plantfood | [For Veronica]

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[For Veronica]

There are many things about Henrich that drove Mathias crazy before Mexico and the ruins, things that now and then resulted in physical altercations or shouting matches which left them both feeling sheepish and hurt, but there is one thing Henrich was so good at. One thing Mathias wishes he could have learned from his brother, something he still can't quite seem to grasp no matter how hard he tries or doesn't try, as Henrich used to advise.

He's terrible with women.

It's been a month and a half since New Year's Eve and Mathias has done almost nothing to impress Veronica or further what relationship they might be developing. In fact, with the exception of assuring her there is nothing going on with Stacy, he's barely made any indication that he's interested in her, which he realizes is incredibly stupid. He's very interested and absolutely terrified. Coming to her while stuck as a woman hardly counts as making an attempt at getting another date, so earlier in the week, he'd gathered up all his courage and asked.

Which is why he finds himself heading down the path toward her hut, a bag with some food slung over one shoulder and his towel folded over the other. In a fit of panic, unsure what people do for dates on the island, he'd suggested dinner and swimming at the waterfall, hoping it isn't too forward to include swimming. Already he's starting to doubt himself, but he schools his face to blankness and then raps his knuckles gently against her door.

He can do this. It's a date, after all, he's been on dates before.

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There was this much to be said for having a place of her own: privacy was in no small supply. There was no one, therefore, whether roommate or nosy neighbor, to look in on Veronica Mars as she considered more outfits than she'd actually realized she had to her name. On the downside, the lack of a mirror meant that second-guessing became triple-guessing. Logan had said she looked good in black, so anything black was out of the question. Dating wasn't something she'd done in a long time, what seemed like forever, not since Sam. Before they'd even so much as got a foot off the ground for the second go round, Jess had come back into the picture, and that, she was sure, was for the best. Trying with him had been a fool's errand, a moment of weakness. This wasn't that. At least, she was, for the moment, hoping it wasn't.

In the end, it was as simple as jeans and a blouse over a swimsuit, and she reached for a towel as she moved for the door, waiting a moment, trying to force her expression into calmness before she opened it. "Hey," she said. "Oh, wait, was that tonight?" There was a flicker of uncertainty before she broke into a grin. "I'm ready."

It says something for just how much he really likes her that there's a moment of disappointment, the feeling of his stomach pulling tight before Mathias realizes that she's teasing him and he relaxes.

"I'm not sure myself, I think I got the dates mixed up, but decided to give it a shot anyway," he replies, but he's melted into a smile more genuine and easier than the expression he'd been wearing before. It's not hard to remember that Veronica has seen him at his worst, crying over Henrich's body, but it's also difficult to forget how good she was during that. It makes him a little uncomfortable, knowing she's seen that from him, but it could be worse, he imagines.

Offering a hand, he says, "I'm ready, too." There's a pause and then he grins sheepishly. "Obviously."

"I would hope so," Veronica replied airily, "unless, I mean, you're showing up to cancel." And while that wasn't out of the realm of possibility, she was already stepping outside, closing the door behind her before she reached out tentatively to lay a hand in his.

This should have been the easy part, she figured. He'd made it clear, in a roundabout way while female, that he liked her company, and there couldn't be much harder than the vulnerability of sitting guard over his brother's body. Attraction - and mutual attraction at that - should have been simple, an equation already solved. It never was. Still, he smiled like that and she couldn't help smiling, too, trying to dredge up her usual certainty.

"I brought some food," Mathias says as he lets himself take Veronica's hand without panicking. She's already shown him that the scars don't bother her much and though there are fresh burns now, they're rapidly healing and don't hurt him anymore.

"I'm not much of a cook, I must admit, but there was a man in the kitchen who lent a hand and I managed to get together something of a meal." Sandwiches, a salad, some snacks and drinks, but not the sort of picnic he would have been able to pack back home. Everyone here has to make do, though, and he's sure Veronica won't think less of him because of the sandwiches.

"Well, you can't be worse at it than I am," Veronica said dryly, suppressing a grin. "My specialties at home either slanted or came out of a box. Although I am a genius when it comes to cookies." In a way, she'd always figured she would learn from her mother, the stuff of bad Fifties sit-coms, if June Cleaver had been downing vodka between scenes. She'd learned a lot from Lianne, but cooking hadn't been included in the lesson plan.

Walking along, she let him lead the way, knowing the outline of the plan and uncertain of the details. His hand was rough in hers, and it was kind of strange after so long, but not unpleasant. That seemed to be the case with a lot of things when it came to him; it was weird, going through these steps again with someone new, but she was finding she didn't mind.

"Cookies?" Mathias asks, looking over at Veronica and offering her what he hopes is a charming grin. Maybe if he looks sweet enough, he'll find himself getting some cookies in the next little while. "I've never been very good with baking either. Machines, yes, but food... well, I spent a lot of time eating out."

It's part of what he loves so much about traveling. Cuisine from around the world, trying new things, tasting new foods. There's nothing quite like that and he's beginning to miss it.

"There was a lot of macaroni and cheese in the Mars household," Veronica laughed. "Out of the box. It's the only way to live." Her dad had been the cook, out of the two of them, though she imagined it was probably a relief for him not to have to do that on top of everything else he'd had to juggle to keep them afloat. "The secret to cookies is... they're too short to come out lopsided."

That, and a year spent doing pep squad had meant learning how to put together a proper spirit box, but that was as much a part of her past as the murder and the rape and Neptune itself.

"And yet I suspect I could manage it," Mathias answers with a laugh, imagining all sorts of things he could do to cookies if he wasn't paying attention.

At the mention of her household, though, he turns a little and says, "I met your father. That day on the beach." It's what he's decided to call the day he'd found Henrich's body. It makes it seem somehow less damaging and more casual than it really is, but he's okay with that. "He was very nice. I'm afraid it wasn't the very best time for he and I to meet."

"Not the worst either," Veronica said absently, then glanced over. "For him, anyway. He was in the sheriff's department for years. He's... dealt with similar before." There was, as ever, the inevitable memory washing over her, the sensation of his hands on her arms as he dragged her back from Lilly's body. Everything had looked so strange in that light, blue and shifting by the side of the pool. It hadn't been real. The killer vines were different, at least. Memorable, anyway.

"One of the worst for me," Mathias answers, trying to make light of what Veronica had seen, of what her father had seen. It's difficult to tell a man you want to date his daughter when he's seen you crying over a body.

"It wasn't quite the appropriate time for me to ask if taking you on a date would be alright by him," he says with a small smile. "And I know we're both adults, but sometimes..." He isn't sure how to explain it, but it's something his mother has ingrained in him; the need to respect the people around him.

Sometimes she forgot that part herself. At twenty-one, she'd expected to be in college, almost ready to take on the world. She'd expected to feel like an adult, like there was some magic difference, readily discerned. The way she'd been a teenager, though, it didn't seem like much had changed, except that the world had gotten inexplicably simpler without becoming any easier.

"A little old-fashioned," she noted, brow arching and lips pursing as she considered this, or pretended to. "Which he'd appreciate. You don't need to worry about him."

"It's my mother's influence," Mathias admits with a small, embarrassed smile. This is easy to speak of, although he knows back home his parents have lost both their children in the worst possible way. They'll never receive any sort of closure, they'll never know where Henrich and Mathias went and they'll never get any kind of peace.

"She was very..." He trails off and gestures with his free hand, looking for the word he wants. "Concerned, I think is the word. Concerned with how the public perceived us. All of us, even her children, even when we were quite young."

My mother was concerned with the public view, too. When they perceived my dad as a threat to Jake Kane, grieving father and employer of half the community, she worried her way right out of our lives. Somehow I suspected Mathias' mother hadn't been as bad about it. But then, it's hard to tell what people will do in that position until they're put there, in a spotlight they never wanted.

"And still you managed to turn out alright," she joked, lips twisting wryly. That kind of scrutiny, after all, had only made Lilly wilder still.

Edited 2009-02-17 07:27 (UTC)

"So you think I'm alright," Mathias replies, grinning over at Veronica as if he's caught her admitting some deep, dark secret. "The truth comes out."

And it's one he's perfectly content to hear.

"I suppose I did. Even with her need to look good, my mother was very much absent," he admits. "I took care of Henrich most of the time." He's always thought that this is part of why he chooses not to be a leader in times of crisis. He's spent all his life caring for someone else and he's tired of being the parent at such a young age.

Veronica cracked a smile, nodding as she lowered her head. She thought more than that, but what would take considerably more coaxing.

In a way, awful as it maybe was to think, he'd been lucky. Absent mothers were easier to lose, or so she expected. "My mother was always around," she said, careful, clearly picking her words. "Until she wasn't anymore. She left when I was sixteen." Hurriedly, she added, "It was for the best." It just hadn't seemed like it back then.

"Sometimes it is," he agrees, but knowing that now never seems to make the pain from back then much easier. Understanding something like that takes years, it seems, longer than it should.

"But it never feels good to be left." Especially not when one is left by a parent, the person who is supposed to take care of them no matter what. "Even when they're not there much to begin with."

"You get used to it." But Veronica knew that was a lie. It never got any easier, no matter how often she went through it, no matter how she told herself to expect the worst. Sometimes the ache was duller than other times, but it was always there. It had been a long five years.

Even the lie was a little too honest, though, something she kept finding true around him, maybe too much so. She fell quiet, looking ahead as she walked.

Briefly, Mathias wonders if that's really true for Veronica, because it doesn't feel true for him. No matter how many times he's the last one left, it hurts. He says nothing more on the subject, however, just nods ahead to where the path curves toward the waterfall.

"Almost there," he says, giving her hand a light squeeze. "I've never taken anyone to have lunch at a waterfall. It seems like it could be one of those ideas that works incredibly well or backfires entirely, yeah?" He's smiling as he says it, though, trying his best to lighten the mood.

People leave; it's a fact she hadn't been able to shake for years. No matter how she tried to remind herself, though, or keep the walls built high, the fact of the matter remained that he hadn't left yet. She couldn't help hanging on to maybes, even when she wished she wouldn't. He was there, undeniably so, and as she glanced over, she smiled. "It's a bit of a gamble," she agreed, mock-serious. "But it just might pay off. Plus, less chance of sand in the food than on the beach. That's a real mood killer."

"More chance of the food ending up soggy," Mathias is quick to point out, although he's already made plans to sit far enough away from the waterfall so that their meals will go untouched by the spray. That is the sort of thing Mathias worries about, the kind of thing that will get under his skin and concern him for days before the actual date, perhaps because it's easier to worry about wet food than whether or not Veronica likes him.

"Is that on the same level as sand in the food?" he asks, finding a place he thinks is a good distance from the water. "Or is it less of a mood killer?"

Pushing her hair back over her shoulder, Veronica looked out over the water, pretending to consider that. "It's on there," she said, nodding, "but I'd say that's a little lower on the scale." She wasn't even sure she could care much about food one way or another. The way he put her at ease was a reason to be on guard, but here and now, it didn't matter, tangled up in nerves like she was. "Below sand, above bees." She stopped, glanced over, smiled wryly. As ever, now, she was just making things up, meaningless.

"Above bees," Mathias repeats, as if he's committing this to memory for future reference, then smiles easily. It still feels strange, now and then, how easy his smiles come when he's around her. The last time things have been this simple, even though his nerves, had been with Ilyse and he barely even remembers the time when things had been good with her.

Letting go of Veronica's hand, Mathias spreads the blanket on the ground and sets the basket down beside it. "I truly hope you're not expecting gourmet," he says. "In fact, I'm not entirely sure the sandwich meat isn't dinosaur."

"Well, from what I hear, it tastes like chicken anyway." Veronica brushed her hands along her sides, slipping them into the back pockets of her jeans, an unnecessary motion as she eased down to help him, then sit. Arya had tried to train those out of her, teach her, and while Veronica had learned, she knew that, in this at least, she would never be able to reach the level of full-time alert Arya lived at. "After being here three years, it may even be time to find out."

"Well, it is either dinosaur or some kind of island bird," Mathias admits, opening the basket and taking out the sandwiches and the salads. He suspects it's the latter, but he honestly can't know and now feels sort of silly for having brought up the dinosaur in the first place.

With the food set out, he crosses his legs and reaches for the drinks, pouring one for Veronica and offering it to her over the blanket. "Some kind of fruit juice," he explains, because all of his business in the kitchen had been mostly a guessing game.

"Stay here long enough," she teased, "and you'll forget what labeled food tastes like." The fact that he didn't have much choice in the matter - stay or go, live or don't - wasn't one she liked to think about. It was better to make light of it. She consider the serious stuff far too much, got lost in it more than she let people know. It was too hard not to. Lifting her drink, she took a sip and smiled. "Thanks."

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