Entry tags:

apocalyptothon, challenge, lamb, lamb/veronica, r, veronica, vm fic

VM: Fic: This Is How We Fall Apart (R) Veronica/Lamb
Title: This Is How We Fall Apart
Author: txtequilanights
Rating: R, I guess. Character death, language, and a tiny bit of sex.
Pairing: Veronica/Lamb
Word Count: 1300ish
Spoilers: Nothing specific, really.
Summary: No one wants to be alone, especially when the world is falling apart around them.
Notes: Written for xphoenixrising for apocalyptothon. My first try at V/Lamb and, really, Lamb in general, so concrit is more than welcome. Thanks so much to keepaofthecheez and sadiekate for betaing.

This Is How We Fall Apart

No one told Veronica the end of the world would involve her going insane. But she can’t seem to find any other explanation. And she’s tried, a lot. She’s tried thinking logically and reasonably. She’s tried thinking…paranormally. Which basically involves straining to remember every episode of Buffy and The X-Files she’s ever seen. It’s not working, none if it. No matter what she does, she lands back on insanity.

Not that she doesn’t have a good reason for being insane. She’s pretty sure the end of the freaking world is the best excuse anyone will ever be able to come up with, so why not use it? It’s not like she can save it for a better time or anything.

There’s stirring next to her, soft curses and low groans accompanying the shifting of blankets. She looks over, meeting blue eyes, and when she speaks, her voice sounds slightly hysterical to her own ears. “What did we just do?”

Asking was really just a formality. She knows the answer to that question.

***

Veronica made another mark on the back of her bedroom door, green marker this time. She wrote Wallace’s name by it and then stopped. She had been biting her tongue for what seemed like it could be hours and she could taste blood, a slow, steady, metallic flow warming her mouth and sliding down her throat. She moved her hand, reached up and ran a finger over the inside of her lower lip. It came away red. She was alive.

But Wallace wasn’t. He had died two mornings ago, curled up in the chair in her living room watching old tapes of basketball games. She’d come back from walking Backup and he was gone. The remote lying upside down on the floor at his feet. She’d closed her eyes, braced herself and called 911. Which was less for emergencies these days and more for getting rid of the dead.

Her dad wasn’t alive either; he’d been gone for weeks now. Logan wasn’t alive. Even fucking Dick Casablancas wasn’t alive. Weevil was. Or, at least, he had been the day before, when he’d shown up at her front door and told her that the last of his cousins, 5 year-old Maria, died that morning. He didn’t say it, but she knew why he was there. Same reason she was. Nowhere else to go.

She’d nodded and let him in and they’d spent the night drinking the bottle of Jack he’d produced from inside his leather coat and playing poker and talking about Lilly. Only Lilly. That was safe, the wounds from Lilly’s death weren’t new and raw and so painful that Veronica’s throat closed up every time she even came close to thinking about it. They’d ended up passing out in her living room, her on the couch and him on the floor, and by the time she woke up, he was gone. But he wasn’t dead, and that was all that mattered. For now.

A knock on the door startled Veronica into dropping the marker and reaching automatically for Backup, who was growling and bristling at her side. Apparently, animals were unaffected by whatever it was that was dropping humans like flies. People were using their pets for food and Veronica hadn’t let Backup out of her sight in days.

“It’s probably just Weevil,” she told the dog, who didn’t seem all that comforted

Sighing, Veronica pulled herself to her feet and crossed the small apartment to crack open the door. Lamb was standing outside, looking irritated and more than a little impatient. Or maybe his face finally got stuck like that. Either way, it looked like that animal thing didn’t stop at dogs and cats.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Veronica asked, swinging the door the rest of the way open.

Lamb looked almost…relieved to see her, but his expression closed back up into “bored” so fast that Veronica thought she must have imagined it. But then he said “you’re still alive.” And Lamb may have had one hell of a poker face, but his voice betrayed him and Veronica could hear the silent “thank God” on the end as clearly as if it had been spoken out loud.

***

If Veronica is, in fact, insane, that’s got to be the genesis. There’s no way around it. Lamb had been the biggest asshole to ever walk the planet even before practically everyone on the planet had died, and if there had been one constant in Veronica’s life, that was it. But at that moment his concern for her was palpable and all Veronica could do was blink at him in surprise. Because, clearly, she was hallucinating.

Unless she wasn’t.

Of course, that was nothing compared to what happened next. Veronica’s memory is a little fuzzy, but she remembers the important stuff. And, from the way Lamb is staring at her now, his eyes intense enough to make her look away, he does too. Veronica drags her knees up to her chest and buries her face in her hands. Her engagement ring is twisted the wrong way on her finger and the diamond cuts into her cheek, making her gasp sharply at the pinprick of pain.

And just when she was hoping that it was all a dream.

***

“I heard about Logan,” Lamb said finally, after a too-long pause where all she did was blink at him and all he did was watch her.

Veronica didn’t say anything, just twisted her ring around on her finger without thinking. She didn’t know why he was here, but she was finding that she didn’t care. She didn’t know if Weevil was coming back, and if he wasn’t, she didn’t want to be alone. She loved her dog, but it wasn’t the same. Lamb was, arguably, a person and he was alive and, right then, that was enough for her to step back and let him inside.

As soon as the door shut behind him, he pulled a bottle of tequila out of his jacket in an almost exact replica of the motion Weevil had made the night before and Veronica couldn’t help but laugh. Good to know that, even though the world was ending, alcohol was still in steady supply.

He gave her a weird look, but didn’t question the laughter. Veronica was glad; she didn’t want to talk to him. Not really. She didn’t have anything to say. Instead, she took the bottle from his hand and twisted it open, welcoming the burn as she swallowed the first drink.

A few hours later, the bottle was empty, Lamb’s mouth was hot and wet against hers and Veronica blocked out who he was and everything he’d ever done to her and just let herself feel. When he slid inside her, he said her name in a raw, choked out voice and when she came she said his, the word slipping past her lips before she could hold it back.

She fell asleep in his arms, curled up under a blanket on the floor in her living room. The last thing she thought before sliding into unconsciousness was that if the world wasn’t ending before, it sure as hell was now.

***

She hears him stand up, feels the loss of his body heat, and when she looks up, he’s zipping his jeans. He pulls on his shirt, grabs his jacket, says “it’s been a pleasure, Mars” and walks towards the door.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing when she tells him to wait, but she knows it’s better than letting him leave. The world is falling to pieces around them and she suddenly wants someone around to help hold her together.

Or at least someone to fall apart alongside her.