Title: Spotlight

Author: finkpishnets

Rating: PG

Word Count: 656

Spoilers: Up to 'Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough'

Summery: For once Cassidy's not in someone else's shadow.

A/N: Written for bittersweet99 who requested a Mac/Cassidy drabble, but as always I got a bit carried away where the word count's concerned…It's unbeta'd.

Cassidy Casablancas was very much used to living in the shadows of others. All his life people had pretty much ignored him in favour of anyone and everyone else - normally for his loud and obnoxious older brother, Dick. Sure, the other 09er kids at school called out to him in greeting (always using the nickname he so despised) and he was invited to all the parties they threw because someone wanted an excuse to get drunk, high and laid. But no one actually cared about him. He was Dick Casablancas' younger brother who also had money and was therefore acceptable to be seen with.

Until her.

He'd been told that if you needed anything concerning computers in Neptune then Mac was the person to go to. Of course, he'd had no idea who Mac was until he had asked Logan if he'd heard of the guy to which his sometimes-friend had chuckled, ruffled his hair and pointed out the girl with magenta streaks typing away furiously at her laptop a few tables over in the quad (apparently she was a friend of Veronica's which explained how Logan knew of her considering his egotistical outlook that anyone who was not directly of interest to him wouldn't even enter his radar. That boy was too obsessed with the blonde PI for his own good).

When he's asked to hire her assistance in setting up the Phoenix Land Trust she'd joked about how she was doing his homework for him even though it was clear to both of them she was aiding in a much bigger project than a simple FBLA assignment.

He decided during that first meeting that he liked her. She was quirky and intelligent and not like any of the other girls he knew. She was neither ditzy and manipulative like the 09er chicks or bitter and vengeful like Veronica Mars – those were the only two types of female he'd ever been properly associated with (except possibly his mother but she'd abandoned him to live with her new family far away from Neptune and was therefore a bit of both).

He liked the way her voice sounded and he liked the way she laughed, but most of all he liked the way she paid complete attention to him as though she honestly had nowhere else she would rather be.

When they met for coffee he was surprised to find that he was flirting with her and she was flirting back. It was not the blatant pick-up lines and crude humour that always seemed to secure Dick a warm body for the night but rather a sweet, unsure type of flirtation that made him want to hold her hand and tell her how pretty he thought she was.

So, when they were walking back to their respective cars an hour later, that's exactly what he did. He felt his heart swell when a blush formed on her cheeks and she smiled up at him through lowered eyelids. He didn't try to kiss her and honestly the idea didn't even cross his mind - having his finger intertwined with hers as they stood next to each other in the dimming early evening light was the most complete feeling he's experienced in a long time.

He'd asked her out to dinner for the following night and she'd said yes but told him she was a vegan to which he'd replied he knew of a place that was perfect, his second step-mother had been a vegan (for a while at least – something to do with her diet). So they made arrangements for him to pick her up at seven but to stay in the car since apparently her parents were a bit over-enthusiastic concerning their daughters social life.

As he watched her drive off in her bright green Beetle he couldn't help but grin. Maybe it was his turn to be in the spotlight with Mac by his side.