Title: Turnabout

Fandom: Veronica Mars

Pairing: Weevil/Veronica

Rating: PG

Word Count: 580

Notes: For the 15minute ficlets word # 166

A major part – that’s not to say the main part, but a fairly significant portion – of Weevil and Veronica’s relationship is the whole verbal one-upmanship deal. They both know that, and she’s often told him that it’s the secret to their friendship – neither one of them wants to give up the last word.

Weevil, though, has a distinct advantage in the battle, because when needs be, he’s got a store of innuendo that dwarfs anything Ms Mars could come up with. Oh, she can hold her own with him for a little while, but when you get right down to it, she’s a displaced 09er chick, with not that much experience to go on, and somehow Weevil can’t see Duncan Kane or Logan Echolls being much help in that regard.

So, sooner or later, he’ll win the innuendo battle, and though Veronica will never admit it, not in words anyway, he knows he’s won when she sees her cheeks growing pink.

It makes him smile, because she’s cute as hell when she blushes.

Turnabout’s not exactly fair play though, because he’s Weevil Navarro, tattooed tough guy, leather jacket wearing leader of a motorcycle gang, and guys like him do not blush. It’s something that faintly irks Veronica, he can tell, and the more she tries to get him to blush, the more amused he gets.

Until the night that she asks him to do her a favour, and since it’s pretty much the entire basis for their relationship, he agrees. She didn’t tell him that it involved being her date for some fancy party at Hearst, that it involved minding his Ps and Qs and schmoozing people whose car was worth more than his house.

And she damn sure didn’t tell him that it involved donning a damn monkey suit.

He feels extremely self conscious as he walks down the hall towards her dorm room door, pulls at the collar impatiently as he waits for someone to answer the door. He hears her call out, “Hang on,” and then he hears running footsteps, but the door only opens a crack, and he has to grab at it before it closes again.

Shaking his head, he lets himself in. “Running late V?” he calls, and there’s a breathless laugh from the bathroom.

“Just fixing my hair…” It must be almost finished, because mere seconds later she steps out, stops in her tracks when she sees him. “Oh my God…”

She looks amazing, all black dress and bedroom eyes, and if he wasn’t dying in this tux, he’d throw her on the bed right now. Of course, the dropped jaw and wide eyes ain’t exactly doing her any favours, and when she claps her hands over her mouth and laughs – laughs! – the spell is broken completely.

“OK, I’m outta here…” His hand is reaching for the door when hers closes over his wrist.

“No… wait…” He looks down at her, and her smile isn’t mocking, but genuine. “I was surprised… that’s all. But…” She takes a step back, looks him up and down. “You scrub up well Eli Navarro.”

It’s honest, open admiration, and damn if he’s not blushing. He can feel it, and she can see it, presses a finger to his cheek and makes a hissing noise, just in case there was any doubt.

The teasing – or maybe her use of his full name – only serves to make him blush more, but to his surprise, he doesn’t mind at all.

The word was “blush”.