fic: ned nickerson was never a romantic (piz/veronica, vm)

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oh, what a fuss when the king rides in.

(cat power)


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Apparently being a nice guy also means you’re a masochist.

Piz gets this lesson when the dates become more successive and the restaurants more low-scale and as they continue to dance in larger and larger circles around the Echolls Situation, not for lack of trying, mind you.

Someday he’ll write a book about this revelation, or at least there’s the thought of writing a book about this revelation, and it’ll sit there on bookshelves in Barnes and Nobles next to High Fidelity and every other work by Nick Hornby.

(Exhibit 720a that Piz is a doomed romantic: There is no way and there are no circumstances that a book by him – one Stosh Piznarski – will ever be cataloged or shelved among authors whose last names begin with H).


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They break up of course.

Here’s why:

1. He’s a freshman and therefore immature and/or not the material for long-term romances and The English Patient, wandering across the desert kind of love. Apparently this is a major point deduction despite the fact Logan Echolls is also a freshman. Whatever.

2. Veronica is in love with Logan Echolls.

3. There isn’t a number three.

He drinks a lot after, fake ID be damned. If you were curious.


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He still sees her sometimes after that. Hearst is only so big and there’s really only one place on campus to get killer nachos and they both seem to know this and when they bump into each other, it’s all really wide awkward grins, and, hey, I used to see you naked, and you know, do stuff with you, how’s the weather?

Stosh Piznarski has never played it cool in his life. Never.

Don’t let the Ramones t-shirt fool you.


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He hears from Wallace who has it on good authority that Veronica and Logan broke up. Again.

Piz says, “really?” with a little too much enthusiasm and Wallace shakes his head.

“Not again, man. It’s a different year, a different dorm. You gotta choose a different lady. Got it?”

Piz acts defensive and says “what?” a lot and shrugs his shoulders even more.

Her lips were too thin anyway. Not that she wasn’t a good kisser or anything.


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They had a lot of sex. A lot, a lot of sex.

And it was good.

This thought/memory/pornographic-reenactment-in-his-head gets him through what he calls ‘the dry spell,’ better known as his first semester of sophomore year.

Ex-girlfriend or not, ex-girlfriend who might have left you for her first and only true love – it still makes for good jerk-off material.


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Senior year, and one morning over Lucky Charms and his resume in a word document, it dawns on him that the name ‘Piz’ just isn’t going to cut it in the real world, you know, outside the halls and clean sidewalks of Hearst.

Piz: it sounds like either a) a frat boy who during his five-year tenure at a state university turned keg stands into an art form; b) a cartoon animal, most likely a small rabbit or mouse; c) a computer nerd who hasn’t seen sunlight since the tender age of eight years old.

‘Stosh’ really isn’t much better.

Pretty much he’s fucked.

“You might want to consider changing your name, dude, to something like – I don’t know, Stanley, or something,” his roommate who isn’t Wallace says.

He sighs and hits print and the past eight years of Stosh Piznarski is churned out on two sheets of paper, size 12 font, Times New Roman.


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He moves to D.C. after the diplomas are passed out.

He gets a gig at Capitol News Connection (CNC not CNN, thanks) and for a good summer does little more than grunt work, wandering around with a temperamental tape recorder in hand and nervous questions on his part.

He falls in love, sometimes. On accident. It’s weird, he’d say. You go to sleep thinking nothing gets better than this, arms wrapped around a naked woman, and the next morning?

You’re counting down the seconds until she finds both her panties and her way out of your apartment.

“You know, this is the kind of fodder for shit like Sex and the City, you know?” he says over beers, with friends.

They laugh.

He decides to go home alone; he thinks about California –

The theme from The O.C. drifts through his head. This is beyond pathetic.


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If you asked Piz, he would say his favorite song lyric in the history of mankind was courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, but that’s just because he’s a guy and it’s hardwired in their systems, kind of like testosterone, that The Boss owns.

Really, though? The honor goes to David Bowie –

Nothing really beats “And I think my spaceship knows which way to go.” Just ask Major Tom.


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In the fall, he finds a job, a better apartment and a semblance of a routine.

He has a girlfriend with blonde hair named Nina for a while. She’s a White House intern, and that alone provides the basis for their first, second and third conversations, and her voice is bright and high-pitched.

He sometimes still talks to Wallace.

He ignores him when he laughs and says, “you have to admit, man, you’ve got a type.”


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Two years pass without incident.

He has a radio show and becomes semi-famous among the politically savvy crowd in town (read: everyone), for both his odd name and his strange amount of enthusiasm for the congressional legislative agenda.

He’s still making shit for money.

It’s the American dream, man.


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“Work’s pretty normal, you know?” he’ll tell Wallace, his mom.

He wakes up in the morning, has his Wheaties, coffee with more sugar than milk, puts on a shirt and tie and listens to The Clash while he takes the metro up through the city.

He dates, too. Smart young women who talk way too much politics for his liking and all kind of blur into varying shades of navy suits and white blouses and sensible heels.

None of them stick.
 

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Pseudo-alcoholism doesn’t end with college. He gets this when happy hour becomes a daily mainstay and instead of five to seven, it goes from dusk ‘til dawn.

But, well, it kind of works. When you think about it, just about everyone in this town is a young, maybe, sort of, kind of burgeoning alcoholic with a far too stressful work schedule and things like national security and health care on the agenda. Drinks just kind of follow suit, or as it would be, in a suit. And tie.

They make drinking look good.


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He shares an apartment with a wannabe congressman. He’s a Republican and might worship the airwaves Bill O’Reilly treads upon. Piz forgives him for this if only because he pays the rent on time and has the wonderful habit of paying the entire utility bill for whatever unheard reason.

Over Chinese takeout, he asks Piz what his last girlfriend’s name was.

He thinks it was Sarah. Or Melinda. Or maybe Cheryl, which he kind of finds a strange name to call a kid since it automatically makes you picture, like, a middle-aged woman with a minivan full of children, but, well, calling out someone on a somewhat odd name is a little too reminiscent of the pot, the kettle and the color black for him.

Instead, he shrugs and takes a swig of beer and shudders; stir-fry and Rolling Rock really isn’t the greatest of combinations.

“Dude, we gotta get you laid,” his roommate says.

Piz can only nod in agreement.

“Story of my life, man, story of my life.”


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Happy hour kind of reads like fate in the final week of August.

The humidity is high and his collar is limp, sweat beading a line down his back, his tie loosened around his neck.

There’s a short blonde at the bar, and goddammit, Wallace was right: Piz, pardon, Stosh Piznarski, has a type.

He pushes through the small crowd around the bar, a man with a Jack and coke elbows him slightly and he almost trips, his hand reaching out and landing on her shoulder.

“Hey! Watch it!” she says, pushing the hair out of her face. “This isn’t Spring Break, Cancun-style or anything.”

“Sorry – ” he starts, then stops.

Holy fucking shit.

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns – you know, I never could quite remember how that quote goes. Humphrey Bogart, I am not.”

She smiles. He’s eighteen again.

“No. No, you certainly are not.”

She laughs. Jesus, he is definitely eighteen again.

She offers him a one-armed hug, his chin in the crook of her neck.

“How you doing, Piz?” she breathes into his ear. “Or, these days should I say, Stosh?” There’s one note of laughter from her, and he can feel it vibrating through his body. It’s strange. He doesn’t let go and either does she.

“I’m good,” he answers. “I’m good.”

She pulls away, a sly smile there.

“I think drinks are in order.”


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Over too many drinks at a different bar it is revealed that they are both single, they are both over-worked and that while he is busy reporting the legislative duties of our nation’s elected officials (his wording), she has been busy working it with the FBI.

“Well, uh, in that case – hello, Clarice.” He’s a nice guy: therefore, he sucks at leering. Anthony Hopkins would be ashamed.

She snorts and does a strange kind of hiccup, giggle thing, her voice rising an octave higher – which is really saying something – and he starts to laugh too.

This is when she kisses him.


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He can see this going one of about eight different ways:

They make sweet, sweet love and confess their undying devotion to each other as the sun rises and get married and move to the suburbs in Virginia and commute to work and he becomes the next Edward R. Murrow and she solves crimes or whatever and they have some babies;

They have drunken sex and try to enjoy an awkward breakfast of black coffee and the Wheaties in his kitchen and try to ignore the fact they had sex the night before;

They part ways outside the bar and promise to keep in touch but conveniently forget to exchange business cards;

He forgets the other options when she kisses him again.


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She takes off his pants against his apartment door with a theatrical growl that makes them both laugh. He’s half-naked and she’s still wearing a trench coat when they stumble through his living room.

They have sex in his bed with an infomercial playing in the background, the volume low, almost a rumble in the room.

She kisses just as desperate as she used to and his hands still look too large against the span of her hips.

She still bites her lip and gasps his name when she comes.

There’s something comforting in that.


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There isn’t any coffee or breakfast in the morning and she tries to sneak out of his bedroom at five in the morning.

“You leaving?” he asks, his voice still sleep scratchy and almost cracks at the end.

She freezes at the door and her posture straightens.

“Good to see you, Piz,” she whispers, then closes the door behind her.

He flops back in bed. The sun’s isn’t even up yet.

He switches his stereo on.

Ground control to Major Tom –


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More time passes.

He thinks he might be getting the hang of this thing called being an adult. He thinks.

He has his own apartment now.


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Veronica busts a Columbian drug-smuggling scheme down in Miami. It’s in all the papers and she’s going to get some kind of award on the White House lawn.

He tries to include this tidbit of news in his six o’clock show.

He discovers, through a mix of stammering and stuttering and more ‘um’s’ than a radio journalist is entitled to, that he really doesn’t have the words.

Wallace calls a month later; Veronica is marrying Logan in the spring.

Piz laughs; Nick Hornby couldn’t make this shit up.


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fin.