not my place to take this away from him. He wouldn’t forgive me anyway.

So, I’m taking a similar journey, day to day, without much of a clue where it will take me. Logan once asked whether I now knew who I was. I grinned and told him I was a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and… a queen. He laughed and said that that’s life. I guess he was on to something there.

In the end, I think it was worth it. I spent so much time and energy trying to find Cindy, stumbling over potholes and secrets and lies, but in the end, I only found myself.

A/N2: I changed a lot from my original plan in order to finish the story faster. So maybe Veronica's epiphany is a bit rushed. Still, the actual ending remained the same (that last line was actually the beginning of the fic). Those of you who read more of my stories might know that I prefer hopeful over happy endings, and this is what I was also aiming at with 'Going down'. After all, life's a bitch until you die.

VM fic: Going down (Veronica, Ensemble)PG13, Part 5

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 09:00:11 GMT

Title: Going down (Veronica, Ensemble, PG 13), Part 5 of 6
Author: Kaze
Characters: Ensemble, Veronica POV
Word Count: 1,707
Spoilers: Season 1
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: None (in this chapter)
Summary: Seven years after graduation, Veronica thinks she escaped her P.I. past, but when a friend needs her help, she goes back into investigation mode.
Disclaimer: VM and its characters belong to Rob Thomas.
A/N: As I’ve said: I aim to finish this quickly. This is the second to last chapter, and the last one is already in work.
fickledame and blue_icy_rose made this thing readable.

Previously: Veronica has to babysit her godson, Dick Casablancas Jr, son of her good friend Cindy, when the latter is abducted after a late night meeting at work. Logan offers to look after Dickie-boy but leaves Veronica to it, which results in a fight that remains unresolved.
Chapters 1-4 in my memories

The car door was ajar, mocking me, and my first thought was ‘Oh God, Cindy is gonna kill me.’ Then I remembered Cindy’s own precarious situation, Dick’s current state of mental health and realized that right now, I’m the only one this boy has. Fuck.

I inspected the car door. There weren’t any signs of a break-in and since I had one key to the car and Logan had the other, Dickie must have opened the door from the inside. Great, just my luck that the son of Dick ‘underachiever’ Casablancas was at four years old already smart enough to bypass the child lock. He must be taking after Mac.

But where was he? Had he simply run away or had somebody shown up, prompting him to open the door? Someone he knew and trusted; who would then take him away. Or someone who promised him candy.

I put Cindy’s laptop in my trunk, closed the door with my clad elbow to not corrupt any prints and locked the car again. I figured I could first look around the area before informing the cops.

Dickie hadn’t entered his parents’ house. I would have heard the door. But he probably saw Francesca leave. Had she taken the boy? Maybe to get her piece of the cake after working so hard for it?

I couldn’t see Francesca anywhere, but for now, I was sticking to the theory that Dickie had seen his beloved Frankie and somehow mangled my car door into releasing him. So, he had probably run after her. And where would she go? The station, probably.

After making this deduction, I raced down the street towards the nearby underground station, gripping the strap of my bag tightly, where I had hidden my taser and a pepper spray. Despite all his eagerness, Dickie was still a small kid, clumsy and short-legged. He couldn’t be far.

I turned a corner and there he was, at the end of the street, looking lost. He was looking wide-eyed towards the roofs above him and the flurry of people around him. He must have failed to catch up to his sitter and now he was scared.

I slowed down a bit to catch my breath. I had found the boy, so I didn’t need to hurry anymore. At least that’s what I thought until I saw a man in a dark coat approaching Dickie, crouching down in front of him to talk to him.

I tried to yell, but I still hadn’t regained my breath, so all that came out of my throat was a scratchy but far from loud enough “Hey!” The man tried to pull Dickie with him, but the small beast struggled and for once I was happy that he was such a stubborn brat.

“Stop it!” I yelled again and this time I was loud – and close – enough to be heard. The man’s head whipped up and in this short moment of distraction Dickie pulled free of his grip. I ran into the guy full force and whipped out my taser. A few electro shocks later, and he was crawling away from me. I turned around to check up on Dickie and he stared at me wide-eyed.

“That was so cool,” he said, his voice full of admiration. “Just like a Ninja Turtle.”

I held out my hand and for once he took it without hesitation. When I turned around again, the wannabe kidnapper had vanished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we arrived home, equipped with fresh food, Detective Miller was already waiting. I had called him after the incident and already informed him on the phone. He obviously wanted more details. I unlocked the apartment door and let him enter after Dickie and me. He raised his eyebrows when Dickie wouldn’t let go of my hand once we were inside. After all, he had seen the disaster that was us when he’d first interrogated me at the Casablancas’.

“We bonded,” I said with a shrug while trying my best to single-handedly put away our groceries as Dickie glared at the Detective.

Miller took a seat at the kitchen counter and started his routine, inquiring about height, weight, skin color, hair color, clothing and any unusual traits I might have noticed. I could give a good visual – a curse you get as a photographer, let alone a PI – but I knew it wouldn’t help much, since everything about the guy was average.

After lots of wasted time and Millers futile attempt to get anything out of Dickie besides the fact he thought it was awesome, Miller prepared to leave. When I led him to the door, he started the speech I’d been expecting the whole time.

“Ms Mars, I’m aware of your past success in the Lilly Kane case and I also know what your father’s doing. But please be aware that this is a police matter. Getting yourself involved in the investigation will only bring harm to you or the boy.” He looked at me sternly and I nodded my head yes to reassure him. Obviously, I wasn’t very convincing, judging from his sigh when he turned and left.

Next to me, Dickie pulled at my hand that he still hadn’t let go of.

“Are you bringing back mommy now?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t let it be said that I can’t deal with kids. The eternal, irresistible combination of ice cream and cartoons was still working; keeping Dickie busy and me free to tinker with Cindy’s laptop.

As I should have predicted, everything was password-protected, and I was running out of ideas. Leave it to Cindy to actually pick random passwords. I hadn’t made use of my own personal Q in a long time, but right now, I definitely needed her. Too bad she was unavailable.

I wasn’t sure what I was more eager to find though, clues as to her disappearance or proof that the picture Dick had painted of his wife was false. Anyway, I was stuck in the investigation. Admittedly, I had no clue as how to investigate, but Dickie was counting on me, now more than ever, and I simply couldn’t let Cindy down. I had snapped out of the daze I’d been in; found my way back to a past I had tried to forget. But it seemed I had forgotten how to approach a case.

I was almost thankful when the bell rang, effectively pulling me out of my self-recriminations. That feeling evaporated instantly, though, when I saw who was at the door.

“Beaver,” I said, in way of greeting.

“Cassidy,” he corrected automatically. “Hi, Veronica. I heard what happened and that my nephew is with you. I just wanted to check on him. Can I come in?”

Silently, I moved aside and made a not very enthusiastic gesture with my hand, waving him in. Suddenly, I felt a tug at my pants and looked down to see Dickie hold on to my leg. He obviously wasn’t very fond of his uncle.

“Hey, Dickie. What’s up, man?” Cassidy asked, crouching down next to the boy. Dickie moved further away from him, hiding behind my legs.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, frowning. It wasn’t usual for this kid to be shy or even quiet for longer than five minutes.

“He has rabies,” Dickie whispered, his blue eyes white from fear.

“What?” I asked, completely flabbergasted.

“My Dad says he’s a beaver and has rabies,” Dickie said and I choked back a laugh. Leave it to Dick to pass on nothing but antipathies. The younger Casablancas brother sighed and looked at his feet for a few moments, before facing the terrified boy again.

“Dickie, remember what your mommy told you? I’m not a beaver, it’s just a stupid nickname. Your mom told you to call me Uncle Cassidy, remember?” His voice had a hopeful tinge and I got the impression that Cassidy really cared for his nephew. Dickie scrunched up his nose and considered his uncle’s words, nodding slowly. Then he looked at him again.

“Beaver! Beaver! Beaver!” he yelled, pointing his fingers, then ran off to the bathroom. Ooo-kay.

Cassidy straightened again, smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of his pants.

“I’d better go,” he said, already moving towards the door.

I nodded, mumbling a, “Yeah,” under my breath. When he had left, I knocked on the bathroom door.

“He’s gone,” I informed Dickie and the boy came out again, looking at me for a long moment.

“I think he’s really creepy,” Dickie told me matter of factly, voicing the feeling I had had about Cassidy Casablancas ever since High school.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I still don’t know why I did it, what it was that made me pick up Dickie and run for the door, jumping in my car and following Cassidy. I’d like to think that it was my uncanny talent for sleuthing or that I had subconsciously noticed something on Cindy’s laptop that had tipped me off and made a connection.

But probably, it was just the way Dickie had said that his uncle was creepy. And the way Cassidy had spoken the word ‘mommy’. A Casablancas had no business sounding so endearing. Not about his brother’s wife. And especially not if he was deemed creepy by the professional opinion of a four-year-old and his reluctant babysitter.

So this is why I found myself halting in front of a dingy motel that made the Camelot look like the Ritz, watching as Beaver exited his car and ascended the outer stairwell, taking two steps at a time. I pulled out my camera and zoomed in on him, watching him approach a door on the second level. He knocked on the door and after a moment it was opened – by the man who had tried to abduct Dickie just this afternoon!

I gasped and Dickie squirmed in the backset, trying to see what I was seeing, incessantly asking me what was going on. I ignored him and kept watching Cassidy and the wannabe-kidnapper discuss something animatedly, when the latter suddenly opened the door further to let the younger Casablancas brother enter. What I saw in the back of the room literally took my breath away. Sitting on the bed, clad only in a bathrobe and knees pulled towards her chest sat Cindy.

~to be concluded

...

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:47:49 GMT

Today, I saw a corpse.
Okay, I didn't really see see it and people are dying everyday and all that jazz, but still, it really shook me.
I was on my way to work, when there was suddenly a traffic jam (I have to take the freeway and still it takes me 45 minutes to get to work each day) and as usually, I was pissed because of the holdup. I heard on the radio that there had been an accident and that 2 of 3 lines were blocked. I pass accidents every other day (this particular freeway is really accident-prone) and you start to not really care about it, you know? Maybe you see a really trashed car and you think 'holy shit', but that's about it. I still drive too fast and the accidents are merely holdups and inconvenient. But today, When I passed the accident (the car didn't even look that bad), I saw a corpse lying next to the car. They had covered the person with a white sheet, but it already had bled through and there really was no mistaking. I drove by so close, I could have touched the body without getting out of the car. I know it's awful, but my first thought was 'why the hell haven't they already taken the body away?'. They had already cleaned up everything, so why was the body still there? And then, I felt so bad, because this was a dead person and I was troubled because I had to deal with seeing that, pissed they hadn't already gotten rid of it so I could keep my peace of mind. This was a person once, probably, just like me, on his or her way to work. Like all of us used to the heatwave and surprised by the bad weather, the rain and fog, we have today.
While intellectually I know that people can get hurt or even die in traffic accidents, I always just thought of the car repair, the costs, the trouble, because I've never been in a serious accident, never knew anyone who was in a serious accident, and whenever I drive past an accident, all I see it broken cars. Seeing the body made it real.

I rock!

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 07:18:45 GMT

Hehe. Yesterday, I received my English test result. Everyone in my company who might have to participate in English-language projects was supposed to take this test. Okay, so only five did, but hey, my boss was among them, and everybody says he speaks the best English (worked abroad a couple of years, has lots of conferences held in English, does lots of English presentations). Still, I was better than him! Actually, my result was the best! See? Writing fics DOES have some benefits!
So, of course, I went to our HR manager, who organized the test, and informed him that I rock. Yes, I stood in front of him and literally said 'I rock'. He grinned and informed me what capabilities my result insinuated. Then, he also said that I rock. Several times. Teeheee!
Overall, yesterday was a good day :)
Tomorrow is our summer party at work. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this one, because Tobi might not be able to come. Yet, I'll be happy to see some of the guys again, who don't work at my office anymore. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun, though I'll probably stick to this small circle of colleagues I actually consider friends.
I learned the hard way to keep office acquaintances at a distance. The gossip in my company is deadly and more than one lost their job because they had a heart to heart with the wrong person. So, I became careful...
I think I'll do some fic writing today. I'm not yet sure if I should first try to finish 'Going down', so that I can get that one out of my hair, or write my 'Where in the world is Veronica Mars' contribution, which I've already loosely plotted, to keep the deadline. Meh, decisions...

Pimpage!

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:00:52 GMT

Yup, I decided I wouldn't leave my flist alone until they all signed up for this challenge ;)
Kidding... kinda
Seriously, though: Go sign up at neptune_death.
Way to relieve some stress and / or aggressions.

VM fic: Going Down (Veronica, Ensemble) PG 13

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 11:14:01 GMT

Title: Going down (Veronica, Ensemble, PG 13), Part 4
Author: Kaze
Characters: Ensemble, Veronica POV
Word Count: 2,054
Spoilers: Season 1
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Some allusions to sex, some language, but not really graphic
Summary: Seven years after graduation, Veronica thinks she escaped her P.I. past, but when a friend needs her help, she goes back into investigation mode.
Disclaimer: VM and its characters belong to Rob Thomas.
A/N: I've been kind of surprised by the recent surge of Mac/Dick fic. While this one features Mac/Dick as a couple, it's not a shippy fic. Just wanted to make that clear.
It's been quite a while since I touched this one. I pretty much lost all passion for it, but I don't want to leave it unfinished, I hate it when that happens to fics. But I'll cut it down a lot and bring it to a quick solution. Thankfully, the build-up was finished last chapter ;P
fickledame and blue_icy_rose made this thing readable.

Previously: Veronica has to babysit her godson, Dick Casablancas Jr, son of her good friend Cindy, when the latter is abducted after a late night meeting at work. Logan offers to look after Dickie-boy but leaves Veronica to it, which results in a fight that remains unresolved.
Chapters 1-3 in my memories

I didn't know how long I'd sat on the Casablancas' living room couch, staring at the wall, when Dickie shuffled into the room, pulling me out of my stupor. He effectively ignored me as he went looking for his favorite uncle, opening kitchen and bathroom doors, just to be met with emptiness.

"Logan left," I said, the words leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

There it was. Somehow, I had always known this day would come, eventually. When Logan would become fed up with me, as everyone had been before him. Like everyone else I had alienated or who had died on me or run out on me.

My hands shook as I remembered how life used to be before...how life used to be. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stunning performance of the walking, talking corpse.

"When is he coming back?" Dickie asked with a suddenly small voice.

"He isn't," I replied, and I knew it was true. There was nothing for him to come back to.

"Like mommy?" Dickie was suddenly in front of me, staring with wide eyes and he was failing to hide the empty fear in them. Suddenly, I realized that this four-year-old little boy was by now as used to losing people as I was. As alone as I was.

I framed his face with my hands, making him look me in the eyes.

"Richard Casablancas the third. I promise you that I will find your mother." Dickie gulped and nodded.

I might have been a year too late to save one friend, but I sure as hell wouldn't be too late now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No matter what they tell you about that bike-riding thing, there are some things you forget how to do. By now, I was an expert at shooting photos of animals or making bulimic models look even thinner, but investigating a kidnapping? And babysitting the victim's son while I'm at it? That was a challenge.

My fingers felt itchy, the base of my neck tingled and despite the severity of the situation and my anxiety to get Cindy back (both for my and little Dickie's sake), a smile crept up my face when I remodeled our... my apartment into P.I. central.

It felt like trying on some old clothes, outdated and embarrassing as they may be, and finding that they still fit. That was until I had everything set up - a hidden folder on my laptop, a not so hidden whiteboard in the living room and a box full of Cindy's personal effects that might come in handy - when I realized that I didn't have a fucking clue in hell what to do now.

Restlessly, I searched the box for clues, flipped through her day planner, tried scribbled down phone numbers to dubious business contacts. When I was getting desperate, I called Mandy and asked her about the details of the meeting after which Cindy was abducted. But all of this wasn't getting me anywhere. So, with Mandy's help, I started compiling a list of people who'd gain from harming Cindy. Competitors, disgruntled ex-employees - I had to chuckle there - and such. It's really amazing how helpful an assistant can be if you saved their dog during high school.

Now, I came to the tricky part of the conversation. The one that Logan would probably kill me for. I asked Mandy how Cindy's and Dick's marriage was going. Yeah, I know, we're their best friends. Who should know but me? But what can I say, I've never been the sharing type and up until now, I refused to listen to anything Dick-related, and Cindy honored that. She probably didn't want me to get into a catch 22 with my loyalty to her as my friend and my loyalty to Logan, who was Dick's best friend. Tricky.

But Mandy, who would've guessed, was oblivious to anything Dick-related. She probably wouldn't have gotten it if Dick had danced the Samba naked in front of her desk. I kinda miss those days of innocence.

So, for the first time since I brought little Satan to my apartment, I left it again, tugging the brat along. Firstly, we needed food. Secondly, I needed loads and loads of information. But first things first, I thought to myself and drove by to the Casablancas' house. Dick's Ferrari was randomly parked between the hyacinths. It was dirty, dented and run-down. Good, Dick was home.

I decided that Dickie probably shouldn't see his old man in all his deranged glory, so I ordered him to stay in the car and locked the doors. Sometimes it's fun to be the one in charge. I ignored the wailing from the backseats and the little fists drumming against my car windows and headed for the door. I still had the key Cindy had given me for the night of babysitting, so I let myself in. I haven't forgotten the importance of sneakiness. Yay, me.

When I entered the living room, I was glad I had left the boy in the car. Dick, who was in really bad shape, was slouched on the couch, nursing a bottle of Jim Bean, while Francesca was busy giving him a blow job. There simply are a few things you never want to know about your friends. Let alone see. Dick's dick being on top of my list.

"So, I guess it's really too traumatizing to come back to this house, huh?" Yeah, I know. Not my best line. But, I'm a little rusty and the picture in front of me? Not attired to get my wit in overdrive. Ugh.

Francesca's eyes got big as she turned to me, right as Dick arched from the couch. Her expression must have been the most hilarious thing in the world, eyes wide with shock, lips still around Dick's little business and her cheeks bulging out. I also never wanted to know that my friends' au pair was a swallower. She scrambled onto her feet, coughing when she started to choke, and was out the door before Dick had even bothered to open his eyes.

"Great, Veronica. You just have to come and take my last piece of comfort away from me, don't you?" Obviously, he didn't need to open his eyes to know who had disturbed him.

"Geez, Dick, I'm so glad Frankie could help you through this hard time you're going through. With your wife abducted, you just need all the support and love you can get right now, huh?" I feel something boiling inside of me, that I haven't felt in ages. This righteous indignation that had made me stand up against the 09ers back during my junior year. My whole body was tensed up and I was mad as hell. It was exhilarating. And Dick really was an easy target to resharpen my tongue.

"What do you know, Veronica? Who the fuck do you think you are to judge me? You live in your cozy little wonderland with Logan worshipping the ground underneath your feet, where everything is perfect and everybody adores you. Do you have any idea what it's like to grow up as the eternal loser?" Dick had jumped off the couch and was getting in my face. But I was standing my ground. I wouldn't let a philandering, drunken asshole yell at me.

"Yeah, right, Dick. You're a poor little boy who never received the appreciation he deserved. My heart's bleeding for you! It's all Cindy's fault for being so stupid to let herself get kidnapped. She practically forced you to shove your penis into the mouth of a seventeen year old girl who's depending on you." When all else fails, use sarcasm. Usually, Dick wouldn't get it and think that you finally saw things his way, but this time he got the gist, I could tell.

"You have no fucking clue what you're talking about, Veronica. You haven't had a clue in ages! You think I'm cheating on Cindy? Why do you think your precious friend hired this ass on heels that's supposed to watch over our boy? She wanted to get me out of her hair. That's all she's been doing since we got married!" Dick's voice was getting louder and louder with each word, but by the end of his little tirade, all energy seemed to have left him. He slumped down on the couch and ran his hands through his tangled hair.

"Ever since we started dating, all she was after was money to start her IT empire. It wasn't about me, it was never about me. But did anyone ever question why I married her? No, everybody was too busy wondering what a genius like her was doing with a moron like me. As if I wouldn't notice! But I didn't care. Do you know why I didn't care, Veronica? Because I thought that if she saw something in me, if she wanted to marry me, there must be something about me, something no one else could see. All the bimbos in the world can only make you feel so good, you know? Hot, maybe - even powerful. But Cindy, she made me feel like I had potential. And it was all a lie! She only treated me human as long as she needed a steady flow to get her business running and then she pushed me towards the first open pair of legs she could find."

Dick looked weary now, like somebody who had accepted his fate. My chest was constricting again and I had trouble breathing. But I would not, ever, let him talk that crap about my friend whom he had just cheated on.

"You're breaking my heart, Dickie-boy. I guess it was just an accident that she let you knock her up then? Keep her from her job for almost a year, huh? Because, we all know that Cindy only lives for her work!" I put as much disdain into my voice as possible, though it was harder and harder to keep from vomiting all over the floor. So much about 'the truth will set you free'. Freedom could shove truth down its ass real deep, as far as I was concerned.

"Let me knock her up? Get real, Veronica. Why do you think I can't stand to be around that boy? Cindy is a first class slut. She knows what she wants and goes for it no matter what. Just look how easily she manipulated you into her advocate!"

I couldn't help stumbling backwards. This couldn't be true. There was no way Cindy had lied to me for years, had played a role for eight fucking years. It just wasn't possible. I know she had always been concerned about money. Who outside the 09er district wasn't? And maybe her methods had been ... sketchy at times. But this? This wasn't the Mac I had met more than eight years ago. So she had changed, I knew that. She was Cindy Casablancas now, an 09er and super-successful, but she was still Mac. She had to be.

I felt my stomach revolving, a physical manifestation of the thoughts and emotions churning in me and I stumbled towards the door. I had to get out of there, had to get some fresh air. On my way towards the hall, in this maze called a house, I stumbled and almost fell. I held myself upright on the edge of a table, but I swayed and keeled over before I could get steady again. That's when I saw it. A laptop bag, lying forgotten under the table. Cindy's laptop. Without thinking, I grabbed it and stumbled towards the door, throwing up in the trampled hyacinths as soon as I was outside.

My trembling hand was still clutching the strap of the laptop bag when I regained my bearings. No matter what Dick said, Cindy was my friend - my only friend, and I fucking knew her. And I would get her back, no matter what. I walked towards my car, my determination fueling my strength with every step. I still blame it on the haze I was in since talking to Dick that I didn't immediately notice the broken car window. But when I did, all strength and determination left me again like the air of a burst balloon.

Where was Dickie?

FDN poll

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:32:08 GMT

View Poll: Final Destination: Neptune

Pimpage!

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:47:43 GMT

Mizu and I are writing for this great new challenge over at vmtruechallenge.
Of course, we've got Germany (hehe) and we're already plotting. It'll probably turn into a multi-parter, which might not be the best idea with our other WIPs right now, but we couldn't let this pass!

So, join, people!

In other news, Mizu will be finished with college in July and around that time I'll (hopefully) also be finished with the book and then it's fanfic writing time!
So, sorry for the lack of updates recently, but it'll get better, promise! And what we have in mind for 'ask me no secrets' will blow your mind away. Seriously, we know, it happened to us when we were plotting. We're still trying to scrape the pieces from the wall.

So, here's a little fandom-wise update concerning what's to be expected from us in 2006:

DASQ-fics:
- Ask me no secrets will definitely continue, soon
- Where in the world is Veronica Mars? Easy: Germany!

DASQ-art:
- A 'Black Veil' piece that portrays the VM characters in noir style. Been working on that one for ages.
- Tokyo 23! Yeah sure... no, for real! We'll manage this year!... I hope....
- Maybe translate 'Todmüde' into English... add some pages, make it more well-rounded.. we'll see

Kaze-fics:
- Black Veil sequel *sigh* I have it mapped out, just gotta write it...
- Going down: will come to a quick solution, I have no passion left for this story, but I hate to leave WIPs unfinished
- Superhero series: is on hiatus for the time being, luckily, it's not really a WIP...
- a new WIP project.... oooooh, the mystery ;) I have a couple of ideas, have yet to figure out which one I'll see through
- maybe finish some of those unfinished VM one-shots I have lying around...
- do some Runaways fics. CHASE!!!!

Kaze-art:
- finish that goddamn acrylic painting I actually wanted to give to mutinousmuse for her birthday. It's driving me crazy by the way
- do that 'No...' fanart for queen_haq: again, mapped out, not painted yet
- Some Runaways art? Seriously, this book is driving me nuts, I love it so much...

phew, I should maybe quit my day-time job....

VM fic: Mars Attacks! (L/V, some Ensemble)

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:52:20 GMT

Fic: Mars Attacks (Veronica, Logan, Ensemble) PG

Title: Mars Attacks
Author: Kaze
Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan, Ensemble
Word Count: 3,769
Rating: PG
Summary: The world comes to an end. Blame Hollywood.
Spoilers: Set around MAD, but before Veronica learns about the drugs.
Warnings: Some language, some violence, some global annihilation and genocide, nothing major though
A/N: Apocalyptothon challenge response for haleyj_the_bat. She wanted Logan with a touch of angst and a buttload of snark. I tried my best. Snark eludes me… ;) Also, I haven’t done Logan POV besides a little ficlet once, I struggled…
Haley, I hope you like parodies (with a touch of angst, of course)… also, there’s a little shout-out to one of your other requests that I would have done as well if I had the time…
fickledame and blue_icy_rose deserve a friggin’ award for their overnight asap mad beta skills. I wouldn’t have met deadline without them.

“So, are you free Friday? We could go out.” There, I said it. Whoa, talk about moving things up. This isn’t much of a step forward. More a leap. She thinks so too, if her expression’s any indication. She looks like a mixture of happy and ready to bolt and I can’t say I blame her.

“Here?” she asks. “What about our ‘little secret’?” I never thought finger quotes could be hot. I was wrong. She looks at me expectantly and I shake my head. Focus, Echolls.

“My dad invited us along to his new movie set. He thought you’d like to sniff some Hollywood air. He really seems to like you.” Usually, I wouldn’t consider this a compliment. I’m pissed at myself for the amount of exceptions I’m willing to make for this girl.

“I thought his movie days were over?” I feel the ridiculous urge to kiss the frown off her face. Boy, I’m pathetic.

“Nah, this is the best PR that could happen to him. Rising from the ashes, the grieving widower, equipped to play the serious character roles,” I reply, when I hear Dick and the Beav calling for me. Veronica nods and motions for me to go to my friends.

“So, seven-ish?” I ask while walking backwards. “We have to leave early.”

“I have a paper due on Friday, I should hand it in before we leave,” she replies.

“Hand it in on Thursday.” After a pause, she nods and I can’t help that silly smile creeping up my face. Stupid. Hold it together, man.

.oOo.

Friday came soon, a bit too soon for my taste. I’m not used to this whole girlfriend stuff anymore; I’m much more used to playmates these days. Maybe I’d ask Duncan for advice, if he weren’t MIA and, well, the girl in question wasn’t his first love. But I still remember well enough what DK did to make her happy back then, so I can do this, right?

That I have to stand my father and his Hollywood court for one day though wasn’t exactly part of the plan. But what can I say? I aim to please.

She’s already waiting outside when I arrive, and I’m not even late, but I guess Duncan was always early. I smile tightly and give her a light kiss. She yawns and snuggles in her seat, then stretches her arms over her head all the way to my car’s roof. Eyes on the road, damn it!

“So, what kind of movie is your dad doing?” she asks while facing me with her whole body, straining against the seatbelt. I shoot her a quick glance, before staring ahead again.

“Some Sci-Fi crap,” I mumble and she chuckles.

“I thought you loved Sci-Fi.” I can almost hear the laughter in her voice.

“Not the crappy ones,” I shoot back and send her a grin that makes her flush. She looks out of the car window and I’m again confused as to how to treat her now that everything’s changed. I always knew where I stood with her, always knew who she was when dealing with her, but she had to come and tilt my worldview on its axis. Sometimes, when she thinks I’m not looking, her features harden and the walls come up, but then she turns and smiles at me and is soft and sweet and I wonder what happened to those walls. It takes me a second to realize she’s talking again.

“… so I thought a character role means to not do a crappy action movie,” she says and smiles that little half smile of hers.

“Well,” I drawl the word to imply that I’m giving this a lot of thought, “I’m not an expert,” here she snorts, “but I’ve been told that Sci-Fi isn’t action anymore, but merely a background setting for great character development. Thanks to the recent boom of course. And I’m sure daddy dearest will be in loads of emotional upheaval when he orders the deaths of an entire Starfleet of cute but badly made-up extras.”

“So, no ‘character actors’ for the E.T. part?” she smirks at me.

“Not if Alan Rickman has a say in it,” I smirk back and ease into her laughter. Maybe I’m doing something right.

.oOo.

When we arrive, we get the tour by a bored and self-absorbed assistant of the assistant, who thinks Veronica is a fan and I’d rip him a new one if I wasn’t on a date with a girl I’m trying to convince that I’m not the asshole she got to know those last eighteen months. Yeah, right. She bears it admirably, though, feigning interest at the right moments when I know all she really wants to see is the special effects technology.

I dismiss Mr. Self-Important Pimple-Boy and pull her in the make-up truck for some making out and I know I’d find the word game hilarious if I’d had my usual ten a.m. cocktail by now. She giggles anyway as I – very eloquently – point out that this truck was almost made and named after what we’re doing in it. I really can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Veronica Mars, hard ass deluxe, is humoring me.

“So, um, where is the alien make-up?” she asks while I try my best vampire impression on her neck. Huh? Could we concentrate on the horny highschooler here, please?

“I, uh, what?” Okay, I admit it, not my best retort but cut me some slack, my brain suffers some lack of blood right now.

“Make-up? For the aliens? This is just the regular ‘no shiny skin / sweat like a pig’ stuff.” She cocks one eyebrow and smirks in that cute way of hers and I swear she even makes ‘sweat like a pig’ sound sexy. I somehow resist the urge to tell her to shut the fuck up and suck me off – I guess she wouldn’t appreciate that - and try to put my alleged background knowledge of film production into use.

“Well, I guess the Aliens are inserted digitally.” Can we please go back to the horizontal part of the day now?

“Nope, I saw some blue guy just outside looking…. er, just like the one who’s watching us from outside that window.” She’s really cold-blooded. I have to give her that. I blame it on her lack of shrieking that I don’t realize for a few seconds that, in fact, a grinning, slit-eyed alien-masked guy is staring at us from outside the make-up trailer. But then it takes me about two seconds to jump up, get outside and have the little guy pinned at the trailer’s wall. I’m not into peep shows, thank you. Especially not if I’m starring.

The guy blinks at me as I try my best choke him and for one short, surreal moment, I’m impressed at the dexterity of those fake eyelids, but then I realize he’s trying to say something and I loosen my hold a bit.

“I was only interested in your way of fornication,” the little guy says in a strangely tinny voice, lacking any kind of inflection. I’m trying to rip off the muffling mask when I feel a small hand on my arm, restraining me. Fuck, Veronica. I let go of the guy immediately and he scurries off.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to… I mean he was watching us, watching you and I… I really wasn’t going to hit him or something.” It takes me a second to notice that Veronica isn’t even listening to my rambling but staring after our alien intruder instead. I tap her shoulder to regain at least part of her attention and she turns towards me, confusion etched all over her features.

“There were no seams,” she says, looking at me as if I were fucking supposed to get a third of what she says.

“Huh?” I know, I’m getting repetitive here. I’m nothing if not dependable. ‘Trust Logan Echolls to be completely out of the loop of everything concerning Veronica Mars and little blue aliens’.

“Seams, Logan. At the mask. There weren’t any,” she looks at me with that serious expression of hers, then frowns at me. “And what did you mean? You weren’t going to hit him or something? He fucking spied on us!”

Huh?

“Well, I thought you wouldn’t like it if I started a fight,” I explain somewhat sheepishly. Veronica has this eerie way of reminding me of my junior high English teacher. An old spinster that had probably already fought off soldiers during the Civil War with her acidic tongue and the power of her stare.

“Is that why you’ve been such a boy scout lately?” she asks, her eyes narrowed into slits. Is there any way to answer this right?

“Uh, yeah?” I try. She shakes her head.

“And here I thought you’d turned into a sissy.” She grins at me widely.

“What the fuck? You were the one who always gave me a hard time when I was a jackass,” I say. I’m close to pulling out my hair because of that girl.

“Yeah, well, but it’s also kinda hot when you’re a jackass,” she says, her grin growing wider. The possibilities run through my head and I think I might like this new development. I throw my arm around her shoulder and look at her intently.

“Then I’ll make you tremendously happy now. Because I’m gonna show you how much of a jackass I can really be.” Yep, I like it.

“Mm, dreamy,” she says, while rolling her eyes. “Come on, let’s try to find E.T. McPeep.”

“It’s not nice to be on the other side of the curtain, huh?” I grin. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.

“Har har,” she replies dryly. “I think I liked you better when you were kissing my ass.”

“Ow, you wound me,” I shoot back, exaggerated hand gestures included, of course.

“Well, have to repay you for those cavities you gave me with your idea of ‘sweet talking’,” she mocks, finger quotes ready in my face.

“You just have to have the last word, don’t you?” I ask and she looks like she wants to say something, but thinks better of it. She huffs and storms off. I follow, grinning.

.oOo.

It’s almost embarrassingly easy how we get to my father. He’s a celebrity after all, we could be *gasp* out to kill him or something. Okay, so they know I’m his son and my presence kind of vouches for Veronica, yet they probably don’t guess I’d be the first to put a bullet through that bastard’s head. At least, that’s what I always do at that ‘Aaron Echolls sucks’ website, that has funny little shockwave games.

Daddy dearest is smarmily charming towards Veronica and not for the first time, I wonder what they talked about when he took her home that day that Dick and the Beav showed up mid-make-out. I clench my fists as he lays his arm over her slim shoulders, but it kind of puts me at ease that she doesn’t seem star struck in the slightest. Well, kind of.

Veronica has this serious expression and I know that she’s grilling Dad about the alien masks. He doesn’t seem happy at her insistence and I guess I should maybe hold her back before he whips out his belt and gives her an Aaron Extra.

“Dad,” I say, pulling Veronica to my side. “It’s just that this guy was staring at Veronica in a really creepy way and she’s kinda freaked out by it.” Veronica looks at me, surprised and starts to say something when I squeeze her hand. She shuts her mouth and gives Aaron an apologetic smile and he softens up again.

“Yeah, I can see that these Hollywood costumes must seem weird to you…” He’s interrupted by the arrival of a tiny blue man, who approaches him with a deep bow.

“Mr. Echolls, we’d like you to ask your offspring to continue his fornication with his mate so we can study them some more.” Needless to say: Huh? At least this time, I’m not alone.

.oOo.

Is that a lens back there? And that guy with that baseball hat, could be Ashton, I’m sure. There is no possible way in this or any other world that we’re NOT on Punk’d. Veronica seems to think so too, judging from the way she looks at my dad as he explains to us that those aliens we’re seeing everywhere on set actually are aliens.

“You see? With today’s internet video piracy the studios simply can’t afford those billion dollars movies anymore. So they made a deal with those blue guys when they showed up. They take care of the special effects, blow things up and stuff, and the studios only need to pay the human actors. Didn’t you ever wonder why all the aliens in every TV show and movie started to look the same sometimes in the nineties?” Dad looks at us as if he didn’t get why we simply can’t accept that there are aliens on earth, have been for years actually, and are doing movies with him. Yeah, sure, why not?

Veronica looks like she’s close to taking dad’s temperature and having him hospitalized. I guess it doesn’t go with her rational and logical fact-finder personality that she could have actually missed the presence of alien life a couple of miles from her hometown.

“And, uh,” she’s visibly pulling herself together, obviously deciding to approach this from her, well, rational and logical fact-finder side, “they want to see Logan and me, uh, fornicate?”

Aaron gets this ugly little smile of his when he’s being horribly condescending. My fingernails bite little moons in my palms as I try to stay calm for Veronica’s sake.

“They actually came here to study us and this is the deal we struck with them,” he says as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“You let them study you?” I ask, shocked.

“Well, yeah. But not lately. They seem to have gathered pretty much everything they need,” he elaborates. Then his smile turns somewhat dirty. “Except for fornication, that is.”

“Like you didn’t give them enough chances,” I snort and his eyes narrow. Veronica is quick to intervene.

“Logan? Why don’t we go talk to one of them? I’d always like to meet other, um, races. Come on.” She drags me away until we are stopped by the creepiest little Blue Man Group member ever and I realize that it’s the same guy who watched us again.

“You should continue your fornication,” he informs us with that tinny voice of his. Or hers? Whatever. Anyway, I’m tempted to retry the choking thing, when Veronica replies, calm and rather factual, that we will not fornicate for his studies.

“Oh, you will,” the little guy replies and I feel my blood starting to boil again. “If not right now, then soon enough, when we order you.”

I feel the strange urge to laugh bubble up inside of me when a group of tiny blue aliens approach us in a menacing way. It seems like I could kick them a few yards if I tried, but their certainty makes me uncertain.

“Our studies of the human race are almost complete and once we have studied you, they will be. But our information as of yet is enough to know that you humans are no match for us. Your planet will be a nice addition to our empire.”

HUH?

.oOo.

By six a.m. the President officially surrendered to the billions of alien spaceships hovering over the entire world. Apparently, not even the nuclear reserve of the States, Europe and Asia combined could even faze a single one of the ships. Instead, the waves were reflected back towards earth and destroyed 80 % of, well, everything. The rest of us? Hello Chernobyl.

For once, I’m not really in the mood to fornicate with Veronica when Indigo Girl, as I’ve dubbed our little friend, approaches us and repeats his request. When he uses some fancy tractor beam to make us float into the inside of one of the ships hovering over the Hollywood Hills, I think that it’s fucking time that Ashton shows his face.

On board, I catch sight of a familiar blonde head and as soon as the beam disengages, I grab Veronica’s hand and move over.

“Dude! Can you believe it? I’m shacking up with this totally hot but depressed cheerleader and suddenly she turns all blue and is a fucking alien! What the fuck, man? Is that Mars you’re hiding behind your back?” Dick eyes Veronica apprehensively and by the look on her face I’m sure she’d like to take a nutcracker to Dick’s well dick, right now. I figure that this is as good a time to ‘come out’ as there’ll ever be now that the world is kinda coming to an end, so I explain to a stunned Dick that Veronica and I are dating and he’d better treat her with some respect or he should head for the airlock with the sucking tube.

One by one, the aliens move through that tube to start populating what’s left of our planet, at least that’s what I figure. Suddenly, Indigo Girl appears next to us and orders Veronica and me to follow him, probably to fulfill his fucking curiosity. Dick tags along and I presume he already pissed his blue-bimbo-of-the-week off enough so that she –or he? Ew!- left him alone in the ship full of all-powerful comrades.

I can see that Veronica is getting more and more pissed – if by the whole situation or Dick’s presence at her supposed fornication I’m not sure – and I’d warn Indigo Girl if I wasn’t beyond boiling point myself. She snaps when our guard grabs for her arm to steer her into a cell and in one swift motion takes out her taser and fries him. And by fries, I mean fries. We all stare in shock at the smoking pile of blue goo formerly known as Indigo Girl.

“Word!” Dick says. “Why haven’t you done that before?”

Veronica ignores him. “I, oh God, I didn’t know…” she trails off and I run my hand up and down the small of her back.

“It’s okay, V. They’ve killed billions of people. They deserve no better.”

Veronica is still for a second, then pulls herself together and nods.

“So, wanna go liquefy some more aliens?”

.oOo.

When we storm the bridge, there are merely three aliens left, the rest having transferred down to earth. Veronica makes quick work of them while I look at the controls of the ship and Dick stares at Veronica.

“What the hell?” I mutter when I see the controls and Veronica is by my side in an instant, a gaping Dick trailing behind.

“What is it?” she asks, all business-like, as if she weren’t covered head to toe in alien slime.

“This looks like a fucking X-Box!” Dick exclaims and I can only nod.

“But how…?” Veronica trails off and I know she reaches the same conclusion I have. The aliens have not only invaded Hollywood, they also prepared their big strike in the gaming industry. Which means that I can probably fly this thing.

Tentatively, I sit down in the pilot seat and try some of the buttons and the ship really reacts like I’m used to from my video games at home. Veronica’s head snaps towards me and a moment of understanding passes between us. We are so gonna kick some alien ass.

“I’ll try to get rid of some of this alien goulash I’m dribbling all over the floor. Dick, take over battle stations.” Dick and I both stare at Veronica for a second, but it seems she knows that Dick spends half his time video game playing, so he’s the best bet we have right now.

“Now we’re talking,” Dick yells and moves over to his station, letting out a few whoops on the way.

A few moments later, we’re closing in on the blue planet when we get a call from another of the alien ships. Veronica asks me to get it on screen while she takes on her best ‘don’t screw with me’ pose in front of the captain’s seat and I wonder how many episodes of Star Trek Voyager she’s watched.

When we’re ordered to surrender by an alien that’s almost violet in its anger, Veronica only smiles and I’m not sure if I should be proud or scared.

“Dick,” is all she says and moments later, the other ship is up in flames. That’s when the game really starts. Dick is in a frenzy, much like when he really plays games, and shoots about anything that moves until we’re out of munitions.

“Uh, guys?” I say when I see a fleet of alien ships heading straight towards us. Veronica draws in a sharp breath.

“Don’t we have any more ammo?” she asks and we all look around frantically.

“There’s one big red button here,” Dick yells from his battle station. “Should we try it?”

Veronica and I look at each other and shrug.

“Okay then,” she says and watches the approaching ships again. “On my count. One, two… three!”

Dick pushes the button and a red beam of pure energy comes out of our bow, slicing right through all the approaching ships that get in its way. We holler and whoop and dance until Veronica yells: “Dick! Stop it!”

But she is too late. The beam has reached Earth. We can see the Pacific start to boil when it hits, then continents crack and eventually, hot lava wells up from the cracks.

“Awesome!” Dick whispers as we see the world – literally – come to an end.

“Logan,” Veronica whispers, but I’m frozen in place and can’t seem to turn to look at her. “Logan!” she says again, more insistently this time. “We have to get out of here. Now!”

My eyes are fixed on the exploding planet as I try to fly us away from the shockwave as fast as possible. I think I’m kinda losing it when I can’t get the lyrics ‘great balls of fire’ out of my head, but then Veronica’s by my side and she’s grabbing my hand as the shockwave catches up with us.

Everything around me explodes and my last conscious thought as I hold on tightly to Veronica’s hand is that I should have used the chance to fornicate with her when I had it.

~the end. For real.

Award banners

Thu, 25 May 2006 11:45:48 GMT

It's awards time, people!
sorry about the delay, had a crazy week.
I hope you enjoyed the ride, here are your awards. As I said: questionable Photoshop talents. Anyways, please download them, because I don't know how long I can keep them online.
I noticed that the categories didn't cover some of my requests, so I added a 'Judge's Choice' category, where I placed the stories that IMO answered best to their challenge, categories be damned.

Scary Tale - Best Angst

Merry Tale - Best Humor

(Sorry, couldn't stop myself. You can have a regular one,if you want ^^)

Vary Tale - Best AU

Airy Tale - Best Fluff

Fiery Tale - Hottest Smut

Judge's Choice

Lex managed to stay close to the fairy tale, yet make her story come across natural in the VM universe and even build in the twist without making it feel 'forced'. Kudos!

Sodapopprincess also stayed close to the fairy tale of Hans in luck and made a perfect choice with Dick. It's believable that Dick would manage to get himself into such situations. The build-in of the twist didn't flow as good as in Lex's story, so it's second place.

The second second place goes to MutinousMuse. She did a great job with the fairy tale, even using something that acutally happened in the series! Extra credits for that. But the twist felt a bit forced to me, so this story also comes second.

Congrats to all the winners! I got some awesome stories here and I hope you enjoyed writing them as much as I enjoyed reading them ;)

Finale! Oh oh. Finale! Oh oh oh oh...

Sat, 13 May 2006 08:34:29 GMT

Dani and I watched the VM finale last night. Mizu couldn't come because of work and I will kill her boss if this keeps up *grumbles* We haven't had a VM binge threesome in ages...
So, the finale.

I'm not sure I like it. It was breathtaking and everything, but it was a bit too fast-paced for my taste. Like they had to wrap up every storyline in 42 meager minutes, instead of just the 'who did it'.
The Cassidy revelation felt a bit like a homework you hated doing being handed in without much enthusiasm. Like "Gah, we have to have a culprit, let's make it Beaver and be done with it". And why did V when noticing that Cass was in the team immediately assume that he was a killer? She didn't suspect the third boy before, she thought it was Woody. But something about Cass made her go all 'Meeep! Killer!!'? While I get the continuity of the actual act and his reasons, the revelation doesn't add up (but that's not a first in VM, so...)
The Jackie storyline did nothing for me and was a waste of time. End of story.
I like the rape revelation (yeah, I'm sick like that), because in Attd I felt that I was 'cheated' out of my angsty issue ;) While back then, I predicted the Duncan story, I didn't like it much. But back, they had to reveal a familiar character with the rape because they couldn't have introduced a new nameless, faceless 09er as the culprit. So, I like that they used season 2 to build up Cass as a character and THEN revealed his part in V's rape.
But come on, she had Chlamydia for more than 2 years and didn't notice? Doesn't this girl go to docs every now and then? Unlike the 'everyone has chlamydia' yellers, I don't think V gave it to Duncan. I take her as the very responsible safer sex type, who'd insist on condoms.
Then, the L/V reunion. While I like that V asked Logan for help, it was logical: he was in the building and she trusted him to help her. Lucky for her,he wasn't drunk ;P One might say: out of character! Fucking grad party! The shipper in me say: he learned his lesson after the last party and he never wants to forget again *le sigh*
I was disappointed that Logan didn't snap when V revealed that Cassidy raped her. I would have expected a punch. I would have expected him to kill the Beav in his rage. Not to mourn him. Stupid Logan >_<
The fact that they're together again leaves me with mixed emotions. On one hand, I'm happy and swooning, on the other: it felt cheap and forced and not at all deserved. I hope they do flashbacks in season 3 that show more of the reunion and ease my worry ;P
Kendall's 'young love' made me laugh: Come on, no reason to be bitter, you might have lost Logan, but you're filthily rich! Also, another nice Nitw mirror. So Kendall is the new Logan? ;)
I'm just very very glad that Beaver is gone. I never liked him, I never liked him with Mac and if his departure means I also get rid of Dick (after seeing his reaction to what his little pussy bro did), I'll be even happier. This has nothing to do with the actors' talent. I was impressed with Kyle Gallner in the finale, I just never liked the Casablancas brothers' characters. Not because they were both assholes, you need good assholes in every show, I was annoyed that fandom seemed so eager to ignore that fact and made them shiny heroes and pretended they were lovable in any way. I like me a good Dick story, where he's in character, but I've had my fill of those mushy fluffy 'Dick's so cute' stories. Same with Beav.
So, that's it. We'll see what I think when I've watched it a couple of more times. I didn't like Attd at first either,because of the pace. So maybe I'll change my mind about the finale as well.
</lj-cut)

Twisted Tales Challenge - VOTE

Mon, 01 May 2006 16:24:43 GMT

So... me and LJ, yeah... I did clickboxes instead of radio buttons by accident. Please only vote for ONE fic per category. You'll help me a lot with figuring out who won, when I don't have to check everything and delete double votes *headdesk*

VOTING IS CLOSED

The award banners will be posted soon! :)

View Poll: Twisted Tales Challenge

test

Mon, 01 May 2006 15:55:14 GMT

just to test all the links for the TTC poll:

keepaofthecheez: Hero of the day

sodapopprincess: See Dick Do

irmak: Strange Wild Orchid

blue_icy_rose: Some Friendly Advice

mutinousmuse: The Girl Who Left Home to Find Out about the Shivers

shealynn88: Home Is Where The Heart Is

synful_trixxie: Raven

drollicaeipathy: Beautiful

deianeira: WTF Schnitzelbrötchen will take over da world

lex_83: You know what they say about 'best laid plans'...

suhra: Dead Or Alive

End of test

Absence and VM (of course)

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 07:58:26 GMT

Gah, sorry that I'm never around anymore. Life's been a shitload of fun those past weeks, started the new job with hours that go beyond my wildest dreams *snores* and then, there was Mizu's wedding last weekend (Congrats, chica! You looked awesome, especially bent over .. erm... next topic). The new flat still looks like a bomb shelter and I have no time to finish the renovation or at least clean up some. And I'm way behind schedule on the fucking book and the publisher has my ass on a frying pan.
So, yesterday, finally, finally, Dani came over and we watched the last three VM eps (yeah, I was that behind).
The good thing about that is that I was already a little drunk when we started 2x20, because oh my fucking god, I wouldn't have survived that one sober. I'm sure I missed a lot of moments and dialog because, well duh, alcohol and also, I was fucking tired.
While I had my issues with Veronica this season, they were almost never about the way she treated Logan (because, let's be honest, she had to take about as much as she gave, so he's no saint). So, unlike others, I don't think she deserved what she got in the end (or the beginning, though torrent messed that up and I had to read online that V has chlamydia *snicker*). But hey, that's real life and there's never a Hollywood ending and this is EXACTLY why I love this show! So, I'm not rooting for V getting hurt, but it's realistic, so: YAY! And Logan banging Kendall? Priceless ;P Oh boy, you always do the wrong women.
Liam / Kendall made me wonder if Kendall insinuated that Griffith testified against Logan and what exactly she's up to. Oh, the plot thickens...
Also, stealing Duncan's hair to frame him for Lilly's murder? That's not some stupid trophy wife you're dealing with, V.
And the Fitzpatricks vs. PCHers scene was killing me. Liam is my new God. Seriously, can a guy be hotter?`Yeah, I know, Logan, but he almost makes me feel pedophile. Can't there be a Liam/Logan mix somewhere? Just the thought makes me drool.

Gah, have to get back to work *sigh*
Can't wait for the next ep!

VM fic: Harlequin (Veronica) PG13

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:19:33 GMT

Fic: Harlequin (Veronica) PG13

Title: Harlequin
Author: Kaze
Pairing/Character: Veronica, mentions of D/V and L/V
Word Count: 1,595
Rating: PG 13
Summary: character study on Veronica
Spoilers: up to Donut Run
Warnings: none
A/N: This is part 3 of the ‘Superhero Series’ (‘Captain Planet hung the moon’ and ‘Avenger’), but works as stand alone.
I'm nervous about this, so feedback, especially criticism, is very welcome. Thanks to my fabulous betas blue_icy_rose and fickledame - yes, I finally dared to post this ;P

Saturday morning was cartoon time and had been for as long as you could remember, which wasn’t that long to be truthful. Your mom would be in the kitchen, preparing lunch or baking and your dad would grin at you and pat his lap invitingly. He’d be most excited about the Avengers series and you’d indulge his endless explanations about the back story of each character and the origin of Captain America. All the while, you were waiting impatiently for your secret favorite to air: Batman. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but there was something about the Dark Knight, patrolling the streets at night, not having any superpowers but still able to kick ass like nobody’s business. Also, you had a little crush on Robin, though you’d never admit to it, since he was the closest thing to your hero without being as disgustingly ancient as Bruce Wayne.

One day, a new character was introduced: Batgirl. You scrunched up your nose; you weren’t ready yet to have any female disrupt your dynamic duo, unless it was you in your dreams, of course. Your dad grins at you and tells you that Batgirl reminds him of you and you barely refrain from sticking out your tongue at him. If anything, you’re like Catwoman. Well, probably more like Selina Kyle, pre-Catwoman, but who cares? She gets to kiss Batman!

But Catwoman is soon forgotten when you see her enter the fold. Harley Quinn, the Joker’s devoted self-appointed girlfriend - brilliant and strong. Suddenly, everything is about Harley and when your dad carefully points out that she’s a villain, you get into this insanely long rant about how she’s a victim to the Joker’s evil wiles, how she only wanted to help him and she can’t possibly be held accountable for her crimes. You develop a fascination for playing cards and manage to spend hours in a row just shuffling them over and over again. You feel a strange symbolism in those cards, reminding you of Harley’s messed-up life and how everything might have worked out for Harlene Quinzel had she been dealt another hand by fate and never met the Joker, never become Harley Quinn.

When you’re fifteen, you talk Lilly into dressing up as Poison Ivy for Halloween. You tell her that the two of you will be the Gotham Girls gone gay and she laughs at you, rolls her eyes and eventually gives in. When you finally find her at the party, you barely recognize her in the expensive leather suit, the mask pronouncing her almond eyes. She says your name like a lecture and tells you that no one knows Poison Ivy, but everybody knows Catwoman. Before you can tell her that Catwoman prowls alone, she’s gone, wrapping her whip around some guy on the dance floor while you try to quench the pain in your stomach.

Madison strolls over to you and makes a derisive comment about your lack of creativity for dressing up like a clown, when Logan suddenly appears next to you and informs her that you’re not a clown, but a harlequin and if he’s not mistaken, the Harley Quinn. Madison scoffs and takes off, but you don’t notice, because you’re too busy staring at Logan’s tight-fitting outfit, complete with the cape and the utility belt. He squirms under your scrutiny and you’d bet his ears are red, hidden underneath the pointy bat-ears of his mask. Then Lilly’s there, claiming her dark knight for a round of cat-scratching and you finally notice the figure that had stood behind Logan until now.

You can’t believe that Duncan actually dyed his hair green and the rest of his outfit isn’t quite Joker-like, but you just know that he dressed up like this for you when he saw that Lilly didn’t come through with Poison Ivy. You tell him as much and he blushes and grins, balling a piece of fabric in his fist that looks suspiciously like a red cape as he leads you to the dance floor. You call him ‘Mistah D.’ as he smiles at you and for a fleeting second you wonder if he got what you meant but the music is fast and you laugh as he twirls you around.

After that night, you and Duncan are an item and you feel like doing a good old-fashioned sacrifice for Fortuna for dealing you such a great hand. For a while everything is perfect and you feel like the Queen of Hearts, holding hands with your King of Hearts, while the edgy and pointy but beautiful Queen of Diamonds entertains you with her antics with the King of Clubs. You’re all royal family and you forget that there are higher cards in the game until the Ace of Spades trumps your beautiful queen and your hand is suddenly worthless, your chips long gone without you noticing.

You hold your head up high, clench your fingers around the Joker card you keep in your front pockets, while walking through the halls of Neptune High. They wrote you off but you’re still a player and you aren’t done yet. You still have some aces up your sleeve so you don your best dress and show them. It’s a gamble, you know that, but you weren’t ready for the stakes and you never pictured that when you’d lay all your cards open you might actually lose.

For a moment you want to cling to the hand you were dealt, you won’t accept defeat. You go over the rules time and again until you notice that the only option you have left is to fold, because you can’t win - not with these cards. So you do what you do best and start shuffling. You try not to think about the chips you lost (home, mother, friend, lover, innocence, innocence, innocence…) because it’s time to deal again and you have to keep playing if you’re ever gonna win.

You understand Harley better now, the way she reinvented herself, how she shed Harlene, donned a costume and became strong and witty. You learn from her, you learn how to bluff and how to hide the bitterness. You’re guarding the chips you have left, but you don’t get attached anymore, for losing is a distinct possibility. But boy, you know how to gamble and for a while your cards, they don’t look so bad. The next blows are sudden and you lose a few hands, but you gained enough in the last rounds to be able to afford it and the game is far from over. Also, you’re an expert in shuffling and reshuffling so who knows when you’ll get a lucky streak again?

This one hand is a close call and you almost burn, but somehow you make it out, clinging tightly to the chips you have left. You wonder how Harley always manages to keep smiling with all the shit she’s been through as you shuffle your cards, as you’re used to by now. Fortuna turned her back on you but she’s always been a bitch anyway, so you keep shuffling and adapting and accepting. It’s not hard anymore, actually, it’s quite comfortable to move with the flow of the game and you know you became reactionary, but you can’t afford an offensive strategy anymore.

You get some high cards back in your fold and you think that maybe, just maybe, you might win back some of the chips you lost but you end up losing that hand as well and the next and the next and you applaud yourself for not getting attached.

The game is fast-paced now and Harley giggles and whispers in your ear about the other players’ bluffs, but you don’t call them and they look at you strangely. They don’t understand that you’ve been burnt and you simply can’t afford to be risky again.

You keep a jealous watch over your chips and clutch your cards to your chest because you know that this is your final hand and it’ll just have to do because you can’t reshuffle again and the house won’t give you any more credit.

The bus crash comes from the sidelines and you weren’t prepared. You didn’t know there was a player named Curly and you thought Aaron had folded some time ago. But you convince yourself that your cards are good enough as you face the players you actually can beat with your meager, traitorous cards and ignore the stakes at the table next to yours.

Harley complains that she’s not having any fun but you stubbornly insist that you just need to win a couple more hands until you have enough chips on your side to play at the adult table again. Yet, Fortuna turned her back a while ago and Wallace is gone and your father is disappointed in you. All the while you think of fire and burns and how a simple hand can be such a struggle when you already mastered one hell of a game.

You smile sadly as you wipe the grease paint from your face and inform Harley that there are just so many times she can reinvent herself and that every time she becomes someone else, she just gives up what made her old self special. But Harlene still haunts her and Harley still haunts the Gotham Girl and you know she would still do everything for her Mistah J.

So you do and you smile widely and you giggle while the grease paint sticks to your skin and makes you itch.

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:37:01 GMT

I stole this from lex_83 and laughed my ass off ;)

Your LJ Prison by redfrog021
Username
Favorite Deadly Sin
You are convicted of	Holding a Children's Site Hostage for Server Space, you jerk!
And sentenced to	15 years
Warden	mutinousmuse
Abusive redneck guard	lex_83
Easy to bribe guard	dasq
Cellmate	blue_icy_rose
Wants to make you their bitch	deianeira
Drops soap in the shower on purpose	misa_05
Works in the laundry and smells people's undies	weirdthoughts
Comes to see you for 'conjugal visits'	sugahcat

Quiz created with MemeGen!

Whoa, Dani, I knew you were kinky. But this?
And of course Nicky wants to make me her bitch ;P At least I have another Nicole in my cell to keep me company... At least I can offer Mizu ...um... services for letting me out sometimes...

VM in Germany

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 21:18:25 GMT

Saturday, VM started in Germany. I wasn't at home, so I planned to tape it - after all it was the pilot and there's no episode I know better than this one - but my VCR fucked up and so I couldn't watch it >_< I was so curious about the sync, voices as well as the translation.
A friend watched it though and said that it was okay, Logan has the same sync voice as Xander, which is too soft for him (bwahahaha) and the translation is decent enough. Well, I won't start to watch it on German now, because the translations are always worse (except for Scrubs, Scrubs is way funnier in German, but that's the only exception), but I was curious. Also, it wasn't very well received. But no surprise there: it's on on Saturday afternoon, at 2.15 pm. And the description in the TV guide was something along the lines 'mix of Desperate Housewives with Twin Peaks' Dani told me. What the fuck?
In other news, 'finger in my pie' is runner-up as 'most original' in the AQL challenge! Woot woot! Thanks to everybody who voted for me :) I'm really proud about that result. Though, I saw in the votes that someone voted it as most fluffiest? Well, nothing against the occasional fluff, but I really wouldn't consider 'FimP' fluff, although it's certainly one of the more hopeful stories I've written ;P
Also, somebody nominated this one for the Fic from Mars awards! Oh my fucking god! I stared at my screen for a full minute when I received the notification email. I was this short of practicing my Oscar acceptance speech ;P And I have some of the really big fish as 'competition' in the same category (AU), so I know that I haven't got a snowballs chance, but hey, fucking hell, I got nominated! This was very much unexpected and I feel like I rock right now. Okay, I stopped short of quitting my job to become a professional fanfic writer, since I guess it won't pay my bills, but this got me back on track for that sequel I had in mind. So, more 'FimP' soon.
Also, I have another one-shot in the pipeline, I hope to post it before the weekend. I'm not yet happy with it, it still feels kind of off, but I hope there won't be too much to change.
Yesterday was Tobi's birthday so we took it slow. Today was our anniversary, and stupid us thought we'd go to IKEA and get some more stuff for the apartment. We spent our whole day furniture hunting again and I just (finally) came home and I'm tired as hell. We actually planned to go see a musical, but there went that plan. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow, but we have another trip to IKEA to pick up the stuff that didn't fit in the car anymore ;P

Up to date. Yay

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 08:33:01 GMT

Yesterday, I went to Dani's to finally finally watch the latest VM eps (Versatile Toppings, the Quick and the Wed, Rapes of Graff -> yes, I was that behind) which means that I can now also finally read all the fanfics I didn't the last few weeks because I didn't want to be spoilered ;P We also watched two LOST eps before I had to leave to make it home in the second to last metro that night ;P
So, Veronica Mars. Of course, we got a teensy bit inebriated again (though not as bad as the evening of my exam, which took me the following day to rehydrate...) so Logan naturally made me laugh every time I saw him ;P I thought Logan / Hannah would be worse, but asshole!Logan made it alright again. And his antics were so un-Logan-like that we laughed our asses off. So, at the end of VT, Dani said that Logan can't break it up with Hannah, he hasn't yet fucked her. I was convinced that he had and we spent the break it took to change to tQ&tW to discuss this, with Dani's closing argument that if they fucked, she wanted to see it so they have to again.

Long long previouslies made us nostalgic (don't get me wrong, I love season 2, but season 1 was always a happening with our weekly sit-in at Dani's (Mizu was there too but has no time for us anymore *sniff*) getting drunk to be able to get though the episode). Then, I went into fangirl mode when Rodney Rowland was in screen, but it was all a tease, Liam wasn't in the ep >_< Seriously, as much as I love Logan, had he hurt Liam when threatening him with an unloaded (heh, stooopid) gun, I would have killed off Logan in every fanfic I will ever write! Viciously. With much pain and suffering. Probably balding before biting the dust.

And then, the return of the Ashmore. Dani's first comment: he got old. Me: it's been a year. Dani: still, he got very old. And that was it ;P I was very convinced that this Dean guy was the rapist, but well, it wasn't revealed (yeah, I know about the season 3 mystery thing... ugh) which IMO sucks. And why does V manage to exonerate this particular boyfriend, but not the other...

So, I haven't much else to say about the eps besides 'ooooh, the plot thickens' until I've watched them again in a more sober state. Besides that I still hate Dick and I hope Veronica rips him a new one for the car thing (by way of compensation). I mean, I like the fact that the character is on the show, I like the actor and I wouldn't want him gone. I just hate what the character represents. Meaning, I'd hate him if he were real.

In other news: I finally ot my Pride & Prejudice DVD (all hail Amazon), my Chasing Amy DVD and new music ^^ Maybe this order was a bad timing, having the delivery before I move, but I just couldn't wait anymore.

Hopefully today I can get some new colors and finally do some of the fanart I promised people. After I paint the living room walls of course :/ Renovating is overrated.

Oh, and I'm excited about the Twisted Tales Challenge contribs :) I just received Michi's hilarious crack!fic per email and while I have yet to figure out what it has to do with her fairy tale, it still cracked me up like only her 'Toxic' before. Still, I think I'll probably have to come up with new categories for some of the fics ;P

Off to painting, it is.

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:19:30 GMT

Yesterday, I was at the birthday party of Tobi's boss' wife. At first, it was quite fun, but then some guys at the table next to us started smoking cigars while we were still eating. And yeah, that was terribly rude and I was pissed off and I wish I lived in a country where smoking in restaurants is prohibited, but the trouble that ensued wasn't justified. Instead of asking them to put out their cigars while we were eating, Tobi's boss started ranting about smokers in general and became really, really mad. In turn, the smoking guys became mad and started insulting us and it all heated up so we decided to leave, no dessert (*sniff*). The thing I'm sorry about though s that his wife had such a crappy birthday dinner...

I chatted with Jade yesterday and she reminded me that I haven't written a thing for my WIPs in ages ;P I really feel bad about that, so I guess I'll start on 'Ask me no secrets' again this week. Another fic is with the betas right now... part 3 of the superhero series, this time featuring Veronica. I'm not happy with it, so I guess it'll still take some time till I post it.

Also, I'm floored by the votes in lex's 'Ask questions later' challenge vote and that people are actually voting for my story *^^* And I received feedback on fanfiction.net for Cat's and mine 'on the beat' (X-Men fanfic), which has been done for ages! Feedback for long-finished stories is such a kicker :) Speaking of Cat, she made me this AMAZING Rogue fanart *^^* Go, check it out and tell her how great she is! (beware of the pimpage): http://www.deviantart.com/view/28448305/ *hugs Cat* you are fabulous! We so have to do our 'on the beat' sequel! OMG, I'm starting to get into X-Men again ;P

Okay, before this gets even more incoherent, I'm cutting this off.