Taking Note

Author: xyellowroset

Summary: You begin to scratch Duncan's initials off the page all the while wondering when it was that your best friend became such a tool.

Disclaimer: Veronica Mars and the characters therein are the intellectual property of Rob Thomas and UPN Television. This derivative work is my own, and while I make no claim to the characters or the show, my writing was not reproduced or redistributed without my express written permission.

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Irony – sweet, bitter, blunt, sharp – there's so much irony in the world.

Learning your father had fucked, and then killed, your girlfriend. That was a good one. It was made even richer when he tried it again a few months later – albeit without the courtesy of a fuck first.

You've seen the tapes – your girlfriend sprawled under your father, your father sprawled under your girlfriend: the expression on his face making it clear that in this movie, he wasn’t acting – the expression on Lily's face very much the same. She never looked that happy when she was with you.

You want to be angry with him, but you can't. You've long since passed the point where you can feel anything for him indifference. He doesn't deserve any more. He'd been fucking you figuratively long before he fucked her literally.

You want to be angry with her, but you find you can't. That's ironic, too. As driven by emotion as you are, there's very little you can bring yourself to give a damn about anymore. You try to tell yourself that your indifference to the world is part of your charm, but it's a lie. Because the world has started to become indifferent to you.

Then there's Veronica. Were it not for her, you might have pulled a Duncan and just disappeared altogether. The ironic thing is, of course, that she seems to be well past giving a damn about you.

But not Duncan - Duncan who got another girl pregnant. Duncan who kidnapped his own child and ran off to Mexico. Duncan who's more fucked up than you'll ever be.

You wonder who's the bigger idiot – you for still loving her, or her for still loving him.

"Cuckolds." You're brought out of your daydream by the world and then realize, too late that the word wasn't what you thought it was.

Still, momentarily alert, you decide to pay attention. It's something about the universality of love triangles. "Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot. David, Bathsheba, [bathsheba's husband]. Love triangles are as old as love . . ."

You find yourself filling the page of your notebook with triangles and initials – yours, Lily's, your father's – Duncan's, yours, Veronica's.

You'd long ago realized you were nothing special. After all, your father had been telling you as much for years. To learn that your life is nothing more than a pale imitation of a story in the Bible is a blow even to your ego. Still, you promise yourself, that in spite of the parallels, there's not a chance in Hell that you're going to be turning to the Good Book for guidance.

Although there would be a delicious irony in that.

Disturbed by your own line of thinking, you raise your hand to question the fact that she's making reference to this book at all. This is public school. She pales, and quickly regroups. "This is English class, not religion, Logan. In order to understand literature, you need to understand the biblical allusions that are common in it."

Undeterred, she returns to the lecture. She then asks a question, and Veronica answers. Of course Veronica answers. In spite of working at the coffee shop, in spite of everything, she's managed to have finished the reading.

Irony.

She smiles at the teacher's compliment at an exceptionally profound answer, and then catches you looking. A quirked eyebrow – clearly indicating that you no longer hold any proprietary claim to her – and you respond in kind, deliberately staring at her. You'll do what you damn well please.

Fuck her!

If only.

Irony.

You begin to scratch Duncan's initials off the page with increasing violence, all the while wondering when it was that your best friend became such a tool.

This time it's Veronica that watches you; you can feel her eyes on her without even turning around. There's no point in responding. Veronica probably not only knows what you're doing, but what you're thinking.

You wish you could hate her for that. You wish you could write her out of your life as easily as you've written off Duncan – as simple line through her initials obliterating her and her memory.

It would be a lie though, and the ironic thing is that you're honest.

You begin to trace over the line leading from Veronica's initials to yours – as though the will invested on the paper-based reinforcement will somehow translate to the reality of the woman sitting two aisles over and one row up. After all, Duncan is now out of the picture.

And you – you have a way of being sure that you won't be overlooked for too long. In spite of it all – the ignominy of your parentage, the antipathy between you, and Veronica's seemingly preternatural ability to read and understand people – you know what the underlying irony is.

Veronica can't help but fix things – and you have a tendency to break them.

The bell rings, and you close your notebook with an affected casualty. Veronica stays behind thumbing through contacts that could only have been purchased with the proceeds of some oh-niner's allowance. You wonder what favor she did them even as you fight back a jealous surge that comes from no longer being privy to that part of her life.

"Thank you," you tell the teacher with a sincerity that you know will be interpreted as sarcasm. "That class was especially enlightening today."

Veronica watches you leave, and you know you've made her wonder.

Let her.

The End

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