Gamble
Weevil usually tried to stay out of rich people's business. Sure, rich white pussy boys were fun to ambush on the beach and beat up occasionally, although that invariably resulted in one of his guys getting ambushed in some alley and knocked senseless (they never targeted Weevil himself, not since he'd broken the nose of an 09'er senior in his freshman year).
But get any closer than your fist in their face, and trouble was sure to follow. Weevil knew this, had known it since he was five, and yet somehow the slick rich kids kept wrapping him up in their shit.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how unbelievably fucked up the white folks of Neptune were. Weevil had known since he was ten that, despite police brutality, shitty housing, and five little cousins to take care of, he was way better off with his homeboys and his grandma than he would have been with the white kids.
Just look at what happened to Chardo. Fuck that, look at what happened to Lilly.
But Even though Weevil honestly tried to stay out of white folks' business like his grandma had always taught him, their trouble seemed to come to him anyway. First Lilly Kane, then Chardo and that skinny white bitch, then Veronica Mars, and now Logan Echolls.
A couple weeks after Logan's mom offed herself (and jesus--Weevil had always known that family was fucked up, but jesus), Logan cornered him after school and demanded a Poker rematch.
"I will even ever so generously pay for your entrance fee," he'd said with a sneer, and Weevil's fist had itched to punch his prissy little face in. But both he and Logan knew that there was no way Weevil could resist a game with stakes that high.
They met at Logan's house later that afternoon, and Logan brought out the booze like he didn't know, or just didn't care, that it was only 4:00 and his dad was in the other room arguing with one of his agents.
Logan won, and Weevil accused him of cheating, and Logan called him his latest creative racial slur, and they punched each other a few times before collapsing on the floor, drunk and tired and sick. After a while, Logan stood up and walked out, tossing a few bills at Weevil's feet, a clear invitation to leave.
Weevil felt like a whore, but he took the money anyway and consoled himself with knowing that Logan would have an unmistakable black eye tomorrow at school.
They didn't speak to each other again for a week, and then Logan cornered him at his locker again, throwing money at his feet and laughing raucously.
He was clearly drunk (Weevil had noticed the 'water bottle' of vodka Logan had been carrying around since his mom did her thing), but Weevil slammed him hard enough against the lockers to dent the metal, anyway.
Logan had just giggled (fuck, that boy was pissed, his breath reeked of it) when Weevil yelled at him. "C'mon, poolboy," he'd slurred. "Don't you want another chance at seeing the inside of my mansion? Or do you get your fill of that helping your grandmommy sweep the floors?"
Weevil had punched him in the gut (and gotten suspended for two days–he needed to learn not to punch people right in front of teachers), but came to Logan's house later that day, anyway. Logan brought out the booze and the cards without saying anything.
It didn't mean they were friends. It didn't mean jack shit.
Halfway through the game Weevil decided to raise the stakes.
"You know, he said casually, drawing another card. "Lilly and me, we fucked a few times when she broke up with you."
Logan froze.
Weevil smirked. "We really liked each other, you know? She came over to my house every day for two weeks, and we'd spend hours together in my room, just-"
Logan was fast when he wanted to be, and he was lunging over the table to knock Weevil out of the chair, rolling him onto the ground and punching wildly whatever he could hit.
But Logan was a skinny rich pansy, and Weevil was sitting on top of him, pinning him to the ground after only two or three punches.
"Who's the fuckin' poolboy now, huh?" he yelled. "I'm the man that fucked your girl! And you know what? I loved her! Fuck you, I loved her too!" That particular admission hadn't been part of the plan, and Weevil felt dizzy. He got off Logan and stumbled to his feet, because Logan looked like a crushed puppy and Weevil felt like throwing up when he looked at him.
"I loved her, too," Weevil muttered before walking out without collecting his winnings.
The next day, Weevil walked out to the school parking lot to find his bike spray-painted pink and totalled. It looked suspiciously like it had been run over by a large truck, maybe a jeep—just possibly a yellow one.
He tracked down Logan (who was, surprisingly, by himself rather than surrounded by his usual horde of 09'er kids) and punched him. Logan tackled him, and Weevil was surprised to find that when he wasn't drunk, Logan was a surprisingly good fighter, wiry and fast.
Before the fight could get really interesting, Mr. Daniels found and separated them. He gave Logan a week of detention, and Weevil a week and a half for starting the fight. Before Weevil could protest, Logan had already started laughing.
"I'm shocked and appalled, Mr. Daniels! An honorable Black Power fighter like yourself, blatantly pandering to the rich white establishment? Aren't you letting down your people?"
Mr. Daniels turned an interesting shade of purple and gave them both two weeks of detention.
Weevil felt physically ill at the thought of spending the next ten school afternoons with Logan Jackass Echolls for company. They spent the first half hour of their first detention glaring at each other in silence; then Logan pulled out a deck of cards and started shuffling absently.
"Look," he said, his voice hard and even. "I don't care about you and Lilly, okay? I mean, okay, so she had an affair with the poolboy. It's horribly cliche, but she chose me in the end, after all." Logan grinned at him and Weevil clenched his fists.
Then the smile disappeared. "But I swear to god, if you ever talk to me about her again, I will kill you. Got it?"
Weevil narrowed his eyes. He wanted to say 'Fuck off, I loved her and I won't pretend it didn't happen', but the slightly more reasonable part of his mind was reminding him that he couldn't really afford to replace his bike again.
"Sure, whatever," he said, rolling his eyes.
Logan nodded, an inscrutable look on his face, and dealt Weevil five cards
Weevil blinked. "You know he'll give us even more detention if he catches us gambling."
"So he won't catch us, Pollyanna. You gonna play or just sit in your desk and be a good little schoolboy?"
They played for about five minutes before Weevil's curiosity got the better of him. "Man, why the hell did you say that to Mr. Daniels? You knew you were just settin' yourself up for more detention."
Logan flicked at his hand of cards. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'd rather go to detention after school than face a house full of reporters and agents begging my father to go back into business." He slapped another bill down on the betting pile. "Call."
Weevil figured that they weren't friends, because friends didn't pay you for your company, or get into fistfights every time they hung out. But Logan seemed to need something new to piss off his dad every week, and Weevil fit the bill. Strange how that seemed to happen so often with these rich kids.
The first time they fucked Weevil was so drunk he didn't even remember it. He woke up naked on Logan's couch, with a raging hangover, Logan's dick pressed up against his ass and Logan drooling on his shoulder.
He managed, somehow, to get off the couch and out of Logan's arms without waking him up, though Logan did roll off the couch and onto the ground, still snoring loudly. Weevil tossed a blanket on him (he didn't know much about the Echolls family, but he didn't think Mr. Echolls would react well to finding his son naked and passed on his floor) and managed to get all the way to his neighborhood before completely losing his shit.
Weevil didn't actually smoke (didn't like the smell), but he chainsmoked a whole pack in the space of an hour.
After a while, he did start to remember, at least a little bit. He remembered a fight that had turned into something else, he remembered Logan's beer-smelling breath and the way he looked flat on his back, moaning and arching and sweating, Weevil riding his ass.
If he remembered rightly, it had been good sex. It better have been, because if Weevil was gonna suddenly do all this gay shit, like hell would he have started it out half-assed.
He figured that there were three possibilities: 1) He was completely queer and he should just accept it, 2) He was only queer when he was really fucking smashed, or 3) he was only queer for Logan Echolls. Weevil really, truly, emphatically did not want 3) to be true.
He wondered if Logan would pretend that it had never happened, or if he would smile at Weevil coyly the next day and bat his lashes, or ask him out or some weird shit. Weevil had never had sex with a guy before; he had no idea what to expect.
He figured that it was okay. As long as he avoided getting drunk around Logan again, he was home free. Everyone had some experiment or shit like that hidden in their closet, right? So that was his. He should just be grateful that it hadn't been too embarrassing and get on with his life.
Thankfully, Logan seemed to have reached the same consensus. He didn't even look at Weevil for three days in a row at school (not that they interacted non-hostilely at school much anyway).
Then on Friday after school, Logan managed to corner him into the parking lot. He shoved a cold beer at Weevil and smirked. "Ready to lose yet another high-stakes poker game? My place. I've got the booze and the drugs and the cards all set up."
Weevil shoved him roughly away. "Man, I can't be seen around you. People will think I'm a fag like you or somethin.'"
He meant the words to hurt, to make Logan hit him or back off or run away. Logan just snorted derisively. "I could say the same thing of your company. Come on, Weevil, do you have anything better to do tonight than get wasted?"
Okay. So he could gamble with Logan and take advantage of his wide-screen TV, but he wouldn't drink much. He wouldn't drink enough to let... whatever, happen again.
Except that trying not to get wasted with Logan was like trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon. Whatever your tastes, Logan had it. You wanted good beer, he had good beer. You wanted fancy-ass mixed drinks, he had a cocktail recipe book and all the liquor required. You wanted to get high, he had the best weed in town. Weevil had never asked, but Logan probably had coke, horse, Ecstasy and every other kind of rich kid drug available, too.
And he offered it to you with that cocky-ass smirk that used to make Weevil want to kick his teeth in, and a dramatic hand-gesture and a look that said, 'I know you're gonna give in sooner or later. It might as well be now.'
Weevil was used to being the seducer, not the seduced. He wasn't used to having to protect himself by fending off an onslaught of suggestive remarks or raised eyebrows or quick, meaningful touches. He wondered if this was how girls felt when he was doing the seducing, or if feeling this panicked was a privilege that belonged to him alone.
Logan kept handing him beers, dealing new hands, and betting more money. Weevil played along halfheartedly, more interested in drinking and avoiding eye contact with Logan than in playing; the next thing he knew, Logan had crawled across the floor and was right in front of him, alcoholic breath soft on Weevil's cheek, and then his lips wet and soft and insistent on Weevil's mouth.
Eli Nevarro was kissing another guy. He was kissing a fucking 09'er, he was kissing Logan Echolls
And Weevil finally understood the reason all those anorexic-looking white girls seemed to constantly be hanging off Logan's arm: the guy could kiss. Weevil had never really been all that interested in kissing—the stuff that came after it was more interesting—but if the chicks he'd been with could kiss like Logan could, he thought that maybe he would have given kissing more of a chance.
Logan's tongue in his mouth made him wonder what Logan's tongue on his dick might feel like, and bam, just like that, he was hard. It freaked him out, made him push Logan away, but Logan darted back in and started sucking at Weevil's neck like a freaking vampire, and somehow this led to Weevil straddling on top of him, yanking Logan's shirt off and licking at his nipples and letting Logan squeeze his ass and whisper words that were probably drunken insults, but Weevil didn't really care. Hell, his Tia Mari told him that everyone experimented, and anyway he was drunk enough to use that as an excuse.
They didn't actually get to the fucking. Weevil flipped Logan over and saw the scars all along his back, some of the marks still fresh and painful looking, so clearly belt-wounds. He lied and said he had to piss, and when he got out of the bathroom Logan was passed out on the floor. Weevil collected the poker money and got the hell out.
Things didn't change much. They still either ignored each other or traded insults at school, and Logan still bribed Weevil to come over with promises of poker winnings and good pot. (Weevil wasn't sure if Logan knew that he didn't have to bribe him anymore.) Weevil still felt like a whore, but it was good sex and good alcohol and Logan was right—he didn't have anything better to do.
One Wednesday night, when Weevil was getting drunk by himself (Logan had almost everything, but his tequila wasn't nearly as good as the gold Weevil could get from his cousins across the border), he very stupidly rode his bike into the rival gang's territory. Alone, revving the engine as loudly as possible and singing (slurring) some lewd Mexican song that his Tia had taught him.
That guidance counselor bitch would probably say he had a death wish. Maybe he did; maybe that explained the Logan thing. Or maybe Weevil was just drunk.
It took five minutes before they cornered him. Seven big fucking bikers, one of them packing heat and a couple of them carrying chains. Weevil traded insults with them for a while (even drunk, he could talk circles around all of them, which just pissed them off more), and then they knocked him off his bike.
He managed to defend himself and give as good as he got for the first few punches, but then they brought the chains out and he curled into the fetal position on the ground, waiting for them to finish. They wouldn't kill him—even these assholes weren't that stupid, not yet—but they'd sure as hell make sure he couldn't walk away.
It didn't make Weevil angry, or upset, or scared. It was just a fact, another thing for him to deal with. Maybe it was a little zen, and maybe he wouldn't have had that thought if he hadn't been drunk.
They had just started to really get into beating him (half the bastards had hard-ons by now, he was sure of it), when he heard a voice calling out.
"Now now, girls. I don't think the town sheriff appreciates this kind of behavior. Now why don't you skip along home, hmm?"
The beating stopped, and Weevil heard the bastards muttering among himself. The leader spoke first.
"Yeah? You want us to kick your pasty ass, too? Get the fuck out of here, cracker."
Weevil could almost hear Logan's sneer. "This cracker has the sheriff on speed dial, and trust me when I say that he'll arrest whoever I tell him to. Especially since—it's Arturo, right?—Arturo is still wanted for that 7-11 holdup a few weeks ago."
More muttering, more curses. Then the gang leader cursed Logan out one more time, and Weevil heard motorcycles roar away.
Logan grunted and complained as he hauled Weevil into the backseat of his car, and Weevil blacked out as he heard the engine start.
He came to on sheets that were way too soft, and a pillow that smelled like lavender. He could hear someone... whistling?
He opened his good eye as much as he could ('good' was a relative term; at least he only had one and a half black), peering out. Logan was attached to his iPod, whistling, and occasionally humming or singing along, and reading a comic book or magazine or some shit. Weevil didn't recognize the room they were in, though he knew it must be in or around Logan's mansion, because the bed was rich and huge and it was clean and there were expensive knickknacks everywhere. It was also dusty—no one had been in here for a while.
It was bright outside. Morning, afternoon, he didn't care.
Logan had noticed he was awake, but hadn't pulled out his earphones. "You've been asleep for fourteen hours."
"Where the hell am I?"
Logan tossed the magazine to the side, bored. "This is my mom's room, where she used to sleep when she and dear old Dad were fighting—so, pretty much always." He glanced at Weevil, the look on his face inscrutable. "No one ever comes in here, now."
"...Is this your way of showing me you care or some romantic thing like that?"
Logan snorted. "Nah. Me saving your ass from chain gang, that was me showing I care. This is just so my dad doesn't discover you here."
It was a Tuesday night when Logan came to Weevil's house for the first time--hell, probably the first time the kid had even set foot in Weevil's neighborhood. One in the morning; Weevil's grandma and most of his cousins were asleep, and for once none of the gang were there, mooching off his grandma's food and watching bad porn on cable.
Logan looked like shit, blossoming black eye, split lip, bloody nose, what looked like a broken wrist and bruises everywhere that Weevil could see. "I need to spend the night," was all he said.
Weevil didn't have a nice, soft bed with clean, pristine sheets and expensive knickknacks, he didn't even have a guest bedroom, but he had a couch. Spare blankets, some band-aids and gauze. Logan seemed too tired to protest when Weevil started cleaning up the blood, fixing him up as best he could. He didn't bother with a hospital; if Logan had wanted a hospital, he would've gone to the hospital.
Logan never said what he and his dad had fought about, and Weevil didn't ask. Maybe he would've, months ago, when he said everything he possibly could to piss Logan Echolls off, he would've; but that was then.
One day Veronica gave him an odd look and asked him why he and Logan suddenly seemed to be quasi-friends. He said something like 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'—and it was true, in a way. B ecause Weevil had decided that there was not one single person in Neptune that he hated more than Aaron Echolls.
Weevil said no when Logan asked him to run away with him.
It wasn't as romantic or meaningful as it sounded. Logan had approached him, looking edgier, more skittish than usual.
"I'm getting the hell out of Neptune. I know some people down in Mexico with connections, ways to help me disappear, help me start up a business-" (drug business, Weevil knew) "-down there."
Logan had raised an eyebrow and looked at him hard. "I'll take you with me if you can pay for some of the gas and hotel costs."
Weevil had stared right back at him and said that he wasn't going anywhere.
He didn't know what it would mean, if he was gonna say yes. With girls, it was pretty simple: if they show you their tits, it means you can fuck them soon; if they say 'I love you,' you needed to say it back; you took them places on your bike, you stood up for them to any asshole that tried to insult them, you bought them things when you could and you kept them as far away as possible from guns, violence and how poor you were.
But Logan always had to break the rules. And Weevil didn't know what to say when Logan asked him, so he said no.
He had a life, even if it was kind of a shitty life. He had a place, he knew how things worked in Neptune, and he knew things would go to shit at record speeds if he took Logan up on his offer. He didn't have delusions of grandeur; he knew that he probably wouldn't end up much better off than his uncle Tio, running a semi-legal garage. He'd come to terms with that, and here came Logan, trying to fuck all of it up like it was his god-given right.
Logan didn't look disappointed, but Weevil knew that he wouldn't show it if he was. Instead, he just shrugged and gave Weevil a tight smile. "Yeah, I can really see why you'd want to stay here. This town has just got so much going for it."
Weevil opened his mouth to say something biting and sarcastic back, but then Logan was kissing him. It was over so quickly that he didn't even have a chance to kiss back, and he thought maybe he had imagined the vulnerable, sad look that had been on Logan's face for just a split-second before he'd turned around, strutting back to his car. He gave Weevil a weird little wave as he pulled out of the driveway, and then he was gone.