i live suddenly

[fic] get loved, make more, lizzie bennet diaries, lydia/gigi, 9700 words

allthingsholy — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:20:34 GMT

Title: get loved, make more
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Pairing: Lydia/Gigi
Words: 9700
Rating: PG-13
Notes: One time I wrote a 10k word fic in 24 hours. This is that fic. Thanks to betternovembers for the beta. Julia's Lydia/Gigi fanmix is at least partly to blame.

[Also at AO3.]

Summary: Lydia and Gigi spend a year figuring out, well. Everything.

i've read with every broken heart, you should become more adventurous. - "more adventurous," rilo kiley

++++

july 4th, 2013

++

Bing ends up throwing a 4th of July party because the weather is beautiful and Netherfield has an incredible pool and Bing’s the nicest guy in the world. Lydia spends the entire morning helping Jane string up red, white, and blue streamers and put out red, white, and blue candles, and frost red, white, and blue cupcakes. By the time everybody shows up, Lydia’s basically red, white, and done. She folds red, white, and blue napkins and wonders how long it’ll be before they fire up the margarita machine at the bar.

Darcy’s staying at Netherfield with his sister, but they went out this morning with Lizzie to get burgers and brats and beer (organic burgers; vegetarian brats; microbrew organic ale—seriously, Lydia rolls her eyes harder and harder with every bag she helps unload from the back of Darcy’s car). Lizzie and Darcy keep getting grosser and grosser with their obvious smittenness. It makes Lydia’s eyes roll back into her head even more than the seventy-five bushels of kale that seem to have found their way from Whole Foods and onto Bing’s kitchen counter. It’s not that Lizzie and Darcy are all over each other or anything (Lydia may not know Darcy that well, despite everything, but it doesn’t take a genius to deduce that he’s physically allergic to public displays of affection) but they keep doing this thing where they look at each other over a bag of groceries and Lydia can practically see Lizzie’s stomach flip and Darcy’s heart skip a beat. It’s pretty gross.

(One time, Lydia’s watching Lizzie and Darcy make googly eyes at each other while they pour potato chips into bowls to take outside, and she hears Gigi snicker. When she looks over, Gigi’s smirking into the vegetable tray she’s arranging. Lydia’s not sure why, but she feels her hackles go up by half.)

Lydia considers her domestic duties more than completed for the day and heads out to the pool (the margarita machine is actually amazing) where she can get some sun and internally mock all the lovely couples. Bing’s manning the grill and Jane’s flitting in and out like she’s already the world’s best hostess. Lizzie and Darcy are sitting in the corner where Lizzie can keep an eye on their Mom and Dad. Fitz and his boyfriend are in the pool throwing a squishy football back and forth. (Caroline’s spending the 4th in the Caribbean, which seems ironically unpatriotic, but whatever.)

It’s so normal and textbook Americana. It’s not that Lydia doesn’t like to see everybody getting along and her sisters happy and their mother practically beside herself with the joy of potentially impending nuptials, but. Lydia keeps to her chaise and flips the pages of her US Weekly and drinks her margarita maybe a little bit too quickly.

Eventually, Gigi wanders over to where Lydia’s lying out, a margarita in each hand. “Thought you could use a fresh one,” she says. She sets the drink on the table next to Lydia’s old watery glass and then sits down right on the lounger, her shoulder pressed against Lydia’s knees.

“Thanks,” Lydia says, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. She closes her magazine and smiles awkwardly, because this is the third time she and Gigi have met and they’ve never said more than a few words to each other.

Gigi takes a sip of her drink and tucks her hair behind her ear. “It looks like Uncle Sam threw up all over the backyard,” she says, waving a hand at the red, white, and blue everything.

“Jane loves a good theme,” Lydia says, eyeing Gigi. Her cover-up’s white, but Lydia can just see the hint of a green bikini underneath. Lydia adjusts the strings of her pink suit and takes a drink of her new margarita. “So your brother’s fucking my sister,” Lydia says. She’s trying to be more direct these days, less beating around the bush and purposeful misdirection. Or maybe she just wants to see how Gigi will react.

To her credit, Gigi just smirks into her drink and says, “Finally. Thought maybe I’d have to trap them in the same room to get that taken care of, too.”

Lydia laughs, but it catches weirdly in her throat. She’d caught up on all of Lizzie’s videos from Pemberley while all that stuff with George and the tape was still going on, so Lydia’s memory of Gigi’s matchmaking shenanigans is wrapped up in a light layer of bitterness and self-loathing. It hadn’t been easy to see Gigi and Lizzie bonding and laughing and getting along. It hadn’t been easy to see them laughing in the kitchen earlier today either, to see them band together to tease Darcy about whether he’d color-coordinate his bowtie to match his swim trunks for the party. Lydia’s gotten to know herself well enough this year that she understands all her resentment is misdirected, but it still takes her a second to get her hands around the feeling that springs up into her chest. She finally shoves it back down under the tequila and the sound of Lizzie laughing from the edge of the pool.

If Gigi notices the way that Lydia freezes up for a second, she doesn’t say anything. Lydia works her face back into most of a smile and says, “So, are you going to swim today or what?”

When Lydia asks, Gigi’s shoulders pull back awkwardly and her mouth settles into this tight line, and Lydia immediately feels like the world’s biggest asshole. Gigi’s matchmaking wasn’t the only thing Lydia had seen when she’d watched the Pemberley videos, she should know better than to ask about Gigi and swimming. But Lydia doesn’t doubleback and doesn’t correct herself—she does Gigi the same favor Gigi just did her and keeps her mouth shut and gives the other girl time to get her head back on straight.

It only takes Gigi a second to relax her shoulders and her face, but she doesn’t smile sweetly and act like nothing happened like Lydia thought she would. She stands up and bites her lip and says, “Swimming, huh? Okay.” She tugs her cover-up over her head and throws it on the edge of Lydia’s chair, kicks her sandals off and drops her sunglasses on the table. “Hey Will,” she calls over to where he’s standing next to Lizzie at the edge of the pool, “where’s your phone?”

Darcy doesn’t even turn around to answer her. “On the table over there. Do you need it?”

Gigi winks at Lydia. “Nope.” She turns around and in three quick steps, she’s got her arms around her brother’s waist and the both of them are over the edge and into the water, and Lizzie’s eyes are saucers and Fitz is yelling out, “Oh shit, GGD!”

When they resurface, Darcy looks mad for exactly two seconds, but Gigi’s got mascara running down just at the corners of her eyes and her laughter is louder than the indie rock that’s been playing on the speakers since noon. Lydia feels her hackles smooth all the way back down and she’s laughing as she jumps into the pool after them.

++

labor day, 2013

++

It’s not that she and Gigi are friends, exactly—they live three hours away from each other and Lydia’s taking summer classes and doesn’t have time to visit Lizzie in San Francisco all the time. But they’re not not friends, either. Gigi texts her pictures of Lizzie and Darcy being especially gross together, holding hands while they walk down the street, all that gag-worthy coupley bullshit.

Darcy takes Lizzie and Gigi and Jane and Bing to their place in Lake Tahoe for Labor Day weekend. He’d asked Lydia to come too, sent her an email with full sentences and perfect punctuation and his “William Darcy, CEO Pemberley Digital” email signature at the bottom, but Lydia already has ten tons of homework and the semester hasn’t even really started yet, so she’s stuck in Fresno with her parents.

Gigi sends her a picture of the two of them, Lizzie and Darcy cuddled together in a chair next to the firepit: they didn’t notice me taking pics, Gigi’s text says. they probs wouldn’t notice a house fire either.

Lydia finds herself smiling, not even almost gagging at the sight of her sister happy and in love, but there’s a little part of her, a part that’s still red-raw and not quite scarred over yet, that feels sad and jealous and left behind. Lydia looks at Lizzie and Darcy and thinks about Jane and Bing up there too, probably just as stupidly wrapped around each other. She ignores the pang in her chest that says, they’re never coming home, you know.

Lydia taps out a quick reply to Gigi (i hope their robot children are cuter than they are) and goes back to studying.

++

thanksgiving, 2013

++

Even though the Darcys have a ridiculously nice kitchen at their place in San Francisco (Lydia’s assuming, she’s never actually been there, but the Darcys have a really nice everything so it’s probably legit), all of them pile into the Bennet’s split-level for Thanksgiving. Well, Jane and Bing are with his family but everyone else is in the Bennet’s kitchen trying to navigate what is definitely not enough space for six people. Eventually, their dad drags Darcy away to talk trains; it’s a testament to how much he must love Lizzie, Lydia thinks, that every time she looks over into the living room, Darcy’s not totally spaced out in a puddle on the floor. She can’t listen to her dad talk about “the aesthetic appeal of miniaturization” for more than thirty seconds without her face going numb.

Lizzie’s helping their mom do something involving what Lydia’s pretty sure is the turkey’s disembodied neck, and if she has to hear the word “innards” one more time, she’s probably going to hurl. Judging by the look on Gigi’s face, she’s not really enjoying it either.

Lydia sits down at the table next to Gigi, who’s peeling carrots into a metal bowl. “Sorry that you got roped into helping,” she says, “I can finish up.”

Gigi grins. “It’s fine. I’ve steered clear of everything that used to be alive, so.”

Lydia takes a pinch of peelings out of the bowl and nudges them around the table with her finger. “Yeah, mom was elbow-deep in the turkey this morning. It was probs the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Gigi laughs and then they don’t say anything for awhile, just listen to the swish-swish of the peeler. Lydia makes a very abstract design out of the peelings, and just as she’s about to ask Gigi to guess what her very lame art attempt is supposed to be (it’s a cat, but only kind of), Gigi says, “My mom loved to cook. Before she died, I used to help her in the kitchen all the time. It was kind of—” Gigi’s hands move a little bit slower as she talks. “It was kind of our thing.”

Lydia feels herself tense up. They’ve talked about Lizzie and Darcy a bunch, about the lame things their siblings do and stuff like that, but they’ve never talked about anything real. They’ve never talked about—about anything, really. Lydia pokes at what’s supposed to be a whisker. Gigi keeps peeling carrots.

Lydia’s tried to get better at putting words to the things she’s feeling, at dropping all the adorbs and actually saying stuff sometimes, but it’s so big, what Gigi’s telling her, and Lydia doesn’t want to screw it up with, “Sorry that your mom’s dead.” It would be different, maybe, if Gigi was just Darcy’s sister or just a friend of Lizzie’s, but she’s not, not exactly. She’s Lydia’s friend too now, like really, and so Lydia rearranges the whiskers into nothing and tries to think of something to say.

“If you want to—” Lydia starts, but there’s banging from the kitchen where Lizzie’s dropped the lid of one of the dishes, and so she has to start over. Lydia’s heart is beating strangely in her chest. They’re both staring at the table again, at Lydia’s pile of carrot scraps. “If you ever want to talk about—about anything,” Lydia says. She kind of moves her hand around, tries to say you can talk to me or I’m here if you need or I think maybe we should be friends, but her hand flops down awkwardly onto her mom’s tablecloth and she’s not quite sure it came out right.

Gigi goes back to peeling carrots, but she leans over a minute later and knocks her shoulder against Lydia’s. “Ditto,” she says. “If you want.”

Lydia smiles. She goes back to arranging the carrot peels into the shape of a duck. It takes Gigi twelves guesses to get it right.

++

lydia’s birthday, 2013

++

A package shows up in the mail on Lydia’s birthday and when she opens it, there’s a blue scarf inside, embroidered with silver thread. Lydia turns it over and over in her hands; it feels like air.

There’s a card in the box, thick paper covered in loopy letters on one side: To Lydia, Happy birthday! Can’t wait to see everyone at Christmas. Say hi to your folks. Love, Gigi

Lydia loops the scarf around her neck. The color is perfect against her hair. She wears it every day for a week.

++

christmas eve, 2013

++

Unlike Thanksgiving where there wasn’t enough room for everyone because the Bennets’ kitchen is shaped like a normal kitchen, they spend Christmas at the Darcys’ apartment in San Francisco, which has enough room for the Darcys and the Bennets and the vast majority of Lydia’s high school class. (Lydia was right—the kitchen is ridiculously nice.)

They’re all spending the night to have Christmas morning together—Mom and Dad in one guest room and Lizzie and Lydia in the other. The Darcys have a place outside the city too, Lydia’s heard Darcy mention it, but Lizzie had wanted to stay at the apartment. Mom had made several comments in the car on the drive up about Lizzie “sleeping wherever she usually would” while they’re here. Lydia hears her mention it to Lizzie after they arrive, while she’s helping Lizzie get dinner together, and Lizzie goes the same shade of red as the pepper she’s slicing and assures their mother that it’s fine, she’ll sleep with Lydia, please stop insinuation things about her sex life. (Lydia gives it ten minutes before their mother says something else horrifying. Having the sex talk directed at Lizzie now gives Lydia a certain kind of joy, but it’s a lot less bitter than it would’ve been before.)

Darcy, for his part, is making more of an effort at acting human than Lydia’s ever seen before. He’s gotten better at it since he and Lizzie started dating; nine times out of ten now, when he opens his mouth he doesn’t even sound like an asshole. Lydia hasn’t told him, but she kind of likes him more than Bing. (And not because she feels like she has to. He’d made himself abundantly clear when he started dating Lizzie, in what was one of the strangest conversations Lydia’s ever had: they’d been out at Carter’s and Darcy had told her that she shouldn’t feel obligated to like him just because of all the Wickham drama, that he wanted her to judge him as her sister’s boyfriend, as a friend of her own. His voice had gotten all weird on “boyfriend,” which was when Lydia had figured out that he was still super ridicu-crazy in love with Lizzie and also that he was pretty drunk. She’d still decided to take him at his word.) He’s showing their parents around the apartment like he’s not about to break out in hives, and when Lydia overhears her mother say something about the view being the perfect background for engagement photos, Darcy doesn’t even miss a beat. Even from the other side of the apartment, Lydia’s impressed.

The nice thing about the Darcys’ place being so massive is that once her mother really starts laying on the wedding talk to the two of her daughters who can successfully managing actual relationships with actual men, there’s some place for Lydia to sneak away to. She not-so-surreptitiously makes off with one of the bottles of wine from the dining room table (it’s a screwtop, she double checks); Gigi catches her eye from the other side of the room, raises an eyebrow at the bottle of white in Lydia’s hand, and then makes a beeline straight for her. They giggle themselves through the hallways, Gigi leading the way.

They stop outside a closed door and Gigi says, in a dramatic voice, “The bedchamber of one William Darcy.”

Lydia actually feels pretty weird about stepping inside, like, they’re just going to hang out in Darcy’s room now and what, jump on his bed? But Gigi’s on the move, already through a door on the other side of the room, and Lydia follows her into what turns out to be a pristine and totally ridiculous master bathroom.

Lydia sets the wine bottle down on the counter and narrows her eyes at all the stuff laid out there, the lotion and cologne and bunches of hair ties. Lydia picks up a bottle of Lizzie’s brand of perfume and holds it up for Gigi to see. “Your brother’s into the floral scents now?”

Gigi rolls her eyes and goes back to rooting around in the drawers. “Yeah, they’re basically living together, they aren’t fooling anyone.”

Lydia sets the bottle back down on the counter. Every time she asks Lizzie how things are going with Darcy, her sister says they’re “just taking it slow for now,” but the two toothbrushes in the holder say otherwise. Lydia’s chest feels a little tight because Lizzie hasn’t said anything to her about practically living with Darcy, but it makes more sense now that Lizzie had wanted to spend the holiday in the city instead of at the mansion in Belvedere. Something funny shifts in Lydia’s chest when she realizes that Lizzie spends enough time here to think of this place as home, but she hops up onto the counter and tries not to think about that.

“What are you looking for?” she asks Gigi, who’s still opening and closing the drawers of the vanity.

“Aha!” Gigi says, straightening up with two bottles of pink nail polish clutched in her hand. “Totally William’s color, don’t you think?”

Lydia laughs. “Totes.”

Gigi kicks off her shoes and says, “Lizzie was doing her nails the other day, so I knew she had to have something here.”

Lydia kicks her feet back and forth. “Why didn’t we just go to your bathroom?”

Gigi gives Lydia a look that says she expected more deviousness from the youngest Bennet sister. “Because they’ll look there, duh. Plus, this is bound to irritate William and I’ve been really nice to him lately, I don’t want him getting too used to it, you know?” She slides down the wall and kicks her feet out in front of her. “Give me your foot.”

Lydia wonders sometimes if the reason that Gigi’s so nice to her is that she didn’t have a sister growing up, but then she thinks that if all she wanted was a sister, she’s got Lizzie here for that. Lydia likes that Gigi wants to be friends with her anyway, even though Lizzie’s here all the time (practically living here, apparently) and she’s still tucked away with Lydia in a bathroom painting their toenails and drinking wine straight from the bottle.

They both get situated on the floor (the heated floor, Darcy’s bathroom has a heated floor) and spend the next five minutes taking bets on how long it’ll take everyone to find them..

“You think they’ve even noticed we’re gone?” Lydia asks.

Gigi snorts. “William definitely has. He’s got a sixth sense for when I’m doing something I don’t want him to know about.”

Lydia hums in the back of her throat because Lizzie has that same older-sibling superpower. “I thought you guys did a ski thing for Christmas,” Lydia says, trying not to make a mess of Gigi’s toenails.

Gigi shrugs her shoulder up and down. “We usually do but I thought it might be nice to make some new traditions.” Lydia feels Gigi’s calf flex against hers. “It was nice up there when it was just the two of us but it’s not just the two of us anymore.” Gigi’s voice is a little quieter than Lydia’s used to, but she can tell that Gigi’s happy about that from the way her mouth tugs up at the corners, that she’s happy to have their home and their holiday filled up with the Bennets. Even if their mom spent the first twenty minutes talking in Lizzie’s ear about what a hard apartment it’ll be to baby-proof someday.

Gigi screws the cap back on the nail polish and reaches for the bottle of wine. “Done,” she says. “It almost doesn’t look like a five-year-old did it.”

Lydia snorts while she finishes up the toes on Gigi’s left foot. She’s concentrating hard on her baby toe when Gigi says, “Have you heard from him since—since everything?”

Lydia takes a very deep breath and keeps her eyes fixed on Gigi’s knees. The first three times Lydia met Gigi Darcy, she spent the whole time waiting for her to ask about George Wickham. After the 4th of July, after they sort of become friends, it felt like every conversation they had was about but not about George Wickham. (To be fair, it sometimes feels like every conversation Lydia’s had with anyone this year had been about but not about George Wickham.) So it’s not that Lydia’s not ready for Gigi to ask, not that she hasn’t thought about what she’ll say when they finally talk about him—because of course they’ll talk about him—it’s just that she’s not expecting it, not when her feet are in Gigi’s lap and their legs are tangled together and far away she can hear Jane’s nervous laughter.

Lydia makes her fingers move again, paints a final swipe of color onto Gigi’s toe and then screws the nail polish shut. Gigi doesn’t pull away, doesn’t untangle her legs from Lydia’s, she just stays very still and very quiet and waits for Lydia to speak.

“He sent me an email,” Lydia finally says. Her voice sounds nothing like her voice. “I didn’t tell Lizzie. I didn’t tell anybody.” Lydia read that email every day for a week, for two weeks, for the better part of a month, until one day she’d just deleted it, clicked a button and then it was gone. It wasn’t an important day. It wasn’t some first step on the road to becoming herself again. She’d just had enough, after everything. She just hadn’t wanted it anymore.

Gigi snakes a hand around Lydia’s ankle, her thumb against the hard jut of bone. “Did he act like nothing had happened?” Gigi’s voice doesn’t sound anything like her voice, either. “He does that sometimes. Acts like everything’s exactly the way it was before.”

Lydia drops her eyes because he hadn’t acted like that at all. She still remembers most of what the email had said, even if she can’t remember the actual words. He’d apologized over and over again for what had happened, said a lot of things that all meant the same thing: he was sorry, could she forgive him, would she take him back. She hadn’t ever responded because she hadn’t ever trusted herself not to say yes to all of it, and she still feels it flare up now, white-hot and searing into her chest: maybe he’d liked her better, loved her more than Gigi, maybe it’d all been real, maybe—

But the feeling in her chest just makes her tired. Every part of her is tired. There are pinpricks behind her eyes and a lump in her throat, and she’s tired of all of that, too.

Gigi runs two fingers against the arch of Lydia’s foot and Lydia jerks back, incredibly ticklish ever since she was little. Gigi’s looking at her like she knows every thought in Lydia’s head, every ounce of want that’s started to coil itself back into Lydia’s belly. Maybe she does.

“He said a lot of things,” Lydia says. She gives Gigi as much of a smile as she can muster. The lump in her throat starts to fade. “He didn’t say anything.”

Gigi nods. “Yeah,” she says. Her fingers wrap back around Lydia’s ankle. “Yeah.”

++

new year’s eve, 2013 | new year’s day, 2014

++

It’s two minutes to midnight and they’re all piling out onto the balcony, Lydia and Gigi and a bunch of people Lydia didn’t know before tonight but Gigi seems to love. They’ve been drinking straight out of champagne bottles for the last hour and Lydia feels young and reckless and happy. Gigi had asked her to stay through New Year’s around the same time that they’d heard footsteps in the hallway and Darcy calling their names. Lydia had said yes before she had time to think about it but tonight’s been basically the most fun Lydia’s had all year. They played drinking games earlier and then danced on the coffee table to Kesha, and nobody here looks at her like she’s Lizzie and Jane’s little sister with the sextape. Gigi keeps throwing her arm around Lydia’s shoulders and introducing her to new people with, “Have you met Lydia? She’s basically my new sister.”

The air outside is crisp and fresh and everybody’s counting down to midnight. “Ten! Nine! Eight!” Gigi’s got one hand around Lydia’s wrist and one hand around the railing, leaning over to wave at all the other people on all the other balconies, and everybody’s counting down at the same time, counting themselves out of this trainwreck of a year, and all their voices go up together when the clock hits midnight. She spent last New Year’s in Vegas but it feels farther away now than it ever has before and Lydia lets out a yell that climbs up from the tips of her toes, past the places in her chest she’s spent most of this past year putting back together, and the sound that finally leaves her mouth is joyful.

Gigi pulls her closer and presses a sloppy kiss half on Lydia’s cheek, half on the corner of her mouth, and Lydia can taste her lip gloss, strawberries and vanilla and shine. Gigi’s mouth is warm on hers and her hands are cold where she’s grabbed onto Lydia’s elbows. Lydia’s heart’s beating too fast in her chest. Gigi pulls back and smiles at her and Lydia doesn’t feel like they’re sisters, she doesn’t feel like they’re sisters at all. Gigi wraps her arms around Lydia’s neck and whispers in her ear, soft and warm and just for them, “This year’s going to be so much better.”

Lydia shuts her eyes and pulls Gigi closer and hopes and hopes and hopes she’s right.

++

valentine’s day, 2014

++

She gets a text from Gigi that says, bing and william went ring shopping TELL NO ONE, while she’s in the middle of class and she squeals so loudly that everybody around her gives her an incredibly dirty look. (Like they were paying attention anyway—the Second Continental Congress is so boring.)

She calls Gigi as soon as she gets out of class, her phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder, and says, “Oh my god, tell me everything, who was ring shopping and who was wingmanning and which sister is getting engaged and when and how many strippers are we getting for the bachelorette party?” It comes out all as one sentence, all as one breath, and Lydia can already hear Gigi laughing at her.

“Bing was doing the shopping,” she says. “William was offering moral support.”

“How do you know this? Did your brother tell you?”

“No, I had to get it out of Fitz,” Gigi says, but her voice sounds kind of strange and far away.

Lydia laughs as she tries to avoid a bunch of frat guys walking in front of her who are taking up the whole sidewalk. “Remind me never to tell Fitz anything. That guy cannot keep a secret from you, like, at all.”

“You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me anyway.”

Lydia’s insides do this weird thing they’ve been doing ever since New Year’s, ever since their weird half-kiss at midnight. She’s been telling herself that it was nothing, it was friends kissing friends, girls can totally do that now, it’s the 21st century, whatever, but there’s this dumb persistent voice in the back of her head that remembers the taste of Gigi’s lip gloss and the feel of Gigi’s hands on her back and the horrible, amazing feeling in the pit of her stomach like she’d just passed a cop on the freeway doing ninety. Lydia shakes her head and maneuvers around the frat guys and says, “Okay, so Bing’s going to propose. Tell me everything you know.”

They stay on the phone until Lydia’s next class. The dumb persistent voice in Lydia’s head won’t shut up for the rest of the day.

++

spring break, 2014

++

Lydia ends up spending spring break in San Francisco with Lizzie and Darcy and Gigi because her friends are going to Mexico and Lydia just—doesn’t want to. She thinks about going down to LA to stay with Jane and Bing, but they’re both so busy. And not that Lizzie and Darcy aren’t busy too, but at least Gigi’s there to hang out with. Lydia shoves her bag into the back of her piece of shit car and prays the engine holds out for the 200 miles until she gets there.

It’s weird living under a roof with William Darcy—he always puts his dishes in the dishwasher as soon as he’s done eating, and he checks the expiration date on every single thing before he eats it, and he’s always awake at the very earliest asscrack of dawn. Gigi and Lizzie act like it’s not weird at all, so there must be an immunity that builds up, but Lydia’s pretty sure she won’t get there before it’s time to go back home.

Living with Lizzie again is actually a lot different than Lydia had thought it would be. It’s weird to see her sister actually being an adult, doing the grocery shopping and making dinner and paying her bills. And it’s not like Lizzie wasn’t an adult before when she was living at home and finishing school, but. Now Lizzie goes to bed at a totally reasonable hour and gets up and puts on coffee and she and Darcy head off to the office, like they already have this routine that could spin out for the rest of their lives. It makes Lydia feel weird, sitting at the counter in her pajamas while Lizzie and Darcy make toast and remind each other about conference calls and meetings. It makes her feel ridiculously, stupidly young.

“So they’re, like, irritatingly happy together?” Lydia asks Gigi on her fifth night in San Francisco. Lizzie’s taking the next two days off work so they can visit and see the city (Lydia had asked her why she needed to ration her vacation time when she was sleeping with the boss, but this got Lydia an unsurprisingly earnest lecture from Lizzie on the importance of separating personal and professional relationships), but so far most of Lydia’s days have been spent with a Gigi Darcy armed with her very own platinum card. They’ve kept it reasonable, for the most part. Well, lunch yesterday was sort of a feast, but good maki is well worth the triple-figure bill they ended up with.

“Basically, yes,” Gigi says, burrowing down into her comforter. Lydia has her own room—there are like twelve guest rooms, okay, four, but still—but she’s spent most every night in Gigi’s bed watching bad 90s Disney channel movies until they fall asleep.

She’s every girl’s dream, she’ll capture your heart, Tyra sings, until Gigi grabs the remote and mutes the tv. “I have to tell you something,” she says, turning to face Lydia so their knees are pressed together beneath the sheets. “I lied to you.”

Lydia stays on her back with her eyes fixes perfectly on Gigi’s ceiling. Her stomach flips over and her lungs compress and her hands ball into fists at her sides. She’s very aware of the fact that the dumb persistent voice following her around back home has become a dumb persistent loudspeaker now that she’s in San Francisco, sharing Gigi’s pillow which smells like Gigi’s conditioner and waking up to Gigi’s nose pressed against her shoulder. She’d spent the whole drive up here convincing herself that by the time spring break was over, she’d have course corrected from whatever thing her brain was trying to convince her of, but so far all that’s happened is a strange array of symptoms have been added to Lydia’s repertoire of confusing physical reactions: her palms started sweating the other day when Gigi tugged her through the mall; she feels like she hasn’t stopped smiling in five days. Lydia very carefully turns over to face Gigi and says, “What do you mean?”

Gigi bites her lip (Lydia’s chest contracts a little, that’s also been happening a lot lately) and says, “When you asked about William and going ring shopping.”

The muscles in Lydia’s chest freeze completely and a whole other part of her brain starts flashing red. “Gigi, did Darcy go ring shopping?”

“No,” Gigi says, shaking her head, “that’s not what I—” The tv’s still on and it’s throwing strange colors all over the room. Gigi’s hair shines blue, and then pink, and then green. She takes a deep breath. “You asked me the other day how I knew that Bing was the one going ring shopping and I said it was because Fitz told me.”

“Because Fitz is a pansy when it comes to withstanding your interrogation, I’m well aware.” Lydia’s cracking jokes but her whole spine is ramrod straight, like somehow this is worse than before when she found out about Jane, now this is—this is both of them. Lydia keeps her face really even while she waits for Gigi to speak.

“William doesn’t need to go shopping,” Gigi says, and her voice is really quiet, almost a whisper. “He has our mother’s ring.”

Lydia breathes in and out a few times. “Okay. And?”

“I saw him with it a few weeks ago,” Gigi says. Lydia can feel her shift beneath the covers, feel the bones of her knees slide down against Lydia’s shins. “He must’ve gotten it out of the safe, because I came home—Lizzie was visiting Charlotte—and he was sitting in the living room and just. Staring at it.”

Lydia turns over onto her back and stares up at Gigi’s ceiling. Bing hasn’t proposed yet, but it has to be coming any day now, and Darcy got his mom’s ring out of the safe weeks ago. “Is he going to ask her?”

Lydia feels Gigi scoot a little closer, and the heat that spreads through her stomach presses up against the tightness in her chest at the thought of both her sisters getting married, and Lydia closes her eyes really tightly and tries to remember to breathe. She can practically feel Gigi’s breath on her cheek when she talks. “He asked me whether I minded if he had the ring, or did I want it. He didn’t—he didn’t say anything about Lizzie, but.”

Behind her eyelids, Lydia can see Darcy taking the toast from Lizzie’s hand at breakfast yesterday morning, leaning over her shoulder to read something off her iPad. She can see his face every time their mom made a comment at Christmas about weddings and engagements and babies. He hadn’t reacted at all, but maybe it wasn’t because he’d built up a tolerance to their mother’s incessant hounding. Maybe he had reacted. Maybe he’d gotten the ring out the next day. Maybe he’d decided back in December. Lydia squeezes her eyes even tighter and thinks about Darcy’s face in Lizzie’s videos, all that time ago. Maybe he’d decided a long time before December.

By the time Lydia opens her eyes again, Gigi has her knees pressed up against Lydia’s hip and her head’s practically on Lydia’s shoulder. Something white-hot flares up in Lydia’s chest but whether it’s lust or panic, she doesn’t know.

Gigi pokes at Lydia’s arm beneath the blankets. “You okay?”

Lydia takes a deep breath and nods her head. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m—I’m really happy for them.”

She’s not sure if Gigi believes her, but after a few minutes she reaches over and unmutes the tv just in time for the movie’s happy ending. They put on another movie after that but Lydia’s not paying attention. She stares at the ceiling until Gigi’s breathing goes soft and even, until the credits roll past and the DVD menu starts playing on a loop. It takes her a long, long time to fall asleep.

The next morning, Lizzie sits down at the counter next to her, both of them still in their pajamas. They watch Darcy make his breakfast and Lizzie steals a piece of toast from his plate. When he heads off to work, he kisses Lizzie goodbye and Lydia stares and stares and tries to figure out if the lump in her throat is happiness or envy or something else entirely.

++

gigi’s birthday, 2014

++

Lydia can’t come up to San Francisco for Gigi’s birthday party—she has a test the Monday after that she absolutely has to ace, and Civil War battlegrounds and casualty statistics don’t memorize themselves. She spends the weekend before the party wandering through the mall, going into and out of all the stores she usually shops at to try to find something to send up to Gigi. Nothing seems right.

Bing finally asked Jane to marry him on some random Saturday, made her breakfast in bed and popped the question. Their mom’s been pretty much uncontrollable ever since. It’s April, which means the engagement party isn’t for six weeks and the wedding for eight months, but already the dining room has become planning central. It looks like fabric swatches ate the table whole. They’d all come home to Fresno to go dress shopping last weekend, Jane and Caroline up from LA, Jane and Charlotte and Gigi down from San Francisco, Lydia and Mary coming from home. Every dress had looked perfect on Jane, obviously.

Caroline kept commenting on Jane’s ring, how beautiful it was, how wonderfully it caught the light. She’d looked a little too pointedly at Lizzie’s empty ring finger, just enough so that her bitchiness filled the room up for everyone except Jane and their mom to see. Lizzie had folded her hands in her lap and smiled sweetly, but Lydia couldn’t help but notice the strange pull at the corners of Lizzie’s eyes, at the edges of her mouth. She’d looked a little—sad, maybe. Anxious. It’d made Lydia furious, all of it, Caroline’s condescension and Lizzie’s uncertain smile, and she’d been just about let loose the wave of fury rising up in her throat when Gigi had sat down beside her and laced their fingers together to stop Lydia from picking at the edges of a satin, beaded headband Jane had been trying on. She’d swept her thumb over the back of Lydia’s hand and leaned over to clink their champagne glasses together and caught Lydia’s eyes in the reflection of the full-length mirror and winked.

Lydia’s stopped trying to figure out exactly what her insides do whenever Gigi does stuff like that. Obsessing over it doesn’t make the feeling go away; she doesn’t know if she wants it to go away. She doesn’t really know—anything.

On her way out of the mall, Lydia sees a locket in the window of one of the stores that’s usually above her price range. It’s silver, with a long chain and little green stones laid into the pendant. Lydia doesn’t stop to think much before she walks in and buys it, spends most of the babysitting money she’s saved in one fell swoop. She takes it home and wraps the box in green paper and makes a card with Lizzie’s old art supplies. She spends a long time trying to figure out what to write inside. In the end, she just draws a heart and fills it in with pink and silver glitter. “For Gigi,” she writes above it. “Happy Birthday!”

The next weekend, Lizzie tweets a picture from Gigi’s party, the two of them on either side of Darcy. Lizzie’s got her hand wrapped around the end of Darcy’s tie (because he wore a tie to his sister’s birthday party, of course he did) and Gigi’s waving at the camera with a warm, wide smile on her face. The necklace Lydia sent hangs from around her neck—just over her heart, Lydia thinks, cringing at how incredibly lame her inner voice has gotten over the past few months.

Lydia spends the rest of the night surrounded by textbooks and every study break she stares at the photo on Lizzie’s instagram, feeling like Gigi’s smile is just for her.

++

memorial day, 2014

++

The Darcys’ place in San Francisco is pretty much the nicest apartment Lydia’s ever been inside. She hasn’t been to the mansion in Belvedere (she feels comfortable assuming it’s a mansion—is there anything but mansions in Belvedere?) but judging by how nice the place in Tahoe is, it’s probably drool-worthy, because the place in Tahoe is a goddamn dream. She knows she should feel intimidated by all the wealth and how expensive-looking everything is, and she does, for the first five minutes or so. But then she catches sight of the pool and the dock that leads down to the lake and Lydia doesn’t have time to feel uncomfortable because she needs to see everything.

She spends the long weekend stretched out on the dock next to Gigi, and slicing lemons at the kitchen island and making fun of Bing and Darcy with Gigi, and wrapped in a blanket around the firepit with Gigi. She gives Lydia this look sometimes, this serious, steady look that makes Lydia’s insides squeeze together, almost like she’s considering Lydia. It’s worse than Simon Jeffries in the tenth grade, and worse than Jake Sanders in the twelfth. (It’s not that it’s worse than George, necessarily, it’s just—different. It spreads through her chest a little differently, settles into her cheeks and the tips of her fingers. It doesn’t make her feel tired; it makes her feel light and easy. Whole. Happy. Even with all the uncertainty and the things she’s not sure of, it makes her feel happier than she’s felt in a long time.)

Their last night there, Gigi lays her head down on Lydia’s shoulder, the blanket pulled up beneath their chins. The backs of their hands and the backs of their fingers are smashed up between their bodies, and Lydia thinks, Maybe. Maybe.

++

the lee/bennet engagement party, 2014

++

It turns out Lydia doesn’t like to be the center of every part that she’s at. For once, she’s more than happy with Jane being the center of attention, she and Bing the focus of the whole entire room. Jane’s wearing a silver party dress, flared out at her knees. Bing can’t take his eyes off of her and Lydia watches him from across the room, the way his eyes track Jane whenever they’re not standing together. Lydia smiles into her champagne flute and pushes down on the aching feeling in her chest.

“Lizzie’s not wearing her ring,” Gigi says, sliding up to the table at Lydia’s elbow.

Lydia presses the aching feeling down even farther. “She didn’t want to steal Jane’s thunder. They’ll tell everybody next week.”

“I feel like everybody should already know. Look at them.” Gigi gestures as where Lizzie and Darcy are dancing in the center of the room, mixed in with their parents’ friends and Bing’s med school classmates. Caroline’s wrapped herself around the hottest guy in the room, who’s probably also—totally coincidentally—the richest. Darcy and Lizzie doesn’t even notice. “They’re practically glowing, the both of them.”

Lydia shakes her head. “It’s so gross.”

“Totally gross,” Gigi says, but she got this fond smile on her face that makes Lydia’s chest seize up.

After the cake is served and the dancing begins in earnest, she and Gigi kick off their shoes and cha-cha slide like no one’s business, until their updos are coming loose and there’s a fine sheen of sweat on the back of Lydia’s neck. When a slow song finally plays and all the couples file onto the dancefloor, Gigi drags Lydia to the bathroom to freshen up and cool off. They tuck themselves into the bathroom on the second floor. Lydia can still hear the music from downstairs, something stringy and slow. She reapplies her lip gloss and sways her hips back and forth.

Gigi’s leaned up against the counter, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Why didn’t you bring anybody tonight?”

Lydia tucks her lip gloss back into her clutch, a gold bag Jane gave her for her birthday last year. “Like a date?” Lydia swallows around the strange catch in her throat. “I don’t know. What about you?”

Gigi shrugs her shoulders up and down and drops her hands to her sides. “I haven’t really dated anybody since—since George.” Gigi’s got her head bowed, her hair hanging down into her face. Earlier, they’d been dancing to Beyonce and Gigi had thrown her head back, her hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead, her eyes closed and her hands in the air. Lydia hadn’t been able to look away.

They still don’t really talk about George, about the sextape or the check that Darcy wrote or about anything, really. Every time Lydia thinks about it, her heart picks up speed in her chest and a dull buzzing takes up underneath her fingernails. It makes her mad, to think of George’s hands on Gigi’s back and George’s mouth on Gigi’s neck and—Lydia leans forward and kisses her then, totters unevenly on her heels and presses them up against the vanity, the bones of their hips knocking together. Lydia’s got one hand on the marble countertop and the other flexing useless in midair half an inch from Gigi’s waist. One of them makes a noise in the back of her throat, high and needy and helpless, and Lydia’s not even sure who it was but she presses forward, licks into Gigi’s mouth when she feels Gigi’s nails digging into the small of her back. She can taste Gigi’s lipstick and the champagne they’ve been drinking for the past hour and a half and it’s messy and heady and rushed. Gigi’s so much smaller than anybody she’s ever kissed before, Lydia thinks, just as Gigi pulls away.

Lydia’s thought over and over again for most of the past five months about exactly the way this would happen, if it ever did, but all of her imaginings have been vague colors and indistinct edges, blurry visions of clasped hands and timid smiles. It hits her like a wave, the sharp line of Gigi’s cheekbones, the bold red of her lips. It isn’t anything like Lydia thought it would be, and it’s better and it’s worse and it’s terrifying. Lydia can’t stop her hands from shaking. Gigi’s eyes are wide and shocked and the bluest thing that Lydia’s ever seen and she’s got Lydia’s lip gloss smeared beneath her lower lip, jutted out in a shocked, gasping O. Lydia can’t hear the music from downstairs anymore because the blood in her ears is so loud.

There’s a knock at the door behind them which makes both of them jump nearly a foot, and Charlotte’s voice calls in from the hallway, “Anybody in there?”

Gigi runs her thumb underneath her bottom lip and wipes away Lydia’s lip gloss and then takes a deep breath. “Yeah,” she says, “just a second.” Her voice is shaking.

When Lydia finally turns to open the door, Charlotte narrows her eyes at the both of them. Lydia can’t even imagine what they look like, slack-jawed and blushing and shell-shocked. Charlotte doesn’t say anything as they both push past her, and Gigi and Lydia don’t say anything while they walk down the stairs back to the party.

++

the darcy/bennet engagement party, 2014

++

It’s been a month since Jane and Bing’s party and a month since Lizzie and Darcy announced they were getting married too. Mom had insisted on an event, even though Lydia can tell that Darcy and Lizzie would rather skip the trappings altogether and just get the whole thing over with. But Mom’s smile had been really bright and happy and Jane had said, “Come on, Lizzie, it’s your only chance to have an engagement party,” and Lizzie, unsurprisingly, had relented. She’s kept it simple, kept it small, just their family and close friends at her and Darcy’s favorite restaurant in the city. (Lydia finally meets Darcy’s Aunt Catherine and, well, she’s basically exactly how Lizzie described her. The most accurate costume theater to date, Lydia thinks, watching Catherine meticulously straighten her silverware across the table.)

In the past month, Lydia hasn’t talked to Gigi at all. She’s written what seems like a hundred emails and a hundred texts and she’s deleted every one. There’s an anxious feeling in her stomach every time her phone buzzes, but it’s always her Mom, or Lizzie or Jane with wedding questions, or Mary helping her with homework. Lydia’s gone to bed every night for a month thinking about the past year, about things that are better and things that are worse and things that are exactly the same. There isn’t much that hasn’t changed for all of them, in big, important ways, and Lydia picks through all of it in the dark of her bedroom and decides, in what’s definitely her most mature (or irrational) decision to date, not to freak out about it.

It’s their thing, she’d decided, about a week after Jane and Bing’s party. It’s what Lydia and Gigi have done for the past year, pushed each other not too hard and just hard enough. They’ve spent twelve months giving each other the space to reorganize the parts of themselves that Wickham had bulldozed and maybe this is no different. If Lydia’s learned anything in the past year—and she likes to think she’s learned more than that, that she’s learned how to be a better sister and a better friend and learned how to finally be herself—it’s that these things take their own time. It never happens just like she thinks it will, Lydia knows. And that’s okay. (Sometimes, she thinks, her eyes wandering to Lizzie and Darcy at the head of the table, it’s better.)

Gigi and Fitz show up to the dinner half an hour late, burst in with wide, apologetic smiles on their faces. Lydia fights off every butterfly in her stomach and every voice in her head telling her to drain her whole glass of wine in one long swallow. She keeps very still and listens to Jane’s stories about her new job and laughs in what she hopes are all the right places.

It’s ten minutes before Gigi finally makes her way over, ten minutes that Lydia tries not to track her every movement across the room. (She fails. Spectacularly.) Gigi moves from Lizzie and Darcy (maybe she’ll finally have to start calling him William since he’s going to be her brother-in-law) to Catherine de Bourgh, from Lydia’s parents to a group of Pemberley bigwigs Lydia doesn’t know.

(There’s this one moment where Gigi catches her eye from across the room. Gigi’s talking to Fitz, their heads bowed low and their lips moving in quick, quiet whispers, and Gigi looks up and looks right at her, and Lydia’s sure everyone can hear how loud her heartbeat is, how frantic and relentless the pounding in her chest has gotten.)

When Gigi finally comes over, she puts one hand on the back of Lydia’s chair and says, “Hi.”

Lydia feels her cheeks go suddenly warm. “Hi,” she says. She’s looking at Gigi out of the corner of her eye, not quite turned toward her. Her palms are sweating and she rubs then over the fabric of her dress at her thighs.

Gigi waves a hand at the empty chair beside Lydia. “Can I—”

“Sure,” Lydia says, because she’s only been waiting for this conversation since she had her hands around Gigi’s waist in Bing Lee’s upstairs bathroom a month ago. Her throat’s incredibly dry.

When Gigi sits down, the first thing Lydia notices is her necklace, the silver locket Lydia got her for her birthday. She notices it, sees Gigi notice her noticing it, and then Gigi lifts a hand to run the pendant back and forth on its chain, like it’s habit, like it’s something she can’t quite help. Gigi’s mouth pulls up into the smallest grin. “Hi,” she says. It’s almost a whisper.

There’s a part of Lydia, a part that used to be red-raw but that’s smoothed over now, that flares up bright and warm and hopeful. Her lips pull themselves into a smile all on their own and Gigi smiles back like she couldn’t help it if she tried. Gigi nods her head, just a little bit, just once, and scoots closer.

Lydia takes a deep breath and turns back to listen to the rest of Jane’s story. Somewhere in the middle of Jane telling everybody about buttons and trenchcoats, she feels Gigi reach over and take her hand beneath the table, lace their fingers together and hold on tight.

Lydia doesn’t turn to look at Gigi, but she swipes her thumb over the back of Gigi’s hand and doesn’t let go.

++

4th of july, 2014

++

Bing and Jane end up throwing a 4th of July party because Lydia texts Jane every day for the last week of June to ask if they’ll throw one as long as the weather holds out. (The weather is 85 and sunny, because Lydia is magic. And probably also because it’s central California in July, but mostly: magic.) Gigi and Lydia spend the morning decorating the pool in the same red, white, and blue decorations as last year, but there are also hot pink beach balls in the pool and green drinks that Gigi claims are “better for you because they look like nature.” Lydia doesn’t totally understand, but there’s tequila and triple sec and something that fizzes up to the roof of her mouth, so she doesn’t argue.

By the time everybody shows up, Lydia’s already got a happy, buzzed feeling in the tips of her fingers. Charlotte brings homemade guacamole. Mary brings her boyfriend. Her Mom brings a stack of bridal magazines.

“Not today, Mom!” Lydia’s got her eyes closed but she can hear Lizzie from the other side of the patio. Lizzie’s more good-natured about Mom’s crazy now, now that there’s an actual wedding to plan. It’s made their mom more zen, actually. She uses the meditation room for honest-to-god meditation. It’s nice.

Lydia feels a shadow pass over her face. “You’re in my light,” she says, cracking open one eye. Gigi’s got a beach ball balanced on her hip and her hair’s wet, plastered back out of her face and down her neck. It’s grown out now, almost to her shoulders. She keeps saying she’s going to chop it all, come back with a pixie cut, but Lydia will believe that when she sees it.

“Come get in the pool,” Gigi says, nudging Lydia’s lounger with her foot. “The guys want to play chicken.”

“That sounds competitive,” Lydia says. “Who’s playing?”

“Me and Fitz versus you and William.”

Lydia laughs. It’s not that her and Darcy—William, whatever—are exactly friends now, but they’re getting there. After the engagement party, after she and Gigi had snuck away to the corner to talk about, well, everything, she’d even given him a hug, wrapped her arms around his waist and propped her chin up on his shoulder.

It’d taken him a second to respond, but he’d slowly pressed a hand to the small of her back.

“Thanks, Darce,” she’d said. She’d meant it.

He’d run his hand a little haltingly up her back. “For what?”

She’d pulled away and lifted a hand to his bowtie. “For stuff.”

“Stuff?”

She’d meant for everything with Wickham and the video and the big stuff like that, but she’d also meant for making Lizzie happy and giving Gigi what she needed to be whole again. For everything. She could do this adult thing, maybe, in her own way. She was trying, at least. “Yeah.” She’d turned his bowtie crooked and smiled. So, definitely in her own way. “For stuff.”

Gigi shoves the lounger with her foot again and Lydia reaches out a hand to wrap her fingers around Gigi’s ankle. “I can be pretty competitive,” Lydia says. “You sure you want to go there?”

Gigi throws the beach ball toward the pool and leans over Lydia and shakes her hair out, drops of water going everywhere.

“Fine!” Lydia whines, “I’m coming!”

They make their way to the edge of the pool. On the other side of the patio, Lizzie’s got her feet propped on the edge of their mom’s chair, talking to Charlotte about something nerdy, probably. Jane’s helping Bing at the grill. Fitz and Darcy—William, whatever—are already in the pool, hitting a beach ball back and forth.

Gigi reaches out her hand for Lydia’s. They haven’t told anybody else yet. Lydia thinks Lizzie and Darcy know, and Jane maybe has some idea. (Bing is perpetually, adorably clueless.) There’s no rush, Lydia thinks. She takes Gigi’s hand and jumps. These things take their own time.

[fic] a lucky recollection, it saved (2/3), the lizzie bennet diaries, lizzie/darcy, 5k words

allthingsholy — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 05:07:51 GMT

Title: a lucky recollection, it saved
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Words: 5k this chapter, 11k overall
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Pemberley fic! Because of course. Thanks to Meg, Erica, & Steph for the lookings-over, thanks to (Other) Meg, Marie, & Rachel for the cheerleading. This was going to be two parts. It's no longer two parts. I have no self-control.

[Also at AO3.]

Summary: Lizzie tries her best to concentrate, but she only hears about every third word that Abby says. She’s got one half of her brain watching Abby sketch out possible service app tie-ins and the other half on the toes of Darcy’s shoes, which she can just see out of the corner of her right eye. (Not that she’s concentrating on his shoes; it’s the rest of him, the living, breathing, right-behind-her rest of him that’s so distracting. She doesn’t blurt out, “All of the 100,000 people who watch my videos are basically clamoring for your face, sir,” because that would be horrible, but it’s a close thing. The room feels vaguely like it’s 115 degrees.)

Part 1: here.

++++

Lizzie plays tennis with Gigi on Saturday and spends most of Sunday nursing her wounds. (Losing isn’t an adequate verb choice; whomping barely conveys how bad it was, and Lizzie’s more than sure that Gigi pulled half her punches. Girl’s got game.) Jane brings her ice for her shoulder and looks secretly amused at Lizzie’s pain. New Jane is fresh.

“At one point,” Lizzie says, “I wanted to lie down on the sidelines and cry.”

Jane’s stitching a new collar onto one of her dresses, pins sticking out at the corner of her mouth. “Didn’t you know that she was really good?”

“Catherine de Bourgh said that she was really good. Catherine de Bourgh also said that Caroline is a shining example of the perfect woman. Catherine de Bourgh is sometimes wrong.”

If Jane’s bothered by the mention of Caroline, it doesn’t show. She picks at the seam she’s stitching and says, “Well, apparently she wasn’t wrong about this.”

“Apparently not.” Lizzie’s been camped on the couch for the majority of the morning, delaying the thing she really needs to do: record a new video. Rationally, she knows that her failure to even mention Darcy is more conspicuous than it would be if she just stopped censoring herself, especially now that she’s sure he’s not watching. It should be liberating, in a way, but mostly it just makes things worse. Talking about him behind his back again makes her feel weird in a way that she didn’t before. Not that she’d go back to ragging on him all the time anyway, but.

Lizzie watches Jane, the methodical motion of her stitching, the back and forth of her hand. In the end, Lizzie drags Jane into her video and makes her update everyone on what’s going on in her life instead of Lizzie’s. It’s a cop-out, but it’s better than nothing.

++

Lizzie spends Monday morning observing the team putting together the content for the Rowley campaign. Everyone’s upbeat and enthusiastic and sort of ridiculously nice. They don’t exclude her because she’s just some student; one of the guys, Chris, shows her pictures of his super adorable kids, and one of the women, Abby, tells her about a local farmer’s market that she especially loves. By the time they break for lunch, Lizzie’s even made a contribution to the conversation. Out loud. It’s just a small idea, but it goes on the whiteboard up there with everyone else’s; it makes her feel a little more comfortable to have done something besides take notes for her final report.

Lizzie’s phone buzzes halfway through the afternoon, a full six hours after her video was posted. It’s Charlotte. “Hiding behind Jane now? I’m onto you, Bennet.” Lizzie rolls her eyes and pushes her phone under her notebook and goes back to watching Abby list possible ways of tying the new content to the company’s existing services. Abby’s in the middle of sketching out an idea when the door opens up and Darcy walks in, because of course he does. Last week, Lizzie spent an amount of time she’s not comfortable dissecting standing in the break room watching him develop this campaign, so it makes sense that he’d check in on how it’s progressing. He waves at Abby to continue and sits down in a chair at the back.

Lizzie tries her best to concentrate, but she only hears about every third word that Abby says. She’s got one half of her brain watching Abby sketch out possible service app tie-ins and the other half on the toes of Darcy’s shoes, which she can just see out of the corner of her right eye. (Not that she’s concentrating on his shoes; it’s the rest of him, the living, breathing, right-behind-her rest of him that’s so distracting. She doesn’t blurt out, “All of the 100,000 people who watch my videos are basically clamoring for your face, sir,” because that would be horrible, but it’s a close thing. The room feels vaguely like it’s 115 degrees.)

Lizzie takes an inconspicuous deep breath and refocuses on Abby, because she’s an adult and a professional and she’s here to learn.

Abby’s outlining the way the apps could interact with the different content they’ve already sketched out, and when she gets to Lizzie’s earlier contribution, she tips her head to the side and says, “Actually, Lizzie, this is a great idea. Can you see any ways to really tie these together?”

Lizzie sits up in her chair and taps her pen one, two, three times on her notebook, and when she opens her mouth, she’s talking about content tie-in and structuring the narrative of the campaign to reflect the company’s new slogan, and Abby’s nodding along and sketching out a plan on the whiteboard. Chris smiles at her from across the table. Lizzie’s heart is pounding in her chest and she’s pretty sure her face is a little red, but she feels intelligent and proud and useful. She’s not talking about wanting to throw up at all. It’s amazing.

When she’s done writing out the proposal, Abby looks at Darcy, still sitting at the back of the room. Lizzie turns in her chair to look at him too. He’s got his hands clasped between his knees, eyes fixed to the board, and he nods his head and says, “This sounds great.” He stands up and steps toward Abby and takes the marker from her hand. “But what about this, too.”

They spend an hour working with Lizzie’s idea—all of them, Lizzie and Darcy and Abby and Chris and everyone else whose names Lizzie can’t remember—and for the sixty minutes they bounce ideas around, Lizzie can meet Darcy’s eyes and everything. She says, “And if we did this,” and he says, “Then we could do that,” and it’s like it’s not even awkward at all, like they’re just two people at work who’ve never talked about feelings in their lives.

When they’re done, Darcy caps the marker and leans back against the wall and says, “I like it. What do you guys think?” He looks at Lizzie, sat in the middle of the room and feeling like she belongs, and it’s easy, the way she smiles up at him and nods her head. He very nearly smiles back.

++

She spends most of the next two days in the same conference room, storyboarding on one side of the whiteboard and highlighting the campaign tie-ins on the other. Darcy comes in and out between other meetings and sits in the same chair in the back. Sometimes he’s quiet and sometimes he’s not, but Lizzie’s always super aware of his presence. It stops being distracting after a while, but she still sits up straighter when he comes into the room.

She stays focused on the work 99% of the time when he’s around, but sometimes, in some of the randomest moments, she can’t help but get distracted—by the way Darcy tugs on the end of his tie when he’s listening, by the way he smiles at Mrs. Reynolds when she brings him down paperwork to sign. Chris cracks a joke in the middle of one of their discussions and Darcy almost laughs. Lizzie spent a month at Netherfield watching Darcy work, hunched over his laptop and scowling at the screen, and never saw any of this agreeableness. She can’t even remember seeing him crack a smile.

She comes into the break room on Wednesday to make tea for the next round of discussions and Darcy’s there, stirring milk into a coffee mug with the Pemberley logo on the side. She has to reach around him to get to the tea bags and she can see his gears turning, see the effort that goes into making his mouth curve up into the smallest smile. It’s not that it looks forced, exactly, it just looked—intentional.

He hands her the milk without being asked and then clears his throat. Lizzie’s hands flatten against the countertop because now that she’s noticed how often he stops and starts and stalls around her, she can’t not notice it. He taps his stirrer against the rim of his mug and says, “I think it’s going well this week. You’re really—” Tap tap. “You’ve liked it?”

For a guy who frequently gives boardroom presentations, he has an uncanny knack for not finishing his sentences around her. Lizzie makes herself look up and meet his eyes. “It’s been great. I’ve really learned a lot.”

Darcy smiles again—wider, almost natural-looking—and nods his head and almost but doesn’t quite say something else to her before he picks up his mug and heads back to the conference room. Lizzie pokes at her tea bag and stares at the milk carton.

She spent a month with him at Netherfield cataloging all his faults, and she wonders, not for the first time, if maybe he took away different things from the time they spent under the same roof. Maybe he learned how she took her tea and what her favorite authors were. He was rough around the edges, sure, and occasionally more than a little bit rude, but maybe Lizzie was seeing what she wanted to see. Maybe he made it easy, but maybe she made it worse.

Something hot and uncomfortable settles itself in Lizzie’s stomach. She spends the rest of the afternoon waiting for the conference room door to open up and for Darcy to walk in, but he never does.

++

“So you’ve seen him every day this week?”

“Yes.”

“And talked to him every day this week?”

“Yes.”

“And had generally pleasant interactions with him? Every day this week?”

“Yes.”

Lizzie and Charlotte finally talk about Darcy. Lizzie’s managed to worm her way out of this conversation every time Charlotte’s brought it up so far. (Actually, it’s one of the only times that Lizzie’s been truly thankful for how demanding and innocently overbearing Ricky Collins is. Charlotte’s been too busy to pester her beyond the occasional text and email. Lizzie’s partly thankful for it, partly she just misses her best friend.)

Jane’s out with one of her work friends and Lizzie’s halfway through a bottle of wine because of reasons, and Charlotte’s asking a lot of questions and not saying much in response. Lizzie taps her fingers against the arm of the couch and sighs. “Maybe coming here wasn’t a good idea.”

On the other end of the line, Lizzie can hear Charlotte moving things around her desk. “First of all, you didn’t actually have a whole lot of other options. And secondly, I think maybe it was a good thing. Gives you a chance to—reevaluate William Darcy.”

“Reevaluate William Darcy? Charlotte, this isn’t a Colin Firth movie. We’re not going to kiss in the snow while a camera pans around us.”

“No,” Charlotte says, “this is California so that’s pretty impossible.”

“For a multitude of reasons. The guy spent several hours watching me call him an asshole, I’m pretty sure he’s changed his mind about me.” Lizzie pauses. “Hopefully.”

“Lizzie.” Charlotte has this tone of voice she uses, this uniquely dealing-with-Lizzie exasperation, and Lizzie can hear it all the way from San Francisco. “I’m not saying you should be kissing him in the snow or anything, but I thought you were coming around on Darcy.”

Lizzie pours herself another drink because self-reflection is thirsty work. She knows that Charlotte’s right, that her loathing of Darcy hasn’t so much vanished as spun out in front of her to monopolize most of her non-working hours. But there’s only so much personal growth Lizzie can own up to, out loud, at any one time, so she taps her fingers against the arm of the couch and sighs. “Okay, maybe he doesn’t sit around at night listening to Bon Iver and drinking tea steeped from the tears of hungry orphans. That doesn’t mean he’s a saint.”

Charlotte laughs; it’s tinny through the receiver and makes her feel farther away than ever. “I didn’t say he was perfect. The guy’s social skills could admittedly use a little finessing,” she says. “I just think maybe your first through fiftieth impressions of him were a little—” Lizzie can hear Charlotte choosing her words carefully, hear her stepping around the more exposed and tender of Lizzie’s feelings. It’s something Lizzie’s been avoiding lately, examining her own emotions. There was a reason she was sort of dodging Charlotte’s calls.

Charlotte must find too many soft spots in Lizzie’s rigid exterior because she doesn’t finish her thought. The line’s silent for awhile, just the sound of Charlotte’s breathing and the ring of Lizzie’s wineglass on the end table.

When they finally disconnect—with lots of promises to be better about calling, better at staying in touch, and a few hushed impressions of Ricky Collins—Lizzie drains the rest of her wine glass in one. She draws her feet up under herself and listens to Jane’s empty apartment for a long time.

++

On Friday, Lizzie gets a text from Fitz as she’s leaving work. He’d texted when she first got to Los Angeles (In Sacramento for two weeks with heathens. They don’t even like cats, Lizzie. They’re dog people. How.) but besides that, she hasn’t much heard from him at all.

Lizzie’s riding the elevator with Dr. Gardiner, who’s been shuttling her to and from the office for two weeks, and her phone vibrates from within her purse. Lizzie B, pack your bags. We’re going out. Lizzie’s got her thumbs on her touchscreen when the elevator doors open, and when she goes to follow Dr. Gardiner to the parking garage, there’s a hand suddenly at her elbow.

“Lizzie!” She only sees Fitz’s smile for the split second before he crushes her into a hug. Over his shoulder, Gigi waves. “We were just on our way up to kidnap you. Tapas!”

Dr. Gardiner’s looking back and forth from Lizzie to Fitz to Gigi and back, and Lizzie makes what she hopes is an appropriate facial expression and curls up her shoulder. “Umm, Dr. Gardiner, this is Fitz and you remember Gigi. They’re—”

“So please to meet you,” Fitz says, taking her outstretched hand. “Lizzie’s told us great things about you.”

“Great things,” Gigi echoes, next in line for a this-time-we’re-not-surrounded-by-an-elevator-full- of-tension handshake. Lizzie’s still gaping back and forth between them when Gigi says, “You don’t mind if we steal her, do you?”

Dr. Gardiner smiles and for a second looks like she remembers being 25. She nods once at Lizzie, eyes mischievous, and says, “I’ll see you Monday, Lizzie.”

Lizzie barely has time to wave goodbye before Fitz slings her bag over his shoulder and hustles her off into the car.

The thing about tapas is that they’re very small plates of very small bits of food, and Lizzie doesn’t have the forethought to eat quite enough of them. And Fitz and Gigi have a plan, a very cunning plan, to get Lizzie a little bit drunk. Lizzie doesn’t catch on until after the tapas place, when they sit her down at a karaoke bar and give her her third mai tai, which is a shame because karaoke is the worst and fruit drinks make her feel ridiculous. They make her feel like Lydia.

“I feel like Lydia,” Lizzie says, kicking her heels against the booth. The lights at the bar keep doing this thing, this weird, clubby thing, and Lizzie watches bands of pink and blue and purple swirl up and down the walls and over the face of a guy struggling through “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Fitz is talking about Sacramento—“Dog people, guys, I don’t get it”—and Gigi keeps checking her phone. There’s a persistent piece of pineapple at the bottom of Lizzie’s glass that she’s trying (ineffectually) to skewer with her straw.

Somewhere in the middle of their third round—two different people sang “Achey, Breaky Heart,” everything she thought she knew about LA is a lie—Lizzie finds herself in the midst of a very heated debate on the relative merits of Ryan Gosling’s face, and judging by the way Gigi rolls her eyes at Fitz, it’s a conversation they’ve had before. He throws a friendly arm around Lizzie’s shoulders and says, “Back me up, Bennet. Gosling: yay or nay?”

Lizzie’s seen The Notebook more than enough times. (Lydia got the disc jammed in their DVD player the summer it came out and even Lizzie’s near physical aversion to all things Nicholas Sparks wasn’t enough to prise it loose. In the end, their dad had finagled it out using his model train tools. The player still won’t close quite right, even all these years later.) Lizzie screws up her face and pokes at her pineapple. “Absolutely yay.”

Fitz laughs into his beer. “Mm, blonds.”

“Ugh, blonds,” Gigi says, leaning back against the cushions in the booth. “I saw Zachary Levi in that Starbucks on Wabash last summer. I’d let him on the cover of my People magazine.”

Lizzie snorts into the last bit of her mai tai. She’s hung around Gigi enough now to know that she’s nothing at all like Darcy, nothing like what Lizzie assumed Darcy would be. Gigi’s kind of willowy and loose, blonde hair in ringlets and bangles at her wrists. She talks softly but isn’t quiet, smiles at strangers and leaves great tips. She’s got this ridiculous, barking laugh sometimes and one dimple on her right cheek.

Lizzie watches Gigi’s face, turned blue from the light of her phone, and thinks about Carter’s and George Wickham and the incredible ease of Gigi’s smile. She retroactively hates that scheming, lying swim monster even more than she did before. Ugh blonds, indeed.

After a passable rendition of “Proud Mary” from a middle-aged maybe-soccer mom, Gigi excuses herself to the bathroom and Lizzie bites her lip and doubles down on the thing she’s wanted to ask all night. Darcy’s name has been threatening to trip out of Lizzie’s brain and right into her mouth since the moment they got into Fitz’s car. Lizzie sucks on the ice from her drink and watches Gigi make her way across the room and as soon as she’s out of sight, Lizzie leans over and grabs his wrist. “Fitz. You have to tell me. Does Gigi know about the videos?”

Fitz narrows his eyes, either because he thinks Lizzie’s ridiculous or because the guy manning the bar turned on some kind of very irritating strobe light. “What?”

Lizzie glances toward the bathroom, because it’s been three hours with the both of them and she can’t keep it in anymore and she’s never gotten up the courage to ask Gigi herself. “Does she know about the videos? My videos. Does she know about them?”

Lizzie’s a few shots of rum—rum’s what’s in a mai tai, right?—past being able to accurately decipher what Fitz is doing with his face right now, but he looks like he wants to laugh and then hug her and then maybe cry? Or just laugh more? (How does Lydia manage this, it’s unbearable.)

Fitz sets his beer on the table and glances over her shoulder. “I don’t think she knows about the videos, no. But if you’re asking me if she knows about what happened with you and Darcy? Probably.”

Lizzie drops her head so her hair hangs around her face. She and Fitz haven’t talked about this, like, at all, but she’s drunk enough to make the intuitive but totally unfortunate mental leap: he knew about the videos, he probably saw her confrontation with Darcy, they’re best friends, he probably knows everything. And he thinks that Gigi knows everything too. This is awful.

“This is awful,” Lizzie says. “You think he told her?”

Fitz shrugs his shoulders. His face is still really confusing. “They’re pretty close. And he probably wanted to talk to someone, so.”

Of all the things Lizzie has let herself imagine about Darcy—not that she spends a lot of time thinking about Darcy (oh god, she spends so much time thinking about Darcy)—his level of unhappiness after their feelings confession situation and whether or not he was upset enough to need consoling afterward are absolutely not among them. She hasn’t sat up at night thinking about it and she hasn’t gone back to rewatch the videos he’s in. She definitely hasn’t spent time reading and rereading the letter he gave her and making note of the pen strokes that seemed heaviest, the ones that seemed important.

(The truth: she has not rewatched the video but she has reread the letter an uncomfortable amount of times, and there’s a spot in the middle—when I saw you with Wickham—where the paper looks nearly torn through. His penmanship isn’t the only thing that she’s been obsessing over these past few weeks.)

Fitz pulls his wrist out of her grasp and holds onto the ends of her fingers. “It’s fine, Lizzie.”

“It’s not fine. I called her brother a prick. Should I talk to her about it? Does she hate me? Does she want to duel? That’s what rich people do, right? Duel?” It’s possible that Lizzie’s had more to drink than she thought.

Fitz laughs at her then, because Fitz is the worst and has no empathy. “She doesn’t want to duel you. She wants to be your friend, I think, regardless of the whole deal with her brother.” He lets go of her fingers and picks up his beer, clinking the rim against her empty glass. “How about you take it one Darcy at a time, alright?”

Lizzie opens her mouth to answer but Gigi comes barrelling back to the table, blonde hair trailing behind her. She sets down another mai tai for Lizzy and something equally fruity and ridiculous for herself. “I signed us up for a song!” she says, leaning forward to grab their wrists. “Come on, we’re doing this. Don’t be bitches.”

(Fact: Lizzie and Fitz are either tone-deaf or embarrassed or both and they do little more than hum along in most of the right places, but Gigi’s got this sweet, bright voice and the ability to win over a crowd. She hooks an elbow through Lizzie’s and knocks their hips together and sings oh, oh, oh with a laugh. So no dueling then, Lizzie thinks. Oh, oh, oh.)

By the time they leave the bar, Gigi’s steps are as uneven as Lizzie’s and they’ve got their shoulders leaned up against each other’s in Fitz’s backseat. The three of them sing along to the Spice Girls—“Fitz, you’ve got Spice World on your iPod on purpose”—with all the windows rolled down and after they pour her back into Jane’s apartment building, Lizzie stays at the curb until Fitz’s headlights disappear around the corner.

++

She gets three emails from Lydia over the weekend, all some variation of, “These videos are lame, let’s hear about your man-action, how did I get cursed with such a dumpy sister?” Lizzie ignores all of them.

On Monday night, Lizzie finally calls her little sister because Jane is still at work and if she gets another text with the word “YOLO” in it, she’ll roll her eyes right out of her head.

“Lizzie!” Lydia answers. “Have you decided to stop being the lamest and actually record something interesting?”

Lizzie rolls her eyes, not quite out of her head. “Thanks, Lydia, love you too.”

Lydia puffs out a breath. “How’s the Darce-hole? Your fans want to know.”

Darce-hole. Jesus. “Please don’t call them that. They’re not fans, they’re just … an audience.” The word “fans” makes Lizzie really uncomfortable.

“Are you kidding? You have fans, Lizzie. You have merchandise.”

“Merchandise?” On the other side of the line, it sounds like Lydia’s destroying a small town, or at the very least her closet.

Her voice is muffled when she speaks, like she’s pulling a shirt over her head. “Okay, it was just some randos in a tshirt I think they made themselves, but still. You have an obligation to them!”

Lizzie makes a sound slightly more lady-like than a grunt but doesn’t answer. Lydia still sounds like she’s caught in a flurry of cosmetics and costume jewelry. “Are you getting ready to go out right now? It’s a Monday.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Lydia says, “this is why you’re still single.” She doesn’t even say goodbye before she hangs up. Sisters.

Lizzie spends the next day thinking about her videos, and the audience-slash-fans who want to know everything. It’s hard to begrudge them their interest when it’s exactly the thing she was aiming for in the first place. She never thought to hold anything back before, that her life was her life and it was her business to share as much of it as she wanted, but now every time she sits down in front of the camera, it’s different. And it’s not just being at Pemberley and it’s not just the fear of who might see it, though neither of those things are the least bit helpful. Talking about Darcy means acknowledging what happened between them, which is something Lizzie’s been actively trying to avoid.

She sets up the camera during her lunch break the next day and when she presses record and sits down, her stomach’s tight and her neck’s super tense. Fine. She’ll talk about Darcy.

“Hi guys,” she says. The red light is mocking her. “So, I know that I haven’t talked much about this since I’ve gotten to Pemberley Industries, but since all of you have been wondering: yes, I have seen Darcy.” She chews her lip, and runs her hands through her hair. “He’s been observing a project I’ve been working on for the past week and it’s been—” Lizzie spends the next ten to a hundred seconds trying to find the right word. God, what does this look like on camera? Uncertainty? Fear? Editing this thing to make her look like she’s not a total mess is going to be a nightmare.

For fuck’s sake, Lizzie thinks. Full disclosure, right? She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. “My name is Lizzie Bennet and I have no idea what to think. I mean—”

She’s interrupted by a knock on her office door. Not for the first time, she thinks maybe she should be recording these at Jane’s instead of an actual workplace, because this isn’t the first time this has happened. Chris had come in the week before and they’d ended up talking about camera settings and sound quality for half an hour. Lizzie sighs. “Come in.”

Because the universe is unfair and still paying her back for any number of sins, her office door opens and Darcy peeks his head in. He looks from her to the camera and back again and she sees him suck in a quick breath. Shit. She spares a wish for the floor to open up and swallow her whole, but there’s no time for wishing when Darcy’s in her office. With his face. And his person. And his face.

“Darcy,” she says. Her spine is immediately ramrod straight. Darcy steps into her office and closes the door behind him and god, the last time this happened it went really badly. Lizzie glances around the room. Does she stay sitting? Stand? Turn off the camera? Crawl under her desk? She’s not emotionally or physically prepared for this.

Darcy takes a step toward her and shoves his hands in his pockets. “If I’d have known you were filming, I’d have worn my hat,” he says. Lizzie immediately does that thing she’s done since she was small, that “hiding her face in mortification” thing that usually comes out around Lydia, but when she looks up at Darcy, he’s—he’s smiling. Just one corner of his mouth, but it doesn’t even look like he’s trying.

Lizzie’s breath escapes in a huff. “You crack jokes?” she says.

His smile spreads all the way across his face. One dimple on his right cheek. Just like Gigi. “It has been known to happen.” He rocks back on his heels and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. Lizzie runs her hands over her knees. (God, are her palms sweating? Her palms are sweating. Jesus.) “I can come back,” he says, “if now’s not a good time.”

“No,” Lizzie’s mouth says, completely independent of her brain. Because the world is spinning backwards on its axis and she doesn’t want to get rid of him as quickly as possible? She clears her throat and gestures toward the camera. “I was just filming a video but if you need something, I can—”

“No, I was just.” He takes another step toward her, almost right to the bench where she’s sitting. He’s probably partly in frame. She wonders if he knows that. She wonders if he cares. “I thought I’d come by and tell you that everyone’s had great things to say about your help with the Rowley campaign. I’ve heard nothing but good things.”

“Oh.” Lizzie’s heart picks up speed in her chest. “Thank you.” She’d been contributing and everything seemed like it was going well, but to hear it out loud is something else. She bites back a smile and tucks her hair behind her ear. When she looks back, Darcy’s grin is smaller but—deeper, maybe? More genuine? Lizzie chews on her lip a second, deciding, and then scoots over a little on the bench. “I was just going to give an update on the company and the project and how thing are going.” Her voice sounds weird but she pushes past it. “You want to sit in?”

Darcy’s eyes widen and Lizzie wants to reach up and grab the words she can almost see still hanging in the air. You want to sit in? Like the last time he did this went so well, like it didn’t end up with him embarrassing himself, her embarrassing him, all over Youtube. (In the back of her head, she hears Lydia oh-so-helpfully reminding her: “Over 300,000 views on this video, Lizzie, see what you get when something interesting actually happens to you?”) Of course he doesn’t want to sit down, what a horrible idea.

But just as she’s opening her mouth to take it back, just as she nearly stands to turn the camera off, she sees him suck in a breath and smile against the flinch in his eyes and take a step forward and sit down. Right beside her. Inches away from where she’s gaping at him open-mouthed.

Lizzie closes her mouth and sits back. (There’s an entirely empty space where her heart used to be.)

Darcy looks back at her, his expression still a little bit pained, a little bit hesitant. He smooths down his tie (yellow with a grey plaid pattern running through) and says, “So where were you? Your name is Lizzie Bennet and?”

There’s something easy about him when he says it, something less pained and more—not hopeful, not light, not exactly. But the lines at his eyes crinkle into something that could reasonably be called a smile, and Lizzie shakes her head because this is actually her life.

She takes a deep breath and looks into the camera. “My name is Lizzie Bennet and—say hello to Darcy.”

++

It takes her longer than usual to edit her video. She was never the best at it in the first place—Charlotte set a pretty steep curve—but she knows it’s not her software that slows her down.

She does look uncertain. She does look afraid. And the moment she locks eyes on Darcy, all the color sort of drains from her face. (Which is saying something. For a Californian, she’s always maintained an aggressive sunblock regimen.)

But it’s the last bit of video that makes her hands still on her keyboard and her fingers pause over her mouse. Lizzie’s half out of frame, reaching up to turn off the camera, and Darcy’s just visible behind her. It had gone alright, actually. He’d talked about app technology and told a story about the time one of the new security guards wouldn’t let him in because he forgot his badge. Editing those parts had been weird enough—she’d laughed during filming, actually honest-to-god laughed at a story Darcy told—but it’s the last five seconds of footage that stop her short. She’s got one hand reaching out for the camera and he’s got both eyes on her and the look on his face is—

Well, it’s certainly not a face a robot could make.

++++

[fic] a lucky recollection, it saved (1/3), the lizzie bennet diaries, lizzie/darcy, 6k words

allthingsholy — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 04:28:06 GMT

Title: a lucky recollection, it saved
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Words: 6k this chapter
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Pemberley fic! Because of course. For plot purposes, let’s assume that Lizzie starts at Pemberley the first week of January, yeah? Excellent. Big thanks to Rachel for the encouragement, big thanks Erica & Meg for the lookings-over. All remaining flaws are all on me. Title cobbled together from P&P proper, because titling is harder than writing the damn thing.

[Also at AO3.]

Summary: Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack. She tucks the bowtie to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too."

++++

“No.”

“But—”

“No.”

“Are you—”

“No.”

“I just—”

“No.”

Lizzie and Charlotte do not talk about Darcy.

++

One time, when Lizzie was eight and Lydia was four, Lizzie pushed her sister down the stairs. Well, just two or three of the stairs going down to the basement. And she didn’t exactly push her, but she didn’t exactly not push her, either. She was eight. Lydia was Lydia. Things happen. Lizzie never told anyone, not even Jane, especially not Jane, and Lydia got a fat lip and then ate ice cream for dinner.

Lizzie’s not exactly sure how cosmic scales work, but when her independent study at the Gramercy Corporation falls through and Dr. Gardiner calls with a last minute invite to accompany her to Pemberley Industries, which happens to be where she’s going to consult for two months, and which happens to have a great internship and student development program, and which happens to have William Darcy’s name at the top of their corporate portfolio, well. Lizzie figures four-year-old Lydia is wincing against a smile as she sucks down a spoonful of mint chocolate chip and she doesn’t even know why.

++

“So you’re going to—”

“Yes.”

“And he’ll be—”

“Yes.”

“And he knows you’re—”

“Yes.”

Lizzie and Charlotte still do not talk about Darcy.

++

Lizzie leaves her packing until the last minute because Lizzie is not Jane and therefore doesn’t color-coordinate her earrings, belt buckles, and shoes for every outfit. She does throw a few dresses in with her business casual daywear because she’s staying with Jane for two months and if she doesn’t bring down at least the basics of an adult’s wardrobe, her sister will be the Jane version of mad, which basically means she’ll make a “hmm” noise in the back of her throat and find something of her own Lizzie can borrow.

Lizzie packs up her costume theater into the same bag she used to drag it from Netherfield to San Francisco and all the way back home again. One end of her red Darcy bowtie hangs out the side and she can just see the edge of the the newsboy hat beneath her blue plaid shirt. Lizzie runs her hands through her hair and sighs, because on the one hand it’s her thesis project and on the other hand, there are five sheets of high-class stationary tucked into the copy of Persuasion in her backpack.

(The most nonsensical thing she’s been stuck on since Darcy gave her the letter is where he learned to write like that, the looping, slanted letters like her grandma used to make. Lizzie learned cursive in grade school and his writing wasn’t cursive, it was—penmanship, which is even more pretentious. For a minute she’d pictured him as a boy, a knotty hand on his shoulder while he traced the lines again and again, but imagining Darcy as a child is a fairly impossible undertaking. Mostly she just imagines him—shorter.)

She tucks away the image—and the bowtie—to the bottom of her bag and keeps packing. Two months in LA with her sister. The Jane in her head says, “That’s not the same as leaving,” but Lizzie tucks that away too.

++

Jane, of course, is happy to have her, so happy, the happiest, and doesn’t let go of Lizzie’s hand once while she shows her around her apartment. (The tour lasts roughly ten seconds. Jane’s place is super tiny.) Lizzie unpacks her things into the empty half of the closet and then sits down on Jane’s bed and says nothing. Jane caught up on Lizzie’s videos the afternoon after she posted the first showdown with Darcy, because Lydia has an unlimited text plan and a constant need to dog on Lizzie’s love life. Jane’s face settles into something sympathetic and Lizzie can’t help but moan.

Jane sits down next to Lizzie and runs her fingers along the lines of the quilt beneath them. “So.” Her voice is Jane-perky, almost. Not quite. At the edges, at the corners of her smile, New Jane looks an awful lot like Old Jane. There are still whole days Lizzie spends thinking about how hard she wants to smack Bing Lee. “You ready for tomorrow?”

Lizzie falls back against the bed, her legs still dangling off the side. Her toes scratch against the rug on Jane’s floor. There are small silk flowers strung up around the bedroom windows, wisps of blue and pink and yellow against the white lace curtains. It’s looks almost exactly like the wallpaper in their family room back home, and Lizzie thinks of Jane’s half-empty closet and Jane’s half-empty heart and the parts of home Jane had to leave behind, and it makes her want to cry. Lizzie reaches out across the bed and taps her fingers against her sister’s hip. “Not really.”

Janes leans back onto her elbows and kicks her feet back and forth. “Just go in and be fabulous and it’ll be great.”

Lizzie rolls her eyes. “Just be fabulous? That’s your advice? For people who are not Jane Bennet, that’s kind of a tall order.”

“You know what I mean. Just.” Jane rolls onto her side and props her head up on her hand. Her hair’s in two pigtails that fall over her shoulders and she’s picking at the quilt with her nails and Lizzie might as well be ten years old again, sprawled out on Jane’s bed back home, talking about whatever ten year olds talked about in the mid-90s—Sweet Valley High, possibly, or maybe Pogs. Lizzie can’t remember what they thought was important back then, but she can remember Jane, stretched out exactly like this. Jane smiles and knocks her knee against Lizzie’s and says, “Just be yourself.”

Lizzie rolls onto her side and tugs at one of Jane’s pigtails. “Such a good big sister,” she says teasingly. Jane laughs.

++

Lizzie sees a lot of things her first afternoon at Pemberley—three floors of well laid out office space, lots of smiling employees, and the small office she’s been temporarily given on the building’s second floor. She does not see William Darcy. No newsboy hat. No bowtie. No one wearing a scarf, except a cheerful lady in the third floor break room who introduces herself as “Debbie Reynolds, please no jokes” and helps Lizzie find the milk for her tea.

Lizzie spends a frankly ridiculous amount of time deciding how to set up the camera for the videos she’ll be shooting at Pemberley. Eventually she settles on pointing the camera toward the only open wall, which is blank except for a painting of a forest scene that’s either standard Corporate Art or, knowing Darcy, a rare and priceless work from some dead Italian. She sets up her first shot and hits record.

“Well, it’s my first official day at Pemberley Industries, and since I had about a thousand tweets asking me, no, I have not seen Darcy.” Not that she’s looking for him. Even if she is, she doesn’t find him. She spends the rest of the afternoon going over her project proposal and Pemberley’s organizational documents, and barely talks to anyone at all.

Truth be told, it’s actually a super boring day, and when Lizzie follows Dr. Gardiner out to the parking garage across the street, she decides that the strange, rolling feeling in her stomach is probably just hunger.

++

Lizzie has been at Pemberley Industries for four days—four days and four hours, four days and four hours she has absolutely not spent with a tight ball of anxiety coiled in the pit of her stomach and twisting up into her ribcage every time she turns a corner—before she sees Darcy. It’s lunchtime on their first Thursday in LA and Lizzie’s in the elevator with Dr. Gardiner and when the doors slide open on the fourth floor, there he is. He’s not wearing a bowtie (just a regular tie, grey, with white polka dots (polka dots)) and there’s a blonde girl next to him, her arm tucked into the crook of his elbow, and they’re laughing. Lizzie has .5 seconds to take it all in—the blonde’s head tipped toward Darcy’s shoulder, the fact that he’s got one dimple on his right cheek, the way his laugh’s a little lower than his normal speaking voice, the realization that she’s actually never seen him laugh before—and then reality snaps in at the same time Darcy locks eyes with her. The joy slides out of his face in an instant and even though the elevator’s standing still, Lizzie’s stomach has plummeted somewhere beneath the lobby floor.

Darcy opens and closes his mouth a few times. “Lizzie,” he says, and the blonde uncoils her hand from around his elbow. When they board the elevator—which isn’t possibly big enough for four people, they have to be violating some overcrowding rule or weight restriction, Lizzie’s sure of it—Lizzie can see the usual tension creeping back up into Darcy’s shoulders, his neck, and working along the muscle of his jaw. Lizzie was sure he knew she was coming. She’d mentioned to Dr. Gardiner that she knew him but she’d left out some of the more incriminating details. Lizzie had seen Dr. Gardiner’s email to the HR rep, had seen Darcy’s name in the cc: line. She’d mentioned it in her videos. If she’s been a tight ball of nerves for the past four days and he didn’t even know she was here, well. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens even more.

They all rock back on their heels a bit as the elevator starts to descend, and Darcy clears his throat and gestures to the blonde beside him. “Lizzie, Dr. Gardiner, this is my sister, Georgiana.”

Lizzie’s eyes go from Darcy’s face to Georgiana’s and back again. There are still five pages tucked into Persuasion, now relocated to a stack next to her side of Jane’s bed, and a large chunk of those pages are to do with Georgiana. Darcy doesn’t say anything but Lizzie can tell he knows what she’s thinking, can tell she’s mentally reviewing every line of his letter that had to do with his sister. Georgiana doesn’t seem to notice anything. She takes a small step closer to Lizzie and holds out her hand. “Lizzie Bennet! Will mentioned you were coming. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Gigi.” Lizzie takes Gigi’s outstretched hand and doesn’t quite miss the way that Darcy winces at his sister’s words. So he did know she was coming.

By the time the elevator settles in the lobby, introductions have been made all around—Darcy and Dr. Gardiner, Gigi and Dr. Gardiner, everyone’s smiles just a shade past too wide. (Or maybe that’s just Lizzie projecting. The ache in her cheeks is radiating up toward her temples and as soon as Darcy let go of Dr. Gardiner’s hand he started a very thorough inspection of the toes of his shoes.) The doors open with a ding and Lizzie’s pretty sure she doesn’t imagine the increased speed with which Darcy steps out of the elevator.

Gigi clasps her hand around Lizzie’s wrist and pulls her a little bit closer, giving Darcy a smirk that Lizzie recognizes; little sisters will be little sisters. “Will and I have to go meet someone now, but tomorrow, let’s you and I get lunch?” Gigi’s smile is the brightest thing Lizzie’s seen all day and she even bounces up and down on her toes. Darcy continues to find his shoes to be the most fascinating thing in the whole lobby.

Lizzie covers Gigi’s hand with her own, just for a minute. “Lunch tomorrow sounds great.”

Gigi squeezes her wrist and then lets go. “Fantastic. I’ll come by your desk and get you. Where is it?”

“Oh, umm.” Lizzie’s mind is blank, totally empty, and she sputters and tries to remember.

Darcy—still with his eyes on the toes of his shoes—says, “John Mercer’s old office, on the second floor.” His voice sounds flat, like a minute ago he hadn’t been laughing at all. The knot in Lizzie’s stomach tightens again.

They make their goodbyes and set off in opposite directions. Dr. Gardiner has the good grace not to say anything at all on their way to restaurant, and when they do talk, it’s about the corporate structure of Pemberley and not about an elevator full of tension and awkward smiles.

++

If Lizzie’s first impression of William Darcy was at one end of a spectrum, her reaction to Gigi Darcy is at totally the opposite end. In Lizzie’s first week of knowing her, Gigi takes her to lunch at an amazing sushi place and shows her a cluster of incredible second hand clothing shops that Jane will love. They eat lunch on Friday and again on Sunday, when they split a pitcher of margaritas and eat way too much guacamole.

They talk about: contemporary chick lit and the pros and cons of reality television; late-90s boy bands and the formative experience of The Babysitters Club; British pop music and which Bronte sister was the craziest. Every once in awhile, Lizzie has to remind herself that Gigi is only a year older than Lydia, fresh out of college and three years younger than Lizzie. She’s grounded in a way Lydia isn’t, tempered in a way Lizzie probably wasn’t at her age, and when she talks about the things she’s done and the places she’s been, it’s warm and inviting and Lizzie leans forward on her elbows and soaks in every word.

They do not talk about: George Wickham, at all, or Darcy, hardly ever. (Gigi calls him Will, which Lizzie is definitely not ever going to do, barring some sort of life and death situation where it saves the President’s life. Never.) Beyond the first few awkward minutes—“Will and Caroline mentioned the Bennets plenty, but I don’t get to talk to either of them enough for real details, tell me everything”—they hardly come up at all. Lizzie spends their first lunch together worried she’ll blurt out something awful, like, “So is your brother a total asshole or not?” or “Does he fall for all the girls who are super mean to him?” or “Is Caroline a lying bitch to everyone or just me?” Halfway through their pitcher of margaritas, Lizzie nearly makes Gigi promise never to google “Lizzie Bennet,” but Lizzie keeps her mouth full of tortilla chips until the urge passes.

(Gigi does tell one story about her brother, about a trip to Hawaii with their parents when they both got stung by jellyfish. “Will was 18 and I was 12,” she says, “and he carried me up the beach, all the way back to our parents.” Her smile is equal parts fond and sad, but then she lifts her foot with a laugh and shows Lizzie the faint scar that wraps around one ankle. Lizzie pours them both another margarita and asks whether Stacy or Claudia was Gigi’s favorite babysitter.)

Lizzie makes the mistake of thinking Gigi completely unlike her brother, but she still sees Darcy echoed in the narrowing of Gigi’s eyes at her menu, the bend of her neck as she leans toward Lizzie to whisper about their waiter. Lizzie can’t help but see Darcy in the times when Gigi is silent. Though she won’t say it’s on purpose, Lizzie fills their afternoons with noise.

++

Right outside Lizzie’s temporary office is this big conference room and at the start of Lizzie’s second week at Pemberley, a whole team floods in and sets up, files and folders and charts and projectors. Every time Lizzie walks by and peers through the windows, she sees a whole group of them sat around the table or pacing in the empty spaces around the edges of the room. From the break room just past Lizzie’s office, if she stands in front of the coffee and hot water machine, she can see right through the conference room windows. On Tuesday, Lizzie looks up from making her tea and there’s Darcy, one hand raised to scribble something on the whiteboard, the other pointing at something on the wall that she can’t see. Everyone in the room has their eyes on him and he’s more animated than Lizzie’s ever seen him. He talks with his hands, these great big movements as he points around the room at the rest of the team, at the words on the board, at the charts on the wall. Lizzie doesn’t even realize how long she’s been standing there watching him until the door opens and Mrs. Reynolds comes walking out, headed straight for her.

“Ms. Bennet,” she says, slipping past Lizzie to grab a coffee packet. “How have you enjoyed your time at Pemberley so far?”

Lizzie looks down at the tea in her hands, now steeped probably to the point of bitterness, and says, “Good, it’s been really great, it’s great.” Her voice is squeaky and nearly shrill and Lizzie winces. Mrs. Reynolds doesn’t seem to notice. “What are—” Lizzie pokes at the tea bag in her mug awkwardly. “How’s the meeting going? You guys have been in there for awhile.”

Mrs. Reynolds stirs milk into her coffee and then pushes the carton toward Lizzie. “It’s a new pitch for a big client, Mr. Darcy wants it to be 100% ready before we meet with them. He’s a bit of a perfectionist, always has been.”

Lizzie hasn’t asked Gigi anything, but Mrs. Reynolds’ eyes are lively and warm and Lizzie can’t help herself. “How long have you worked here?”

Mrs. Reynolds cups her hands around her mug and smiles. “Likely longer than you’ve been alive, dear. I worked for Mr. Darcy Sr. and now I work for Mr. Darcy Jr.” She leans forward, all smiles and conspiracy and affection, and whispers, “I say Mr. Darcy Jr. now, but I’ve known him since his mother called him Willy and he took naps on the floor beneath his father’s desk.”

Back in the conference room, Darcy is sketching out a proposal on the whiteboard, the slashes of the marker swift and slanted. Lizzie shuts her eyes and clenches her jaw—five pages of thick stationary covered in his writing tucked between the pages of a book beside her bed. In her mind, she sees a knobby hand on his shoulder and his arms clasped around his knees beneath a big oak desk, scenes half guessed and half imagined, and it’s a little easier now to think of him small and reckless, his hand tucked into Gigi’s as they walked these very halls.

Lizzie spoons the tea bag out of her mug and adds a splash of milk from the carton Mrs. Reynolds hands her. “It seems like a lovely place to work,” Lizzie says. Mrs. Reynolds smiles.

When Lizzie walks the hallway back to her office, she keeps her eyes off the conference room windows and glued to the carpet in front of her feet.

++

Lizzie’s posted three videos since she got to Pemberley. She absolutely does not check their stats anymore—she had 347 @replies after the whole thing with Darcy, so her relationship with the internet is complicated—but Charlotte emails her to tell her viewership is up and everyone wants to know more about Pemberley and Darcy. Somewhere along the line, Lizzie’s life turned into a soap opera. (“A super lame soap opera, please,” the Lydia voice in her head says.)

She’s been making videos for months and suddenly Lizzie’s more conscious of her words than she ever was before. She hasn’t gone back to watch any of her old videos—partly due to embarrassment, partly due to lack of time, partly due to reasons she can’t and won’t look at too closely—but she remembers them being easier to record. Set up the camera, hit the red button, talk until Charlotte told her to stop. Now she sits in her office at Pemberley and weighs her words more carefully, picking and choosing the things she’s willing to say about the people who may or may not see them.

Darcy hasn’t said anything about the videos and she’s not even sure if he’s still watching them. She records two floors below his office and there’s a ridiculous part of her that almost wants to whisper every time she mentions his name—which only happens in passing. Lizzie keeps her features neutral the few times he does come up; the newsboy hat and red bowtie are shoved to the very bottom of the bag she’s got stashed in one of her desk drawers. Lizzie purposely hasn’t mentioned meeting Gigi, who has texted her twice since Sunday and invited her to play tennis this weekend.

According to Lydia, Lizzie’s silence on the subject of Darcy has the viewers up in arms. She sends Lizzie emails with screenshots of her youtube page, comments from people with a questionable grasp of basic grammar who want to know if she and Darcy have made amends, have made a sextape, have made a baby. Okay, her relationship with the internet is very complicated.

Lizzie sits in her office at Pemberley and tries to figure out what to say. Across the hall, Darcy’s leading a meeting and even through her closed door, she hears a voice that might be his. The red record light stares back at her.

++

Pemberley isn’t a big enough company to maintain any type of long-term avoidance plan, which is why Lizzie doesn’t even try. She mostly drifts back and forth between Dr. Gardiner’s office and her own, bracing as she walks around corners in case her life decides to make the jump from soap opera to romantic comedy. (Romantic comedy at this point seems pretty unlikely. The minute Darcy watched her videos, that was probably off the table. Plus, Lizzie doesn’t have the bone structure for that type of storyline, she’s not Meg Ryan.) Dr. Gardiner, it turns out, hasn’t watched Lizzie’s videos, which Lizzie finds out at the end of their second week at Pemberley, when Dr. Gardiner comes in with two steaming mugs of tea and the most incredulous smirk Lizzie’s ever seen on a grown woman’s face. (Lizzie first had Dr. Gardiner in her first year of grad school, for a class on internet culture and marketing. She’d given Lizzie her first C. Lizzie then gave her a thirty-minute speech on the social structure of the internet and the implications of new media on different types of online subcultures. The C became a B and Lizzie became one of Dr. Gardiner’s favorite students.)

Dr. Gardiner walks into her office—up on the fourth floor, with a terrific view of a neighboring church—and sets Lizzie’s cup down in front of her and says, apropos of nothing, “Lizzie, I don’t usually get involved in the personal lives of my students because it’s both inappropriate and I don’t usually care, but.” The space of her pause is time enough for Lizzie to count how many steps it would take to get to the door, and then the stairwell, and then outside the building and into oncoming traffic. She doesn’t move a muscle. “Is there something going on between you and William Darcy that would affect your participation in this independent study?”

Lizzie feels her face go cold and her palms start to sweat. She’s been waiting for this conversation. Not necessarily from Dr. Gardiner, but she’s been waiting for someone to say to her, “Lizzie, why are you at Pemberley, are you out of your mind?” Truth be told, she thought it would be Darcy, but beyond 30 seconds in an elevator and his constant presence twenty feet from her office door, she hasn’t seen or heard from him at all. She’s prepared no acceptable answer to the question, so she works her a jaw for a minute and says nothing.

Lizzie crosses and uncrosses her legs, keeps her voice flat—which is probably a dead giveaway, why doesn’t she have Lydia’s knack for lying, dammit—and says, “Why do you ask?”

Lizzie’s got her eyes fixed on Dr. Gardiner’s knees so she can’t see her professor’s expression when she says, “Because I ran into him getting coffee just now and he asked about you? And then looked like he wanted to throw up and die?”

It’s only sheer force of will and the thought of having to restart her whole project that stops Lizzie from dropping her head into her hands and telling Dr. Gardiner everything. Not that Dr. Gardiner won’t find out—she’ll have to watch the videos eventually. Lizzie knows that playing fast and loose with the truth now will only lead to questions later, but she just tightens her hands around her too hot mug of tea and straightens her spine. Dr. Gardiner waits, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“I do know Darcy from home,” Lizzie finally says. “And he was at Collins & Collins when I did my independent study there as well.” Lizzie takes a sip of her too hot tea and winces against the heat on her tongue. “We interacted socially.” God, she sounds so formal. She sounds like a robot. She sounds like Darcy.

Dr. Gardiner nods her head. The look on her face is entirely too knowing, a little bit concerned and mostly puzzled. “Lizzie, if you coming here is going to affect your ability to complete your independent study, we’ll find something else. I know that I don’t know the whole situation, but based on his demeanor today and your interactions in the elevator last week”—of course Dr. Gardiner had noticed four floors’ worth of awkwardness, dammit again—“if you’d rather complete your project somewhere else, you need to say so. I know grad school isn’t quite the real world yet, but we should maintain at least the illusion of professionalism.” Dr. Gardiner smiles, but there’s a reasonable dash of actual warning at the corners of her eyes. She turns back to her computer screen. “Please let me know by the end of the week so I can find something else for you.”

Lizzie picks up the business plans she’s been reading. “Okay,” she says. It takes her four attempts to actually get through the first page.

++

Lizzie would never admit it if asked, but she’s re-read Darcy’s letter more than a handful of times since she got to LA. Jane caught her at it once last weekend, came out of the shower and into her bedroom and found Lizzie on the bed with the thick, worn-edged stationary in her hands. Jane had kept herself busy towel-drying her hair, had averted her eyes to the mirror to give Lizzie time to slide the paper back into its envelope and between the pages of her novel. Jane hadn’t said anything, but when she’d climbed into bed beside Lizzie that night, she’d scooted a little closer than she’d needed to, the point of her elbow brushing up against Lizzie’s arm.

Jane had said, barely more than a whisper, “You want to talk about it?”

Lizzie had listened to the city, to the sounds that were so different than the ones they’d left at home. She’d wanted to ask about Bing, about how big the other side of Jane’s bed feels when Lizzie isn’t there to fill it. Every day, Lizzie goes into Pemberley and sees happy people at a well run company, the tasteful art in the hallways and Mrs. Reynolds holding the elevator door for her. Lizzie stands at the coffee machine and sees a whole room laughing at something Darcy’s just said. And then she comes home to Jane’s half-filled, still-waiting apartment and Jane’s optimism and Jane’s new strength. Every time Lizzie reads the letter she tries to align the parts of Darcy she sees with the pieces of Darcy she saw, but it’s all round holes and square pegs and nothing gets any clearer at all.

Jane’s elbow had nudged hers just a little. Lizzie had chewed her lip a while and then tucked the quilt up under her chin. “No,” she’d said. It had taken her a long time to fall asleep.

++

Lizzie’s always considered herself a fairly rational, responsible person, willing to get her hands dirty to do whatever needs doing. Sensible. Adult. In the time between stepping off the elevator and knocking on Darcy’s office door, she rethinks her entire approach to life and considers going back to her office and lying down beneath her desk. She doesn’t. (Barely.)

Mrs. Reynolds is at her desk outside Darcy’s office, phone slotted between her ear and shoulder, but she waves Lizzie toward the open door with a friendly smile, which only makes the pit of Lizzie’s stomach open up a little wider to swallow the majority of her insides. Lizzie’s pretty sure her heart’s still intact because it’s gotten twice as loud as usual.

(She’s not nervous exactly, it’s just that this conversation—which she doesn’t want to be having in the first place but probably should’ve had two weeks ago—could go any one of a number of ways. Being prepared for all of those outcomes simultaneously has Lizzie wishing she’d skipped lunch and downed a bottle of Tums instead. Hindsight.)

Lizzie tries to look as casual as possible when she walks past Mrs. Reynold’s desk and knocks on Darcy’s doorframe. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and straightens the bottom of her sweater and feels like maybe she’s having a heart attack.

Darcy’s at his desk, head bent over a folder and pen flicking back and forth between his fingers. He freezes when he sees Lizzie and even with an entire room between them, she can see the muscle in his jaw start to bulge.

Once when Lizzie was in high school she had an English teacher who taught Romeo and Juliet in the most simplistic way possible and basically blamed all of the ridiculous things that happen in the play on Juliet’s childishness and emotional immaturity. Lizzie had titled her essay “Reasons Why This Play Was Taught All Wrong” and when she had to go apologize—seriously, she had to, Principal Cho had no patience for feminist literary criticism—she’d been an anxious wreck. It was the only time she ever got into trouble, academically. The knot she’d had in her stomach that day felt a lot like the knot in her stomach when William Darcy stands up out of his chair and waves her into the room.

Lizzie’s pretty sure there isn’t a standard way to begin a conversation where one party committed online libel and the other made a horrifying declaration of feelings, so she chews her lip a minute and then says, “Umm, so.” It’s a great opening.

Darcy taps his knuckles on his desk and clears his throat. Twice. Stellar rebuttal.

Fuck it. Lizzie takes a breath and closes her eyes—literally closes her eyes, because she’s an adult—and says, “I know that things between us have been a little up and down, and that’s sort of a big understatement, but I just wanted to make sure that it’s okay that I’m here. At Pemberley. Working at Pemberley. Here.” The inside of Lizzie’s mouth feels like a brillo pad. This has been her best idea yet.

When she opens her eyes again, Darcy’s staring at his blotter. He’s got on grey suspenders and a red shirt and Lizzie can see the knot of his skinny black tie moving up and down while he works his throat. “Yes,” Darcy says finally, “it’s fine that you’re here. I’m—” He looks up and meets her gaze and Lizzie manages this weak smile, this quivering, uncertain pull of her lips. It feels mean. Darcy just takes a breath and says, “I think that Pemberley Industries will benefit from your insight and I hope that you’ll find the time spent here to be a valuable contribution to your project.”

There were six months when Lizzie would’ve rolled her eyes at how dispassionate Darcy’s voice is when he speaks, how clipped his consonants are and the awkward way his hands clasp and unclasp at his sides. There were six months when Lizzie wouldn’t have noticed the creases at the corners of his eyes or the fact that since he raised his gaze, he hasn’t looked away from her face. She notices now. She doesn’t entirely know what to make of it, but—she notices.

Lizzie’s tongue still feels stuck to the roof of her mouth, so it takes extra effort when she says, “And we’re—okay?” It takes extra effort for a lot of reasons. She waves her hand back and forth, gesturing between them. Darcy nods, just once. He still hasn’t looked away from her face.

Lizzie puts a little more effort into the smile she gives him. Darcy doesn’t say anything else and now that she’s said what she came to, the silence shifts from anxious to awkward. Lizzie looks around the office and feels—suddenly, belatedly—intimidated by how beautiful it is. There are bookshelves along one wall with windows opposite; the desk is wooden and massive, the cabinets behind it filled with knick-knacks that seem oddly personal and cluttered for his office; on a table to Lizzie’s right is an array of photographs in mismatched frames. Lizzie makes herself look back at Darcy and nods. “I should be getting back to Dr. Gardiner,” she says, “I have—”

“We’ve been working on the Rowley launch this week,” Darcy interrupts. “They’re hoping to use web content to increase traffic to their online features. It’s an interesting campaign.”

Lizzie nods uncertainly. His consonants are still clipped. The way his eyebrows knot together makes him look like Gigi.

Darcy takes a step back and starts to move around his desk. “I’d meant to mention.” He clears his throat again. Maybe it’s a nervous tick and she never noticed. (She’s not sure when she started classifying his behavior as “nervous” rather than “prickish,” but she’s not interested in figuring that out right now.) “If you want to sit in while the team brainstorms some of the material. We spent the week finalizing the process for the roll-out and nailing down most of the marketing objectives, but we still have to develop the content. I thought with your experience with web content, it might be useful to you.”

Her experience with web content. Her videos. Lizzie’s hands curl into fists just out of habit and the heart attack feeling that had started to subside comes raging back. Darcy stands in front his desk, all awkward hands and awkward shoulders. Lizzie just sort of nods. If she weren’t two steps from what feels like a panic attack, she’d be more excited about the opportunity, about the project itself, but as it stands she mostly just doesn’t want to talk about this ever again. At all.

Which is of course when Darcy says, a little more quietly than necessary (and Lizzie’s suddenly really aware of the open door behind her), “I’m not still watching them. Just, so you don’t have to—worry about that.” Lizzie’s not looking directly at him, but she’s pretty sure he actually winces. She knows for sure that she does. She tries to hide it with a nod, but it probably still shows.

The awkward silence is worse, way worse, the longer that Lizzie doesn’t say anything, so she says, “The Rowley thing sounds interesting. I’d like to sit in, if I won’t be in the way.”

“You won’t be,” Darcy says. He looks relieved to be talking business and by the time he’s done explaining the basics of the campaign--still with his back to his desk, half a room away from Lizzie--the air in the room is almost breathable again. Lizzie’s heart feels less like it’s going to fall out of her chest than it did before.

“I’ll have Mrs. Reynolds send you an invite to the meeting on Monday,” Darcy finishes.

Lizzie nods. “Thanks for the invitation.” She takes a step back toward the door; she can hear Mrs. Reynolds outside. “I should probably go find Dr. Gardiner.”

Just as Lizzie turns to go, Darcy says, “Gigi mentioned you’re playing tennis on Saturday.” She turns back to find the smallest trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Watch her backhand. It’s vicious.”

Lizzie narrows her eyes but her lips pull themselves into the tiniest grin. “Good tip,” she says.

++

Gigi flattens her--except for the game where she almost certainly lets Lizzie win.

Her backhand’s more than vicious.

Lizzie has a great time anyway.

++++

Part 2: here.

Dear Yuletide Author (2012):

allthingsholy — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:16:51 GMT

Dear Yuletide Author,

First of all, thank you so much for signing up for Yuletide! I hope you like the prompts that you got, even though they are strangely random!

Follow or ignore these guidelines at your discretion! If you love writing it, I'll probably love it too! So enjoy yourself! In general, these are some things that I like: character studies, relationships with ill-defined boundaries, friendships that might be romantic, realistic portrayals of shitty situations, relatistic portrayals of people overcoming shitty situations, conversations that mean ten different things, long touches, weighted glances, people not saying the things they want to say, redemption arcs, crackfic, apocafic, zombies, AUS OF ALMOST ALL SHAPES AND SIZES. (That is a random list.) In general, these are some things that I do not like: melodrama, white knights, deathfic, rape-as-backstory, rape-as-plot-device, stories that the writer doesn't enjoy writing. Which is my way of saying: have fun!

On to the specifics!

Dublin Murder Squad: Aw man but I love Cassie and Rob's fucked up relationship and how much they needed each other and how torn up it all got. I'd love something set after they split up, post-The Likeness, something where they just run into each other or something where they have to work together again, maybe. I have a huge partners kink, so I think it's be heartrending to see, given how much they used to occupy the same spaces, what they filled those spaces with when the other person wasn't there anymore. I also like Sam and Frank, so feel free to include the wider universe as you wish.

Elementary: AW MAN JOAN/SHERLOCK. As I said, I'm all about ill-defined relationships, so I could go platonic or romantic or a mix of the two for these guys. Casefic or character studies or backstory or futurefic, whatever. I really enjoy the portrayal of their relationship on the show, the way they give or don't and how it informs the way they relate to each other.

Friday Night Lights: I'd love a post-series fic where Tyra and Landry reconnect, either in Dylan or somewhere else, and get back together, either romantically or just as friends. I really enjoyed how supportive they were of each other and pushed each other to do new or better things with themselves.

Stranger Than Fiction: I love this movie and I love Karen and Jules and the tiniest hints of a connection they have. He's a huge fan and she's coming around to being a different kind of writer and I'd love a story set after the series where they keep in touch. Send each other letters? Emails? Talk about the future of the modern novel and whether increasingly gendered representations of fiction are bad for the world? Normal people request epistolary stories where 60yos fall in love, right?

I hope this is helpful! I'm fine with all ratings, and I really, really hope that you enjoy this year's Yuletide! If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to ask my roommate/fandom twin juniperlane. (Last year's letter, for further reference, is here.)

Happy Yuletide!

[fic] you & me of the 10,000 wars, downton abbey modern au, 11k words, 2/4

allthingsholy — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 01:23:56 GMT

Title: You & Me of the 10,000 Wars (A Downton Industries Fic)
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Words: 11k this chapter, 21k total
Rating: R
Notes: Equal parts modern adaptation and modern au. Thanks to juniperlane & lulabo for the betas; thanks to goodmenfall for the britpicking. Any errors or Americanisms that remain are entirely down to me. Sorry for the super huge delay between chapter 1 and chapter 2, but life things and family things and. Chapter 3 will be up when ... chapter 3 is up.[Also at AO3.] Chapter one found here.

Summary: Robert Crawley, president and CEO of Downton Industries, wants to make sure his family’s company lives on after he’s gone. Heir-apparent to the company is Matthew Crawley, industrial lawyer and Robert’s new-found right hand man. Less than thrilled with Robert’s decision? His eldest daughter, Mary. Expelled from Oxford and a constant tabloid presence, Mary’s rebellious streak constantly puts her at odds with her father. She very publicly butts heads with Matthew, much to the displeasure of her family. But Matthew quickly learns that there’s more to Mary than meets the eye, and Mary might’ve made a few misjudgments of her own.

Chapter Two: One & One Make One

It had taken thirty minutes to get Mary sewn into her gown; it takes twice as long to get her out of it. She has two glasses of champagne in quick succession while one of Evelyn’s assistants buzzes around her to undo the stitching at every necessary seam. When Anna finally make it backstage, Mary’s got one of her arms bent awkwardly over her head while Daisy picks at the thread along her side.

Anna’s got two more glasses of champagne in her hands and she holds one out to Mary. “One for me,” she says, “and one for you, Twiggy.”

Mary clinks glasses but doesn’t drink. Her fingers are already tingling so she sets the champagne down on the table and focuses on the feel of Daisy’s hands at her ribcage. Her stomach is still twisted into tight and anxious knots, the same as it’s been after every show she’s done so far. There’d been a moment halfway down the catwalk where she’d been sure she’d ruin everything, but she’d kept her eyes planted firmly on the back wall and managed not to trip over her ridiculous shoes. Daisy snips a bit too close to her skin and Mary winces while her eyes scan the crowd for her sister. “Where’s Sybil?”

“She was waiting for Gwen, they’ll just be a minute.” Anna leans against one of the make-up tables and says, “Evelyn must be thrilled. I heard everybody talking about how amazing the new collection is. Everyone loved the show.”

Mary smiles and feels the tight ball in her stomach ease a little bit. Evelyn’s designs have always been popular enough with a certain crowd to keep the financial side of things from ever being too big a problem, but she wants more for him than breaking even. She wants more for the both of them. She’s invested enough money into his lines to have her own interest in his success, and there’s a selfish kind of pride she gets from seeing everyone’s positive reactions.

Daisy finally sets down her scissors and says, “Alright, out you get.” Mary grabs the robe Anna holds out and just as she’s knotting the belt, Sybil rushes forward dragging Gwen at her heels. “You looked beautiful.” She presses a fervent kiss to Mary’s cheek. “Everyone looked beautiful, the whole collection was amazing.”

Sybil’s dolled herself up for the show, her hair slicked back and shining instead of piled into a mess atop her head. Gwen’s wearing a dress of Sybil’s, the skirt far shorter on her than it ever seems on Sybil. She tugs at the hem self-consciously and smiles around the anxiousness in her lips and says, “That was fantastic, Mary.” The north squeezes out in her vowels and Mary clasps a hand around her wrist in solidarity or understanding or something she doesn’t mean to be pity. Gwen’s fingers flick out to grab at Sybil’s hand but Sybil’s pushing back toward Anna, stepping ever so slightly away; the corners of Mary’s lips pull themselves into a frown. She makes a mental note to corner her youngest sister at a more opportune time, when they’re not surrounded by friends and acquaintances and several members of the press.

There’s an endless parade of people, all offering compliments and congratulations and Mary deals with each of them in turn. She may not bear the brunt of the Crawleys’ high society duties but she’s still her mother’s daughter and she learned her lessons well. She only rolls her eyes toward Anna and Sybil when she gets caught up in something especially long-winded: Judith Reynolds asking after Granny; Rachel Kingsley inviting her to a charity event next month; Melanie Tribett not so casually asking after Kemal’s whereabouts. She keeps her smile stuck wide and friendly, only letting the edges chill when herding Melanie toward her next available target.

Mary watches her weave toward Harris Stewart, oldest son of one of her father’s friends and next in line to take over his father’s massive manufacturing conglomerate. Anna leans in after Melanie’s carefully out of earshot and says, “She’s an eager one.”

Mary doesn’t say anything. For all the ways she dislikes Melanie and doesn’t even fake more than the most necessary civility, she’s all too aware of how easily it might’ve been her in the same shoes, the same situation--chasing after the oldest sons of her parents’ oldest friends. It sets her teeth on edge more than a little and she turns toward Sybil rather more aggressively than she needs to. “What are your plans for tonight?” Melanie has her hand worked into the crook of Harris Stewart’s arm and Mary turns away and drains her glass in one.

If her sister notices the sudden tension that Mary can feel radiating off her skin in waves, she doesn’t say. Sybil fiddles with one of the necklaces at her throat and glances up at Anna from the corner of her eye. “Meeting Branson, probably. What do you think, Gwen?” In all the time Mary’s known her, she’s never seen Gwen refuse her sister anything; for all Mary loves Sybil, she wants to reach over and shake her for the way Gwen’s throat works before she answers.

“Of course,” Gwen says. She keeps her eyes set exactly on the toes of her high heels. “I’ll give him a call right now, actually.” Gwen excuses herself and weaves out through the crowd. Mary can’t help but watch Sybil watch Gwen, the way her sister’s eyes trail after the mess of red curls all the way across the room.

Mary leans toward her sister and flattens her voice into as neutral a tone as she can manage. “Careful there.”

Sybil doesn’t answer, just runs the charm of her necklace back and forth against her throat. When she was younger, Mary would find her with her hands dug into their mother’s jewellery box or their father’s desk drawer or a tin of biscuits in the kitchen. Sybil’s never been one to stay idle and it pours out from the ends of her in mad bursts sometimes; Mary suddenly can’t remember the last time she saw her sister dance.

Sybil’s fingers finally still when Gwen comes back in and slides up against Sybil’s shoulder. It makes Mary want to smile; it makes Mary want to cry. She waves over a waiter and passes them all champagne instead, and spends the next chunk of the night passing on all the fashion gossip she can think of.

Backstage after an event turns into its own little party more often than not, with Evelyn entertaining investors and reporters and finding time to flirt with every available blonde. Mary watches him out of the corner of her eye and when he finally slides an arm loosely around her waist and presses a kiss to her hairline, she tucks herself comfortably against him and says, “Need help handling anyone?”

Evelyn tips back his glass--his third or likely fourth, judging by the gleam in his eyes and the red tint swelling up toward his cheekbones--and digs his fingers into her hip. “If Melanie Tribett tries to corner me one more time--”

“She’s not with Joseph Parker anymore, you know. I’d thought her mother never would’ve let his money slip through her fingers.”

Evelyn reaches for another glass of champagne. “Was she asking after Kemal?”

“Of course.”

Evelyn plays with the end of Mary’s belt, twisting it around and through his fingers, and she can tell just by looking at him how badly he needs a cigarette. She makes to pull him toward the rear door when she’s stopped up short, her heart suddenly somewhere between her mouth and shoulders.

She hears Kemal’s laugh before she sees him, high and boundless and ringing out over the crowd. It hits her straight in the chest. She grips the glass in her hand almost hard enough to break it and when she finally finds him in the flurry of people he’s got a girl in his arms and one trailing behind and there are arms and hands everywhere. He’s browned and beautiful and the burn that settles into Mary’s ribs is equal parts lust and something too rough to be weariness. Anna slides a hand around her wrist but Mary doesn’t look away from Kemal’s curls brushing down against his forehead and the endless smile that lines his eyes. He sets down the blonde and comes rushing toward her and she’s up into his arms before she has any time to react.

“Mary,” he breathes into her neck. His palms slide around her waist and up against the plane of her back. She fists a hand in his jacket and goes rigid against him, soft only in the bend of her neck toward his lips. Some habits, she thinks, as her fingers slide up to his collar. He smells like leather and Kemal and, inexplicably, the sea, and when he sets her down and presses his lips to hers--greedy, always, as he nips at her lower lip and licks into her mouth--she tastes salt and the expensive Turkish cigarettes he smokes. He marks a trail of kisses from her mouth to her collarbone, making enough of a scene that people are starting to stare. There’s a backstage photographer snapping pictures from the corner.

This thing with Kemal--it comes in waves, she has found. She has known him for nearly five years and her life takes no different shape when it is wrapped around his. It’s not that she’s unbending or that he’s an especially accommodating person, but she has found that she’s as happy to let him go as she is to welcome him back and he’s not one to stand still for long. Kemal is here or not, and she loves him or not, with equal and opposite force. It’s not something her parents understand and not something she’s wont to explain to them. His kisses still taste like rebellion; his hands pressed against her hips feel like their own kind of freedom.

“Mary,” he says again, hot air puffing out against her skin. His hands circle her waist and there’s a tug of something tired behind her ribcage. “I’ve missed you.” He buries his nose in her hair, and even as she doubts the truthfulness of his words, she’s pulling him closer. Over his shoulder, Anna and Sybil exchange a look and Evelyn clears his throat. “Let’s get out of here,” Kemal whispers against her cheek. Mary imagines if she pressed her ear to his chest, she might just hear the ocean. “Right now. Let’s go.”

He kisses her once, twice, and steals the no from her lips.

--

Matthew cleans his office twice, reorders the papers on his desk, tidies the books on his coffee table and fluffs the cushions half to death. He undoes it all five minutes later. Papers and folders are scattered to look casually disheveled, like he’s been hard at work all day doing anything other than driving himself to distraction waiting for Mary to come barging through the door at half twelve. Matthew stops halfway through spreading a contract out on the coffee table and runs a hand through his hair. He sighs. The papers go back into their folder. He fluffs the cushions.

Sybil comes at noon like she always does, bags of take-away in her hands and the scent of garlic wafting out from the spread she sets up on his coffee table. He wraps up a phone call from Berlin just as she starts taking plastic lids off containers.

She passes him a plate of shawarma. “I didn’t know you spoke German.”

The food in his hands smells amazing and breakfast feels like a very long time ago; it only ever consists of too-strong coffee and whatever Molesley leaves at the top of the pile of the most urgent contracts. It’s occurred to him that maybe he should take better care of himself, and that maybe Sybil beat him to this conclusion by a mile. Matthew settles down on the couch and leans back against the perfect cushions and tucks into his food. He smiles around the first bite, hot and spicy and delicious. “I’m a man of many mysteries.”

Sybil picks at the tines of her plastic fork, lip quirking up into a grin. “That seems unlikely.”

“Caught. I am exactly as boring as you’d think.”

“Now, now,” Sybil says. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure you could exceed everyone’s expectations and be twice as boring as people think.” She knocks her elbow against his and smiles. Matthew chuckles to himself and heaps more rice onto his plate.

In the six weeks since Mary’s been coming to their meetings, she’s shown up on time exactly never. Sybil still comes at noon with lunch, just like she did before, and when she hands him his food--usually something exotic, strange spices and names he can’t pronounce (Sybil’s bound and determined to expand every horizon she meets, apparently)--her smile is usually half an apology.

Matthew’s been at Downton almost a year, but he’s not met anyone he likes quite so well as Sybil. Sometimes the wait for Mary lasts ten minutes; sometimes it’s closer to an hour. In the meantime, Sybil tells him stories of University, horrible exams and boring professors and the ridiculous behaviour of her peers. Matthew tells her stories of his own--Michael Davies being chucked from the girls’ dormitory with nothing but a scarf and his very recently ex-girlfriend’s umbrella; Stan Wilson’s getting caught out with an illicit substance or two by the head of their halls. He stays quiet about the very goriest of details but he doesn’t doubt Sybil’s ability to keep his confidences. He’s never had any siblings and has few female relatives to speak of, but he imagines those relationships would be much like this one: good-natured ribbing, friendly banter and easy companionship. Sometimes he doesn’t mind waiting for Mary at all.

It had taken him longer than he’d like to admit to notice that Sybil’s stories, though entertaining in the extreme--sometimes she puts on voices; there’s a history professor she mimics that Matthew considers a personal favorite--are very rarely personal in nature. She mentions Gwen and Branson in passing, enough for Matthew to know that they’re important, and the rest of her family not at all. When he’d noticed the detached bent of her stories, he’d also noticed other details: strange tension in her hands when she talked about Gwen, an unconscious quirk to her mouth when she mentioned Branson. It makes Matthew wonder at the parts of Sybil’s life that he doesn’t get to see and at how much effort goes into carefully constructing the parts that he does. He’s seen Mary’s face splashed about the papers and he wonders how much Sybil’s guardedness has to do with Mary’s overexposure. He wishes he could ask, that he was sure enough of their friendship to offer a friendly shoulder or whatever support he could, but there are still pitfalls at Downton that he’s learning little by little, and he fears this might still be one he’s best off not falling into.

As little as he’s heard of Sybil’s most guarded relationships, he’s heard even less of Sybil’s relationship with Mary. After the second, third, fourth time Mary had shown up late, he’d asked Sybil if they ought to reschedule for later in the day; she’d just shrugged. “That won’t help,” she’d said, and her eyes had been pitying and resigned. Mary may still consider him green behind the ears but he knows a power play when he finds himself inadvertently caught in the middle of one.

Their first meeting he’d made the mistake of ignoring any potential awkwardness and carrying on like usual. Mary’d put an end to that with a few pointed remarks about the mail room and an unnaturally fast climb to the top. Sybil, for all Matthew’s sure of her friendship, hadn’t been much in the way of help. He tells himself not to pry at split loyalties and does his best not to hold it against her.

He’d had a fleeting moment of hope in their third meeting when Mary had expressed a genuine interest in one of the deals he was working on, but when he’d started to explain about mergers and acquisitions and straight payment versus stock options, she’d rolled her eyes and stepped out for a cigarette. To call it the high point of their interactions is as true as it is discouraging. Six weeks and he’s no closer to figuring out Mary Crawley than he was the day they met.

He’s done his best to keep his frustration in check when Robert asks--which he rarely does, though Matthew very much doubts that’s down to a lack of interest. He keeps trying to reconcile the Robert he knows with the Robert Mary sees, but they seem two different men entirely. When Mary speaks of her father--which is a rare enough occurrence that it’s not hard for Matthew to recall every instance--it’s haltingly, detached, like something sharp is set behind her teeth. It’s not quite the same look that Robert gets when he asks about her, but it’s close enough that Matthew can’t help but see the similarities.

He tries not to spend the entirety of his meetings with Mary wondering at the history of the Crawley family, but he must be doing a far worse job with Sybil because she stops him halfway through a story about Uni and breaks her usual silence and says, “She’s not so bad, you know.”

Matthew pauses halfway through a mouthful of rice and says, more curtly than he means to, “No?”

The smile Sybil gives him is sympathetic. Matthew can’t help but wonder whether it’s nature or necessity, the way that Sybil’s always playing perfect daughter and helpful mediator. “It’s complicated,” she says. She keeps her eyes on her food and pushes bits of rice around with her fork. “It’s always been complicated and now that Kemal’s back Mary’s sure to be even more, well.”

He watches the way Sybil’s hands tense and the sudden lines at the corners of her eyes and feels unbearably guilty. He’d seen photos of Mary and Kemal from a fashion show a week or two before, Sybil just peeking out in the background. The totality of what he doesn’t understand about her life--about Mary’s life--is huge. He tries to keep his voice lighter when he repeats after her. “It’s complicated.” For the millionth time he wants to ask why, how; he wants to ask what happened between Mary and Robert to create so wide a gulf between them and he wants to ask about Kemal’s role in everything. He doesn’t ask--he would never ask--but he wonders at the closed-off expression on Sybil’s face in those photos, watching Mary bundled up in Kemal’s arms.

He finally pulls himself from his thoughts and makes to tell Sybil about one of the programmes they’d funded last month, but he’s interrupted by Mary breezing in through the door, all offhand apologies and insincere smiles. The looks Mary gives him while they clear their lunch away fall somewhere between disinterested and icy. Matthew pretends not to notice and offers her tea instead.

It takes the better part of an hour to decide on three new charities. Mary offers reasons against all of Matthew’s choices. Matthew makes a token contribution but generally defers to Sybil, much as he always does. By the time they’re nearly finished, Sybil’s mobile buzzes and she steps into the hall while she tucks the phone against her cheek.

Matthew is suddenly very aware of the fact that it’s the first time he’s been alone with Mary since the first night they met. He corrects himself immediately--alone is not in a room with 300 other people, but when she’d slid her hand up the front of his jacket, those 300 other people hadn’t been on his mind at all. He meets Mary’s eyes across the coffee table and can’t help but remember her voice in his ear. He’s fairly certain that’s not what she’s thinking about as he clears his throat to fill the silence.

“So that’ll be Branson then?” His voice is too loud; he fights off a wince and soldiers on. “She’s not said but that’s his name, isn’t it? Her young man, as your grandmother would say?” He doesn’t know what makes him keep talking, what has him feeling like the burden to make amends is his. Whatever it is, it’s probably the reason he’s not called off this farce of a charity committee in the first place. He can’t help feeling as if he owes Mary something, no matter how hostile or terse her responses.

Mary doesn’t do much more than narrow her eyes but he’s already sure he’s said something wrong. She doesn’t raise her voice when she speaks and her tone isn’t exactly unkind, but he feels chastised nonetheless. “Whatever Sybil’s relationship with Branson, I think that’s Sybil’s business.” She pointedly picks up her cup of tea and says over the brim, “There’s rather enough prying into the love lives of the Crawley sisters as it is, don’t you think?”

“And how is Mr. Pamuk?” It’s out of his mouth before he even thinks it, hanging thick and heavy in the air between them. Mary’s features go slack. She sets her cup back in its saucer, sets her saucer on the table, and all with so much controlled hostility that Matthew’s half torn between feeling ashamed of his outburst and in awe of how aristocratic Mary’s upbringing must have been. It makes him sad and unbelievably tired and just as he opens his mouth to apologize, Sybil steps back into the room.

“So sorry, Gwen had a question about a report.” The cheer in her voice dies as she looks between Mary and Matthew. He doesn’t know how he looks, but Mary’s got her shoulders back and chin tipped up to the point of fury.

She grabs her bag and stands in one smooth motion. “If everything’s settled for today, I’ve other plans,” she says. “See you both next week.”

Sybil gives him a questioning look and Matthew’s off the sofa and across the room. “I didn’t mean to--I said--” He leaves Sybil with half-sputtered explanations and heads off after Mary to apologize, certainly, and explain himself if he can. Every explanation running roughshod through his head as he makes his way past Molesley’s desk and out toward the lifts seems wholly inadequate.

He spots Mary not at the lifts but heading toward Mr. Carson’s office. A dozen heads turn toward him when he calls out her name; when Mary stops she runs smack into a man with his hands full of files. Paper floats down toward the floor, underneath desks and chairs and Mary’s mouth opens into an O of surprise, the young man’s one of rather more panic.

Matthew jogs toward them to help and reaches them just in time to see Mary drop down toward the bulk of the pile. “I’m so sorry,” she says as she shuffles files and reaches for folders.

The young man--William, Matthew half recalls, a very junior associate in Carson’s department--drops to his knees beside her and gathers up whatever papers he can reach. “Not at all, it was my fault.” His face is blushing red to the roots of his blond hair.

Mary gives him a reassuring smile. “Don’t be silly, I stopped right in your way.” They finish gathering the papers from the floor; Matthew stands dumbly, reaching for the few sheets atop the nearest desk and thrusting them out toward William as they both climb back to their feet.

“Here you are, William.” He tries to look anything other than surprised or completely idiotic, but he’s certain he fails spectacularly. William takes the papers with a muttered “Thank you, Mr. Crawley” and a last look toward Mary. The smile she gives him can only describe as genuinely warm. It sits so naturally on her usually sharp features that Matthew forgets himself. He’s staring. He knows he’s staring and he can’t look away. It takes too long for Matthew to find his voice, time enough for Mary’s features to cool considerably, but what he might’ve found cold before is now just guarded. “I’m sorry,” he says, “for before. That was out of line.”

Her smile is diamond sharp and brittle and it stretches across her face in stages, mocking and furious and tired in turns. He wonders if he will ever stop cutting himself on her edges. She draws her shoulders back and narrows her eyes and it seems more and more unlikely all the time.

“Maybe a touch less garlic for lunch next week, hmm?” She spins on her heel and continues across the room, presses a kiss to Mr. Carson’s cheek and disappears into his office.

Matthew’s left standing in the middle of the office and he wonders, certainly not for the first time, if there’s more of her to be had when she’s not in this building, whether the edges of her fan out into something more gentle and less severe. He wonders what she looks like then, whether the lines of her mouth smooth into something gentler, what the muscles in her shoulders feel like when she doesn’t have her hackles raised. He can’t help but wonder--quite suddenly and mostly unbidden--what her hair looks like draped over her pillow in the middle of the night, or what her voice sounds like at the end of a lazy Sunday afternoon.

He wonders what the parts of her that she keeps so closely guarded look like, and whether she shows them to anyone at all.

--

For all that Mary’s worked to remove herself from the social circles her family still travels in, there are some things she cannot escape. Weekly tea with her mother and grandmother is something she’s never been able to get out of, and now that she’s got half a foot back in Downton, they’re half as likely to let her off the hook.

“I saw Melanie Tribbett at the Shaw opening last week.” Cora stirs her tea primly. Cora does everything primly, and Mary straightens her back in response and sighs.

“She was at Evelyn’s show. Delightful as always.” She doesn’t tell them about Miranda chasing after every wealthy man in attendance. It feels--unkind, which isn’t something Mary would usually care about when it comes to the socialite families she grew up with, but she holds her tongue nonetheless. “Where’s Sybil? I thought she was coming.”

Cora waves at someone past Mary’s shoulder. No matter where her mother picks for tea, there are always half a dozen people Cora knows, all sitting in their prim and proper outfits eating finger sandwiches and gossiping mercilessly. Mary’s been the subject of enough pointed looks to last a lifetime. “Sybil had schoolwork, I think. You know how she is about her studies. She told me about the show though, she said it was lovely. She showed me the pictures online.” Cora reaches over and squeezes Mary’s wrist; Mary most likely imagines a snigger from the table behind theirs, but she’s never quite sure. “You looked beautiful, darling.”

Mary smiles and tells them all about Evelyn’s autumn line: prints and pastels, new cuts and styles. She tries to fill as much time as she can before the inevitable happens.

“And how are your meetings going?” Cora stares into the bottom of her teacup and tries to look only casually interested. Mary can tell from her mother’s hands--white-knuckled even around bone china--that if she could, Cora would open up Mary’s throat and pull every word out by force. She’s tried before; Mary’s made her, stayed silent through pride and stubbornness until Cora couldn’t take it anymore. Mary finds a tiny bit of truth that costs her nothing and offers it up open-handed.

“It’s nice to spend the time with Sybil,” she says, stirring milk into her tea. She can see Cora’s lips form the questions--have you seen your father? have you spoken at all?--but she bites down on them at the last minute and stays quiet instead.

Truth be told, Mary hasn’t even seen her father since she came back to Downton, which has come as its own kind of terrible relief.

She’d shown up far too early for her first meeting with Matthew. When the taxi had dropped her off at the doors, she’d taken one look at the lines of the tower and walked straight in the other direction and gone to a cafe to wait. She smoked one cigarette on the way there and then another while she stood outside with rapidly cooling milky tea clutched in her hands. No sense in being early, in appearing too eager or ambitious or--whatever reasons she had for worming her way into these meeting had little enough to do with actually wanting to accomplish anything. She finally walked into the building ten minutes late, and anyone who looked at her wouldn’t have known she spent the trip to Matthew’s office trying not to catalogue all the changes in the place since she’d last been inside. She purposely didn’t notice new furniture or redesigned office spaces, and she certainly didn’t dwell on all the places she’d played as a child.

When she remembers Downton, it is always in half-light, red and rich and familiar even at the blurring edges. There are corners of that building she’s spent more time in than whole sections of her parents’ home, and she’d know them even now by smell or by touch. If she closes her eyes, she can feel the groove of the moulding underneath Carson’s desk, would know the sound of the drawers on their tracks anywhere. For as long as she can remember there has been a box of sweets tucked into the back of one of Carson’s desk drawers, chocolate in foil wrappers that used to crinkle in her small hands. He would pull her onto his lap, let her sign blank carbons and draw up contracts for ridiculous, extravagant things. One time, she remembers, he might’ve sold her the sky. If she left fingerprints on his paperwork, a chocolate thumbprint on a client file, he never scolded her or sent her back to her nanny, not until her head dropped down onto his shoulder and she dragged along behind him down the corridors to her father’s office.

She remembers hiding behind someone’s knees to escape from Mrs. Hughes, who’d never quite taken to her as Carson had. She remembers books spread out on the floor of her grandfather’s office and Sybil’s hands tugging at the ends of her hair. She even has a memory, half-formed, of falling asleep in her father’s lap while he reviewed reports, of being sat behind his great big desk while he mumbled budget items into her hair. She’s wondered in the years since if it might not be a false memory, something she constructed out of bits of air and wishful thinking, but it sits in her chest with a weight that feels real either way.

They’d grown up there, Mary and Sybil and Edith all run ragged through the offices and down the corridors. Every time she walks into Matthew’s office she remembers its old occupant Mr. Shandling and his twisted hands gripping the end of his cane while he scolded them not to run, to keep their voices down. “People are working,” he’d say, his mouth a sour pinch and Edith’s laughter trailing off behind them. There is a memory for every step she takes inside that building, and she’d rather die than share a single one with Matthew Crawley.

Mary doesn’t tell her mother any of it though; how her memories have bubbled up at random, thoughts of Edith and Carson and Mrs. Hughes and Granny all jumbled together with Matthew and charity files. It still feels very much like trespassing, coming back to a place that has moved on without her. She tries not to look for one, but there’s no place for her at Downton that she can find.

Cora is talking about someone Mary went to school with, the son of a friend of a cousin of the family, something long and convoluted that Mary doesn’t care about, and Mary presses her hands against the planes of her thighs and feels like this should all hurt less than it does. After all this time, it should hurt less, or differently at least, but sometimes it still feels as harsh as it did the first week she left, the first month, the first year. It’s been five years since she gave up any hope of running the company and Mary stills knows Downton’s stock value on any given day. If anyone asked, she’d deny it. No one asks. Cora keeps on with her story and Mary crosses her ankles underneath her chair.

Mary’s phone chirps once, twice, and she thumbs through messages from Kemal, hot and teasing enough that she forgets about Downton for awhile and doesn’t notice any glances that linger on their table longer than they ought. Kemal has always served as the most useful of distractions; Mary shifts in her seat and crosses and recrosses her legs and studiously does not meet her grandmother’s eyes.

Violet clucks her tongue disapprovingly every time Mary reaches for her phone. “In my day,” she starts--Mary would swear that those three words start off 90% of Violet’s conversations--“if a man wanted to take your call, he’d wait by the telephone.”

Mary smirks. “I thought only lovelorn girls waited for the phone to ring. You never did?”

Violet looks down her nose but there’s hint of amusement at the corners of her eyes. “We’re Crawleys, dear. We don’t do lovelorn.”

“So they should pine for us?” It’s an appealing enough image for Mary, if rather too romantic for her usual tastes.

“Why shouldn’t they?” Violet asks. “You’re still a lovely and respectable women, despite all that business in the past. He’d do well to woo you, dear.”

Mary forgets as often as not that Granny was her staunchest supporter, all that ferociousness tucked carefully into Mary’s corner in the most practical of ways. When she does remember, it’s in fragments and bits: coming home from those months abroad, her skin rather shockingly tanned, and driving past her parents’ flat and straight on to Granny’s instead; newspapers kept out of the house when her name appeared in the headline; Violet daring anyone to speak ill of her family with nothing more than a look and a well practiced smile. It’s a skill Mary’s not yet mastered, but she knows she’s been learning from the best.

Mama’s face shifts into the same coy, needling look Mary’s seen for as long as she can remember. “Your grandmother is no stranger to wooing, Mary.”

Violet shifts in her chair pointedly enough that even Mary hears the warning in it and says, “Mona Watson has been gossiping again, has she?” Violet leans in toward Mary conspiratorially and Mary can just see the edges of a much younger woman behind her grandmother’s lined face. Mary used to scour the albums in her parent’s library and flip through page after page of photographs of her grandmother. She doesn’t think of it often but she remembers it now, when Violet’s eyes are bright and sharp; how beautiful she was when she was younger. No stranger to wooing, indeed. “Crawley women have a weakness for dark-eyed lovers, child, and there’s no sense denying it.” She lifts Mary’s chin with a knobby finger. “But best be careful with that heart of yours.”

Mary sips her tea and smiles and wonders what lives in the place where her heart should be.

--

In the eight months since he was promoted at Downton, Matthew can remember taking a night to himself exactly twice. When he leaves the office at eight, the night guard gives him a curious look--he’s walked out at midnight every evening for the past six months. His heels echo around the lobby and the sound rattles around in his head for miles.

There’s a club he walks past on his way home and every night loud music spills out onto the pavement and puddles at the feet of all the sharp-dressed people bent around their cigarettes at the kerb. He’s never been one for the scene, for bright lights and ridiculous drinks--he’d rather a pint over a martini any day of the week--but his feet walk themselves in and seat him at the bar before he lets himself catalogue all the reasons he’d rather just go home.

The lights inside are pink and paint everyone in a blush that settles high on their cheekbones. The color makes the lines of the world run together. The music is loud and pounding; the bass settles deep in his chest, shifts around inside his ribcage and stays. By his second drink, he feels lighter. By his third, there’s a blonde at the end of the bar who keeps catching his eye.

He’s always appreciated the razor sharp distinction between being lonely and being alone. He’s always valued privacy, put stock in the restorative power of solitude, but tonight the distinction is hazy at best and seems altogether useless. The blonde has hair that falls over her shoulder and halfway down her back, and Matthew can’t stop staring at her wrists and wondering what she’d look like with the flimsy straps of her dress pooling down around her elbows. He orders them both another drink.

Her name is Hayley and she’s got a warm, red mouth and a voice that pushes up against the heavy bass in his chest and hums. He feels it all the way from his teeth to his toes. The pads of her fingers are soft when she rests them on the back of his hand, his wrist, the skin of his forearm, and she laughs like she’s got a secret she’d love to tell the world.

He lets himself unwind by small degrees, the edges he keeps close radiating outward with every drink and laugh and casual touch. Hayley leans closer, the better to be heard over the music, and her breath is warm on his cheek.

It’s not often that he does this. It’s not often that he has the time. He’s never been particularly good at it anyway, but Hayley’s smile is wide and she’s warm where her knee is pressed against his beneath the bar. They talk about sport and work and politics through two, three more drinks, until they’re tipped towards each other on their stools and light touches that were comfortable have shaded toward lingering and he can’t stop staring at her mouth. He keeps thinking about Sally May who’d sat in front of him for English in sixth form, about how she’d talked like an adult and had bright blue eyes that made him feel restless as he thumbed through Chaucer and Milton, not listening to anything their teacher said. Sally had always been first with an answer or a quote or a definition and he’d stared at the back of her neck for months, at the long blonde plait swept over one shoulder. He hasn’t seen her for fifteen years, hasn’t thought about her for almost as long and doesn’t know why he’s thinking about her now, but when Haley shifts toward him and smiles into her shoulder, he thinks maybe Sally grew up to look like this, miles of smooth skin that make his palms itch.

Matthew doesn’t know if it’s a new finely tuned radar or Mary’s ability to enter a room and take it over immediately, but he sees her the second she steps through the door. She’s backlit, the edges of her vague and indistinct, and she leans back against the hand that comes out of the shadows to settle in between her shoulder blades. The corners of Matthew’s mind that’ve spent the past hour smoothing out into a whisky haze come slipping back together, but nothing lines up quite right and his tongue is too thick in his mouth. Hayley’s talking about the cinema or the news or something else entirely, and Matthew’s tracking Mary in the mirror above the bar and trying to blink back the fog in his head.

“Matthew?” Hayley’s hand has been settled at his knee for the better part of ten minutes and the press of her nails against the fabric of his trousers jerks his eyes down to hers.

Matthew clears his throat and flicks his gaze up to the mirror above the bar; Mary and her small group have settled themselves along a booth in the corner. Best Matthew can tell, she hasn’t seen him yet, and he smiles quickly into the rim of his glass. “Sorry. Colleague of mine just came in.”

Hayley nods, loose curls brushing against her shoulders. Matthew keeps his eyes on the honey golden sheen of her hair. It’s almost enough to hold his focus but then he sees Mary’s reflection crossing the floor toward them. The muscles in his back knot themselves together all at once.

Mary slides in beside him and smiles an awful smile. “Matthew,” she says. She doesn’t raise her voice to compete with the music still blaring from the speakers at each end of the bar but he hears her just fine anyway. She’s wearing silver, something loose and billowy that falls to her forearms and down against her thighs. It makes her eyes look wide and bottomless.

Matthew swallows the anxiety creeping into the back of his throat and says, “Mary, hello.” His mouth won’t quite do what he wants it to, the words coming out thick and syrupy. Mary smirks at him, signals the bartender for a drink. Matthew checks the mirror for the rest of her party, still sat at the booth in the corner. One man--Kemal, presumably, though Matthew will deny recognizing him from any tabloid photographs--has his gaze fixed on Mary all the way across the club.

Matthew shuts his eyes and breathes in and out. He doesn’t believe in fate or karma but this seems especially unfair of the universe, to throw Mary Crawley at him when he can’t quite focus on--well, anything. Hayley’s still next to him, fingers drumming on the bar top. His knee feels cold. He hadn’t noticed her pull away.

“I’ve never seen you here before.” Mary’s voice brings him back to himself. When she tips up the end of her glass, her throat is long and pale, all exposed with her hair pulled up like that, and Matthew is staring and staring, eyes fixed on a freckle just under her jaw.

Beside him, Hayley stands suddenly, her arms tucked against her frame and her hands still and so far away. “I have to, excuse me,” she says, and Matthew watches her as she weaves in and out of the crowd, her skin changing colors in the light.

When he turns back to Mary, she’s got the corner of her mouth crooked up at him. “Last time I saw you with a date, it was your mother. The blonde seemed an improvement.”

Matthew snorts into his glass. He doesn’t imagine for a second that he looks anything close to dignified, with his suit jacket slung over the back of his chair and his tie hanging loose around his throat. It’s been a long day. It’s been a series of long days, truth be told, and Matthew’s sure the wear has started to show. Mary, however, manages to look glamorous and poised and put-together, even with two mostly drunk men pressing as much of themselves as possible up against each other just over her left shoulder. Three months of meetings and he’s never seen her with anything less than a rigid spine. He’s never even seen her with her hair down.

“I’ve never seen you with your hair down,” he says. The part of his brain that usually filters those things out before they reach his mouth seems to have stopped working.

Mary doesn’t answer or even acknowledge that he’s said anything at all. “If it’s blondes you’re after, I’m sure Edith would be more than happy to take you under her wing.” She pauses for the space of a breath, and if he knew her better he’d know whether it was scorn or envy that colored her words when she says, “It’d delight Papa, I’m sure.”

“Would it now?” Matthew runs his finger through the condensation on his glass. In the mirror over the bar, he sees Hayley at a table full of women, paying him no attention at all.

Mary draws her lips into something that would, on anyone else, be called a smile. “I’m sure he’d love nothing more than to wrap all of Downton up in a neat little package. It’d make him quite happy. You should think it over.”

“I didn’t know you had any interest in making your father happy.”

He doesn’t meant it as a barb, but she bristles anyway. It happens so quickly it might as well be a trick of the light--blue now and seeping into the metallic sheen of her dress. She pulls herself together with nothing more than a breath and a motion to the bartender.“You can ask, you know. If you want to.”

Matthew’s known for two months that he’s been doing a poor job of hiding his interest in the Crawley’s family drama--Sybil’s made him aware enough of that--but it’s still embarrassing to have Mary point it out so bluntly. If you want to. Matthew catches the bartender’s eye and motions for another drink. “I don’t want to.”

“Yes, you do.”

The bartender sets a glass in front of him, brown liquor, ice, and bad ideas all swirling together on the bar. Matthew watches him, his eyes passing over Mary and lingering on the most obvious parts of her. Something bright flares up in his chest. “Edith says you were expelled.”

Mary breathes out a laugh, her sharpest corners tucked away, even if only for a moment. “Edith says an awful lot of things. Few of them are worth listening to. So maybe not the best choice for you after all.” Her mobile buzzes against the bar; she flicks her eyes into the mirror and toward the back of the club. He tries not to follow her gaze to the booth in the corner but he can’t help it.

“Mr. Pamuk, I presume?” Mary makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “And he’s the reason you were expelled?”

She shrugs up one shoulder, then the other. “Kemal isn’t a reason for anything, he’s just--Kemal.” She gestures toward the booth in the corner. “That’s it? That’s all you want to know?”

“I, really Mary, I don’t want to pry.” His voice is embarrassingly small when he says, “I don’t want you to hate me.”

For just a second, Mary’s face goes soft and open, the lines of her smoothed out. Matthew can’t keep his hands still and he can’t meet her eyes, because he’s spent the better part of two weeks thinking about what she looks like when nobody’s around, whether the glint in her eye is all for show or something natural; he’s spent it thinking about what the ridges in her spine would feel like under his thumb, what she looks like when she’s laughing so hard she can’t catch her breath. Wondering if he could ever make her laugh so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. He wants a cold shower and a cigarette and another drink. Her elbow slides against his when she moves and it’s enough to make the bottom of his stomach drop out.

There are whole parts of Matthew’s brain that seem to have stopped working entirely. At least he’s staring at his hands and not her face when he says, “Your father, do you--do you hate him?” The words slip right past his better judgment and sit there on the bar between them until Mary clears her throat and takes a drink. He’s spent four months imaging he’d already seen the sharpest points of all her corners, but when he hazards a glance in her direction, the glass that was just full is now empty and her knuckles are very nearly white where they’re pressed against the bar.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He wants to say something else, wants to have cause to do anything other than apologize, but she’s got her shoulders angled so slightly away from him, just barely tucked into herself. “Please, I didn’t mean anything, I just.” He runs his fingers through his hair, drops his elbows onto the bar and his head into his hands. His mouth is dry; his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and the cotton wool feeling in his head presses against the back of his eyeballs. He breathes out and tries to get his bearings. “I’ve had too much to drink. I shouldn’t have said anything, I--”

“I don’t hate him.” He can just barely hear her over the sound of the music, the thrumming of the crowd. She’s still turned mostly away from him but she twists to run her cheek against her shoulder and then meets his eyes--just for a second. His hands curl into fists. If they didn’t he’s fairly sure he’d find them wandering toward her wrists, her elbows, the planes of her shoulders. She may be slight as anything but he’s never thought her truly small until just now. The shape of her pricks at his memory. I thought you’d look more like Patrick. It makes his breath catch in his chest.

Their shoulders are a whisper apart and his chest shifts, contracts; his tongue feels loose and stupid and brave. “I think sometimes you’re one person, the way people talk. The way you hold yourself.” He knows he ought to stop talking, that whatever thin ice he’s skating toward is unlikely to hold his weight, but there’s a piece of hair that’s come loose from the knot at the crown of Mary’s head. She tucks it back behind her ear, pinches her lips together and doesn’t say anything. He can feel the warning bells at the outskirts of his mind slip back beneath the pounding of the music. I don’t hate him. “And then sometimes, I think you’re someone else entirely.” Matthew leans in, just a fraction of a whisper of an inch, and all the skin on his body feels anxious and wanting. The lights all around them slide from blue to pink. “What do you look like Mary?” Her eyes go wide and unfocused and he wants to kiss her so badly his fingers itch.

Sally May was bright and lovely, sun golden and so, so young; Mary is lovely, amazingly so, but she’s brittle and tired, too. It shouldn’t make her more beautiful, the way her whole body shudders a little when she finally takes a breath--but it does. Her eyes are fixed somewhere on the back wall. Matthew’s eyes are fixed on her. He wants to curl his fingers in her hair and press his lips to the stretch of skin beneath her ear, slide his hand up her waist and slot his fingers one, two, three against her ribcage. He wants to lick the champagne from the underside of her lip. He wants a lot of things and all he can do is turn away, stare across the bar and into the mirror. He feels the flush spread down his neck and chest, and--and he has definitely had enough to drink.

The silence between them lasts for a minute, or a lifetime. By the time Mary turns to look at him, her face is a cool, collected mask again, but he can see now--the effort it takes her to wear it, to tamp down the parts others aren’t meant to see.

He can’t think of anything to say so he doesn’t say anything at all, just swirls his glass and watches Mary out of the corner of his eyes while she drums her fingers against the bar in front of her.

“Mary, are you coming back? We miss you.” A hand settles on the bar between them, Kemal wrapping himself around her and pressing his lips to the side of her neck. Matthew tries not to watch in the mirror, but Mary catches him at it anyway. “Evelyn won’t shut up about some old bird who wants to give him all her money and kidnap him forever and be his muse. I don’t care at all, come make him stop.”

Mary takes a deep breath and then smiles, just barely. “Kemal, this is Matthew Crawley. Matthew, Kemal Pamuk.”

Matthew tries not to be offended at the offhand nod Kemal gives him. His eyes are wide and unfocused, something just a bit off kilter about his stance as he wraps himself around Mary again and presses his lips back to the side of her neck. It’s not just rumours about Mary that Matthew’s caught up on, and by the look of him, most everything he’s heard about Kemal is true. Matthew’s hands have gone quite tight around his empty glass, but he keeps his eyes off the mirror and stares at the bar instead. The music suddenly feels far too loud, the whole club overwarm. He wants a glass of water and some fresh air.

“Next week,” Mary says. She’s spun the wrong way around on her stool, barely slumped back against the bar, and Kemal still has her hand in his, tugging her slightly toward their booth in the back. “I’ll see you then.”

Matthew nods and does his best to look cheerful. He tries not to think about Mary curled into herself or her cheek rubbing lightly against her shoulder, and definitely not about Kemal’s lips at her throat and his hands--everywhere. “Next week.” His voice sounds entirely unlike his voice.

He watches Mary trail Pamuk across the club and slide in next to him in the booth. By the time he’s finished settling his bill, she’s slumped back, Kemal’s arm around her shoulders. She looks toward him, just for a second, and he carries it with him all the way home--Mary’s face, eyes hooded and brushed pink with light.

--

Kemal presses her back into a corner of the stairwell and fixes his mouth to the place where her neck meets her shoulder and bares his teeth in a smile and bites down. Mary gasps. The light from the gaudy harsh fluorescents has gone soft and hazy at the edges and when she closes her eyes and pitches her hips against his, there are stars. There are pinpricks too, in the hard press of his fingers against the back of Mary’s thigh when he drags her leg around his waist. The inside of Mary’s chest feels unbound and restless. Whatever Kemal gave her at the club is filtering down from the crown of her head to the pit of her stomach and she can feel the buzz of it all along her skin where she’s pressed up against him. It makes her fist her fingers in his clothes and pull, and feels not unlike being turned inside out, and is amazing. Mary makes a greedy noise in the back of her throat--she needs his hands and his mouth, right now and everywhere. Heat blooms off her in waves that break just past the ends of her fingertips. It’s all she can hear and all she can see--heat and Kemal and stars and Kemal and she throws her head back against the wall and comes.

She’s dizzy in the stairwell and makes the trip to the flat on unsteady feet; Kemal’s got one arm around the small of her back and it’s heavy and possessive and warm and if Mary hadn’t already come twice, if the fight to keep her eyes open wasn’t surely a losing battle, she’d press him up against the door of his flat and make him tip his head back and scream. The thought makes her smile through the soft-focus chemical fog in her head and she presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw as he leads her through the door.

They fall into bed heavily, king and queen of a world that stops just past the edges of their bare skin. When Mary closes her eyes and drops off to sleep, she can still see the stars behind her eyelids and she rolls toward him and smiles.

She wakes hours later, half-queasy with a flutter in her stomach and Kemal’s arm draped heavily over her chest. She pushes him off with a grunt, stumbling through the dark room with her eyes still closed and walking a jagged line toward the toilet. Her head feels noticeably clearer and markedly worse; there are no stars in her eyes now, just ragged drum beats at her temples. She splashes water on her face and drinks straight from the tap to soothe her aching throat, still smoke sore from the night before. The room’s fully dark; she can’t have slept very long. She feels very likely still drunk, leaning against the door frame while the room spins and spins.

It’s not until she lowers a knee onto the mattress that she realizes something is wrong, and even then it’s a long time before she understands. The room stops spinning with a jerk and she stumbles forward onto her palms on the bed, one hand on Kemal’s waist and the other fisting into the sheets beside him. Mary stares and stares, at his arm, his chest, his throat, his cheeks, his wide open, unblinking eyes. His skin beneath her fingers is cold and she doesn’t understand--until she does. She reaches a shaking hand toward his throat and lets out a raw, aching moan when the fingers she presses to his neck close over still, clammy skin. No pulse, no frantic rush of blood. She pulls her hand away and the sound that escapes her throat is half a sob.

It feels very much like falling, like steady weight settling into her veins. She shuts her eyes and when she opens them again, everything is murky and smudged at the edges. She doesn’t realize until much later that it’s tears that blur her vision, because everything has gone coldly numb. She dresses in what feels like seconds, or hours, and the hands that pull her dress over her head are shaking badly enough that the zip catches in her hair. It barely registers .The sharp pull at her roots is no more than a faint buzzing behind her eyes.

She slips out as quietly as they’d sneaked in, down the hallway to the stairwell with her heels dangling useless from her hand. All the places in her body that were open last night--her chest had felt so vast and wide and wanting beneath Kemal’s hands and when he’d kissed her it had lasted for a thousand years--feel closed off and cold and very far away. When she passes the corner they’d hidden in last night, the weight in Mary’s chest that should maybe be grief is mostly just panic and she doesn’t let her steps slow at all.

When she pushes out onto the street, the city has the eerie, still quality of night sliding just into morning; the edges of the silence rub up against the empty roaring in Mary’s brain. She slips on her heels and pulls her jacket tight around herself and with no destination in mind, begins to walk.

She won’t remember, when she tries to, exactly where she went; she won’t remember hailing a cab or giving an address or the trip across the city. She’ll remember instead the most basic and useless details--the worn fabric of the taxi’s seat and the smell of flowers and mint that drifted back while the driver kept his silence through the city’s empty streets. She won’t remember paying him but she will remember the sky shading slowly into day over the edges of the windows at the top of her parent’s house.

She stands on the doorstep and rings the bell for what feels like the vast majority of her entire life. She hears it echo through the house, through her parents’ empty rooms, and with a sudden shot of self awareness, she prays her father isn’t home.

Cora answers the door--alone. Her eyes are wide as saucers and her hair is in curls against her cheeks. She’s still wiping sleep from the lines of her face when she looks out into the morning and sees Mary--who will only later think of what she must’ve looked like in the lightening sunrise on her mother’s front step, last night’s make-up still smudged across her face and panic coming off of her in waves .Cora tugs her in without a word and her hand is a vice on Mary’s wrist.

Robert is in New York; Cora is biting down on all the questions Mary knows she wants to ask. By the time they’re settled onto the sofa, tea untouched at their elbows and all the pieces of Mary’s story still howling around the room, the sky outside the windows is a blushing shade of pink. Mary keeps her eyes on the flashes of morning through the glass for as long as she can, until all the bones in her body stop their shaking and she can meet her mother’s eyes.

Cora’s looking at Mary in a way she hasn’t done for years and Mary can’t imagine what her mother sees right now, can’t imagine what she must look like. Desperate, surely, and very, very small; frail, most likely, never mind her hands curled into fists in her lap. When Mary speaks, her voice is a stranger’s. “He was dead. I woke up and he was just--dead.”

For all she looks as if she wants to, Cora doesn’t flinch and she doesn’t turn away. She keeps her voice very, very steady when she asks, “Are you sure you weren’t seen?”

It hasn’t been an hour and already half the details are muddled and the other half are gone completely. The dull lights in the stairwell, the hard glare off the headlights on passing taxis, and always, always Kemal’s eyes--unblinking and staring on and on forever. Mary isn’t sure of anything.

She squeezes her hands tighter and digs her nails into her palms. “You can’t tell Papa,” she says. Her voice is raw. “Please.” It’s not an afterthought so much as a fresh wound. “Please don’t tell him. If he doesn’t need to know, don’t tell him.”

Cora’s eyes are very hard and her cheeks look hollow. “It might come out, Mary.”

The tension in Mary’s jaw is infinite. “I’ll tell him if it comes to that.” Each word claws her throat as she says it and she realizes, with sudden clarity, what people mean when they talk about mercy. It takes more begging than Mary’s done in her lifetime, more begging than she’d ever hoped to do, before Cora agrees that Robert won’t know unless worse comes to worse and he must. By the time she gives in--with a nod like it pains her and for all Mary knows, it does--Mary’s voice is a rough whisper and she’s half-asleep in her chair. She stands up in the middle of her mother’s perfect, pristine sitting room and tugs awkwardly at the hem of last night’s dress. Her knees shake; her face is sore.

“I should go,” she says. She sounds impossibly young and feels every bit of it--young and unused and unsteady on her feet. She doesn’t protest when Cora takes her by the hand--very delicately and without a word--and leads her up the stairs. She doesn’t let go but to pull Mary’s dress over her head. Mary knows somewhere far away that she ought to feel self-conscious, a grown woman being undressed by her mother like a child, but she doesn’t feel anything until Cora stands her beneath the shower and turns the water on as hot as she can stand. Mary washes until she feels clean again. She washes until the water runs cold.

It’s Cora that bundles her into a towel and brushes out her hair. When she slips her robe over Mary’s shoulders, the scent of her perfume is a wave right at Mary’s chest. For the first time in a very long time, Mary feels like a girl playing at her mother’s dressing table, Sybil and Edith to left and right. How many times did they do exactly this? How many times did they color their lips and style their hair and play at a future that seemed bright and endless? It feels a thousand years ago now and very far away. Mary catches Cora’s wrist between her fingers and pulls her mother close. “I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

Cora runs her hands over Mary’s cheeks and sweeps her fringe from her forehead. She leans forward and presses a kiss to Mary’s temple, but says nothing at all.

She leads Mary down the hallway and into her old room. She peels the covers back silently and tucks herself in behind, knees fit to Mary’s beneath the sheets. Mary falls asleep with Cora’s hands rubbing circles against the small of her back. When she finally sleeps it’s fitfully; she wakes up gasping, alone and reaching. Her hands stretch out and on forever and close around nothing every time.

at some point i WILL be able to talk about other things; not today

allthingsholy — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:34:09 GMT

TO ANYONE WHO'S NOT TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT SHERLOCK YET:

I keep trying to talk to people about this season of Sherlock in the hopes that it will make sense of the billion and one threads of meta running rampant in my brain. I was an English major; I used to be able to make sense of all the themes and parallels and interactions and symbols and everything, but now it's just jumbles of feelings and words like UGH and FUCK and HOW and STOP. I try to make sense of it and nothing comes out right, because I also have a lot of feelings about Sherlock and Mycroft and their interactions this season. I think in 2.01 you get the sense that Mycroft certainly knows Sherlock better than John does, and understands him better as well while still not understanding him entirely. ("What might we deduce about his heart?" "I don't know." "Neither do I, but initially he wanted to be a pirate.") And when they're in the palace and the Government Man says, "Apologizing for your brother must be a full-time occupation," Sherlock pulls this face, this vaguely chastised, a little bit heartbreaking face, and I just wonder how many times Mycroft HAS had to clean up after Sherlock. How many times this very straight-laced shadowy government man has had to chase after his drug-addicted, rule-breaking, socially inept brother and fix everything. The first time we meet Mycroft he says, "I worry about [Sherlock] constantly," and he's not lying or exaggerating; he worries about Sherlock all the time, for I think both altruistic and selfish reasons. And when he calls John and says, "Tonight's a danger night, you need to watch out for him," isn't that love? And yet he says it just after telling Sherlock "Caring isn't an advantage." Is Mycroft as deluded as Sherlock is? As emotionally repressed? ("Do you ever think there might be something wrong with us?") And it breaks my heart to know that if John worked out that Mycroft was Richard Brooks' leak in TRF then you KNOW Sherlock knew where all that information came from, and that Moriarty didn't even THINK about threatening Mycroft to get to Sherlock is so ... IDK, it makes me die inside. I want to know more about their relationship and I want to talk about the bits we DO know for literally the rest of my life. (There's a bit of commentary from the Gatiss/Cumberbatch/Freeman thing for TGG where Gatiss talks about how they'd cut something from the script that revealed that Sherlock had kind of destroyed his family life at a young age by deducting that their father had been having an affair, and I know they're keeping that in the backs of their minds, so I just wonder about it and how it colors Sherlock's relationship with Mycroft. It says so much about Sherlock too, about the way he views his "gift" and the way other people traditionally view his "gift" and I hope they come back and use it later.)

fic amnesty! fic amnesty! fic amnesty!

allthingsholy — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:02:13 GMT

Today is National Fic Amnesty Day ~~because I say it is, that's why~~! I have a few lingering BBT fics that I know I'm never, ever going to complete, so. (All of these are at least a year and a half old, since I"m 99% sure I wrote them before I moved.) Here they are!

bbt crack fairytale au, wherein penny wakes up one morning and she's a princess! (s/p, pg-13, 1600 words)

----

As soon as she wakes up, she knows that something is wrong. She hasn’t even opened her eyes yet and something is off, not quite right, and starting to seriously freak her out. She can hear birds chirping and singing sweetly instead of horns blaring and people thudding down the stairs and the blast of the drill from the construction crew outside who are making her life a living hell. It should sound like Pasadena, not some woodland fairy forest.

Well, fuck.

Penny doesn’t even open her eyes, she just pulls the covers over her head and goes back to sleep.

--

When she finally wakes up enough to take a walk around the room, throw open the blinds and look outside, she comes to a set of startling conclusions.
1 // She’s sure as hell not in Pasadena anymore. At least judging by the looks of the snow-capped mountains on the horizon, and the moat and drawbridge just outside.
2 // Because yeah, apparently she’s in a castle. Or a prison with really well manicured lawns.
3 // She’s not entirely sure, but—judging by the calls of the people currently banging on the locked door of her now seriously blinged-out bedroom—she’s pretty sure she’s a princess.

No, seriously.

--

Penny’s huddled in the corner, chin on her knees, when a majorly curvy woman with frizzy red hair comes flying through the door, followed closely by what Penny has to guess are—no, really—a dozen ladies in waiting. Or handmaidens. Or some other old term she doesn’t remember from that time the guys broke her down and dragged her to a Ren Faire.

The redhead stops, arms spread wide, and surveys Penny with a warm but critical eyes before opening her mouth and yelling, “Out!”

Penny winces so hard her teeth chatter, but the woman keeps yelling, “Out!” She pushes the ladies in waiting (probably) back out into the hallway before shutting the door and firmly locking it from the heavy key ring clutched in her hand. When the room is empty and shut up tight, she turns back to Penny and says, “Honey, what in Holy Florence’s name is wrong with you?”

Penny doesn’t say anything, just looks the woman up and down from her position on the floor. She’s got her wild red hair braided all around her head and curled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She’s busty—oh my god, she’s so busty—with a long brown skirt that she clutches tightly in her hands as she leans down and meets Penny’s eyes. “Princess?”

At the mere mention of the word, Penny jumps up, pushing herself off the wall and leveling Red with a glare that’s part shock, part “what is this fuckery?”, and entirely confused. She finds her voice and says (yelps), “What the hell is going on?!”

Red just cocks her head and narrows her eyes, and Penny continues, “Firstly, I’m not a princess. Secondly, how did I get here? Thirdly, where IS here? And fourthly, I’m not a princess!”

She’s met with a blank stare until the other woman grins widely and laughingly says, “Princess Penelope, we don’t have time for all of that today.” She starts toward Penny, arms outstretched, but Penny backs away right into the edge of the bed. “Princess, why are you—?”

“If you call me Princess one more time, I’ll scream!” Penny yells. “Where the hell am I and what the fuck is going on?”

Red gets another look on her face, a tolerant, patient look that Penny well remembers from her childhood. The other woman puts her hands on her hips and says in a slow and measured voice, “Well dear, we’re in the Castle Deena, home to King Eliot and Queen Joanna and the King’s daughter, Penelope. That would be you.” She takes a step toward Penny and continues, “This is the Kingdom of the Wild Woods, and I’m your maidservant Maria, who’s no longer in the mood for your foolish games. Now you really need to get dressed because the tournament starts in an hour.”

Penny plops down onto the bed and runs her hands over her knees. She picks at the hem of her nightgown for a minute (it’s satin, and there are feathers) and then looks up and meets Maria’s eyes. “Are you sure this isn’t a bad dream?”

Maria takes a step forward and reaches out, tucking a strand of hair gently behind Penny’s ear. “Even if it is a dream, what in heavens makes you think that it’s a bad one?”

--

Penny decides to ride it out, at least for a little while. Maybe she’s really hungover, or she ate some bad Chinese food. Whatever the cause, hysterics will clearly solve nothing, so she decides to stay calm, play along, and see what happens.

She very nearly changes her mind when her ladies come back in and she sees just how much underwear they want her to put on.

--

Somewhere between the first and fifteenth layer, Maria and the other ladies (who all have names like Demelza, and Gwendolyn, and what sounded like but hopefully wasn’t Rapunzel) fill her in on the details of the tournament.

Which is when things get even weirder.

Maria’s lacing up her back and saying, “It’s a competition, really. The eligible sons from the Kingdom come all the way to the Castle Deena to prove themselves in a series of mental and physical tasks. It’s grueling and arduous and thrilling.”

She pulls the strings too tightly in her excitement and Penny just manages to wheeze out, “But what are they competing for?”

The ladies all start to snicker and giggle, and Demelza says, in a cutesy, cloying voice, “For you, of course.”

(Still, this is not the weird part.)

Everyone fills her in on the different events that will take place over the next two weeks, the Gauntlet of Ghoulish Gusto and the Trial of the Twin Terrors and the Feverish Rite of the Twelve-en Swords. It all sounds medieval and horrifying and kind of awesome.

Maria’s lacing up Penny’s boot when she says, “But the favorites are the Four Sons, of course, though I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favorite from among them.”

There’s something teasing in her tone and Penny latches onto it immediately. “Why? Oh god, what’s wrong with them? Four heads? Three noses? Are they—” she swallows—“human?”

The ladies all laugh and Maria says, “Human enough. They’re nice enough lads, I suppose, just. Different.” She straightens up and sets to fixing Penny’s hair. “They are the Four Sons of the Four Corners of the Kingdom, each tied to a pretty piece of land. Leonard of the North Halverston Hofstadters. Howard of the Wolowitz’s of the Western Woods. Rajesh of the Far Eastern Koothrapali’s. And Sheldon of the South Seaward Coopers. One of whom I’m sure will win your hand.

(That’s the weird part.)

Penny just stares open-mouthed as she tries to process Maria’s words. Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Sheldon, all here and coming to fight for her. She doesn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified, so she doesn’t say anything while Maria braids her hair.

She can hear trumpets outside, and the swell of voices from the lawn. The tournament is starting.

--

“There are, like, a frillion people out here.” Penny shields her eyes against the noon sun (there’s no way she’s going to make it through the day in all these clothes) and scans the crowd, bustling and surging eagerly on the vast south lawn. There are flags of every color flapping in the breeze, and men and women dragging children along behind them. Over their heads she can see the beams of what looks to be the largest arena, flanked of either side by smaller arenas and all decorated with streams of brightly dyed cloth. It’s beautiful and nauseating and really, really loud.

People stop and stare as she walks past, and gape and point and whisper. She’s surrounded on all sides by guards, young men with swords and bows and arrows. It all feels like Age of Conan, except for the 50 pounds of wool she’s wearing, and the overwhelming urge to turn and haul ass as far away as she can.

They make their way to the center arena, Penny, Maria, all the ladies, and all the guards. They pass tents and stands, make-shift shops and food carts. The people around her bow as she passes, and it’s all completely surreal.

When they reach the shadow of the arena and head inside—where there is finally (thank Jesus) some shade—Maria takes her arm and pushes her toward a rickety set of steps leading up into a covered area overlooking the arena, surrounded by unshaded benches already half-full. Maria’s grip is forceful on Penny’s arm, not hard enough to bruise but firm enough to get Penny’s undivided attention. “Now,” Maria says, guiding them both up the steps, “please don’t try this act with the King and Queen. They will surely be less amused by it than I am.”

Penny looks around, her face a mixture of “oh sweet Jesus” and “kill me now,” and scans the crowd for all the splendor and regalia she’d expect to find on royalty. She keeps looking around so curiously she doesn’t even brace herself before she slams into the back of someone sturdy and solid.

“I’m sorry,” she cries, and as the person in front of her turns around, Maria nudges her hard in the ribs. Penny suddenly finds herself staring into the hard, dark eyes of—oh, holy fuck. “Kurt?!” She’s face to face with her ex-boyfriend only—not. It’s almost Kurt, but he looks different, still recognizable but definitely not the same. It’s like she only saw him out of the corner of her eye, or through a glass of water or something. Kind-Of-Kurt gives her a look, smarmy and smooth (and yeah, that’s definitely more like the Kurt she knows), and the flat, frozen expression on his face fades away.

----

&

bbt high school teachers au, wherein the gang are all (you guessed it!) teachers at a local high school! (s/p, pg-13, 7200 words)

----

It starts as a fight over auditorium time. Mr. Cooper wants it for his AP Physics class, something about demonstrating the transfer of velocity and the inadequate spatial dimensions of his classroom that Penny doesn’t really try to understand.

“But that’s the drama club’s time in the auditorium,” she says, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I added that practice specifically to prepare for our competition this weekend.”

Mr. Cooper lets out a derisive snort and she can see him tighten his hands behind his back. “I hardly think someone whose main occupational obligation is making sure this school’s sloppy joes are at an edible consistency—which, I might add, they are not—should be given preference over some of this school’s brightest—though still admittedly mediocre—minds.”

Principal Andrews just rolls her eyes and shakes her head and Penny knows she’s lost this one. She tries one last time anway. “Can’t one of us use the gym instead, and P.E. can go outside just for that class period?” She takes a step forward, closer to the desk and Mr. Cooper, and he looks down his nose at her and draws back his shoulders. Her hands itch to reach up and muss his hair, shove his shoulders and get in his face, but she can’t afford to get fired from another job for insubordination so she keeps her mouth closed and her hands at her sides.

Principal Andrews just tilts her head and smiles sadly, saying, “I’m sorry, Ms. Barnett, but I’m going to give the auditorium to Mr. Cooper’s physics class.” Penny keeps her eyes on the floor for the rest of the explanation, but when she does look up Mr. Cooper’s eyes are light and his expression is smug.

When they’re dismissed, Penny can’t help it if she shoves his shoulder a little on her way past him and out of the office. She makes sure the swing of her ponytail is as angry as she is when she walks away.

--

Raj tries to keep up with her diatribe, but he’s busy rifling through the papers on his desk and only turns one ear toward her rant. “It’s not fair that the academic extracurriculars are always getting the shaft! If I needed the auditorium for the football team, they’d probably make Cooper’s class come and carry our bags for us. The only reason she said yes to him was because he’s such a gigantic pain in the ass.” Raj gives a half-hearted mmhmm as he turns over another stack of file folders. “What are you looking for anyway?”

Raj groans as a pile of papers slides off the desk and onto the floor and lets out a string of curse words under his breath in some foreign language Penny doesn’t understand. “I can’t find the grading key for yesterday’s vocabulary test,” he answers, slumping into his chair. “I swear, if Bobby Newton’s been going through my things again and stealing test materials, I’m getting his ass expelled.”

Penny tilts her head and then reaches forward, lifting a copy of The Merchant of Venice off the corner of the desk and grabbing the paper beneath it. “You mean this grading key?” When Raj reaches forward, eyes wide, she yanks it back just out of reach. “I’ll only give it back if you agree to chaperone the drama competition this weekend.”

“Penny, I can’t—”

“No,” she interrupts, “the only other faculty volunteer I had was Mr. Wolowitz and there is no way you are making me deal with him for a whole day by myself.”

Raj snorts and leans back in his chair. She knows she has him when he narrows his eyes and breathes out slowly, and her smile is wide as he holds his hand out for the key. “Howard is harmless,” he says, “but fine, I’ll go.” Penny comes around the desk to help him pick up the tests still scattered across the floor. “But next time we go for fro-yo, you’re totally buying.”

--

It’s not like she dreamed about being a lunchlady when she was a kid. But then Kurt blew his knee out and they had to move back home and the high school was hiring and she needed the money. It started as just part-time cafeteria work, but then they wanted to hire a full-time substitute and she’d been thinking about going back to school for her teaching certificate anyway. And now here she is, Ms. Barnett of Roosevelt High School, full of ungrateful troublemakers who look down their noses at her. Even the ones who are shorter than she is.

At least they asked her to help out with the drama club. She really likes her kids, and it keeps her out of the house.

And she always did kind of want to be an actress.

--

When she gets home, Kurt’s asleep on the couch. The TV’s got some courtroom show on it, and when she reaches over to turn down the volume, Kurt shakes himself awake and tightens his hand around the remote control. “I’m watching that,” he says automatically, reaching up to rub sleep out of his eyes.

Penny puts her hands on her hips, eyes scanning the room. There are soda cans strewn across the coffee table, and an empty frozen dinner tray on top of her playbooks. “You ate without me?” she asks, poking at a fallen magazine with one toe.

Kurt turns the volume on the TV down and then sits up, shifting to face her. “Just a snack. I thought we’d get pizza from Lello’s for dinner?”

“I really don’t want to order in.” She walks around the table and drops down on the couch beside him. He puts his hand on her back, rubs a wide circle around her shoulder blades, but it’s just habit now and she can see his gaze slide over her shoulder and settle on the TV. She moves into his line of sight and raises her voice. “How about we cook something instead? Save money?”

It’s not that they’re broke. The University covered Kurt’s medical bills and the cost of the rehab, but they also ended his playing contract and suspended his scholarship, and after that the decision to quit school was pretty much made for the both of them. She does alright at the high school, makes half of what’s enough to get by, and Kurt manages the grocery store in town and picks up some mechanic’s work when he can. She pays all the bills on time, even manages to put some money away each month, and there are a few designer labels in her closet, even if they are all knock-offs.

And it’s not that he’s not good to her. They fight more than they used to, and don’t talk quite as much, but his hands are still strong at her waist when he pulls her toward him, and his smile still sets her blood near to boil. When she looks at it just right, she knows she’s happy, and if sometimes Kurt’s not where he says he’ll be, or with who he says he was, well. She doesn’t ask about that.

“I wouldn’t think you’d want to cook tonight,” Kurt says. “Didn’t you cook all day?”

Penny just sighs and runs a hand through her hair, settling a side against the couch. “I thought maybe you could cook this time.”

Kurt pulls his gaze from the screen long enough to give her a look and says, “It’s Wednesday, pizza buffet at Lello’s is only eight bucks anyway.” He snaps off the TV and throws the remote onto the coffee table, and then pulls forward and slides her knees toward him so she’s half lying down on the couch. He runs a hand up her thigh and leans down at her, and smiles that smile that usually is the end to all their arguments. She rests her hands at his elbows and feels heat spread through her chest. Kurt shifts, covers her body with his, and whispers in her ear, “Of course, we don’t have to go just yet.”

--

The drama competition goes well. A few of her kids place and Raj manages to keep himself between her and Howard Wolowitz, so all in all, it could’ve been much worse. She asks Kurt to come and watch some of the kids, but Tom calls for help with a radiator and busted suspension, and Penny does her best to ignore the hint of relief in his voice when he tells her he can’t come.

The bus ride back is quiet, the kids chattering softly in the back. Raj’s eyes have been closed since they pulled out of the parking lot, and Penny fixes her gaze at the horizon and watches the sun go down.

“Excellent showing today, if I do say so myself,” Howard suddenly says from behind her. Penny jumps a little bit and turns to see Mr. Wolowitz leaning over the seat back and toward her, eager eyes darting furtively all over her body. “But with a drama coach like you, I’m not surprised.”

Penny leans away from him and puts on her fakest smile. “You know, as the shop teacher I didn’t think you had any interest in drama. But I do appreciate your coming today. It’s nice to see a teacher so willing to support the kids.” She widens her grin, hoping this will be the end of it, but Howard makes a move to stand and join her in her seat.

“No standing on the bus,” Raj says from across the aisle. He’s got one eye open, his arms tight in front of his chest as he leans against the window. Howard slinks back into his seat. There’s a devilish smile on Raj’s face that Penny knows well, and he asks, closing his eyes again, “Did Howard tell you he teaches home ec, too? His counted cross stitch is the best in the district.”

Penny remembers when she first met Raj, when she was living with Kurt at the University. He worked at a coffee shop, a quiet, vaguely creepy guy who kept mostly to himself, scribbling on an ever-present pad of paper between customers. It took a year of ordering nonfat lattes before he finally had a full conversation with her, and even then he kept his eyes down and mumbled most of the way through it. Back then he was a rhetoric major struggling to make his grades, and painfully timid as well. He’d come to America to pursue his literary dream, and instead all he’d gotten was a part-time job and academic probation.

Mumbled conversations turned to genuine confidences, and it’s still the closest friendship Penny’s ever had. When Kurt got hurt and lost his scholarship, it was Raj who held her hand and told her she’d find her way through it. And it was Penny who turned Raj onto teaching, who helped him rework his class schedule so he’d only graduate a year behind, and helped him get a job at the high school. She smiles to see him so much more open, good-natured and outspoken.

They rib Howard the rest of the way home, ask him for his best snickerdoodle recipes and if he’s ever suffered any knitting needle injuries. He plays along for the most part, and when they pull up to the high school, Penny’s almost sad to see the day end.

--

It’s a regular Tuesday morning staff meeting when Principal Andrews makes the announcement. The school is going to try a new mentoring program, a way for the faculty to work more closely with the students to check progress, keep them in line, make sure individual needs are being met. Of course it’s Mr. Cooper who throws the biggest fit, entertaining them all with a speech on his precious time and its more valuable uses, and listing off a multitude of reasons this program is beneath him.

When she first started at Roosevelt, Penny was amazed Mr. Cooper hadn’t been fired yet. He was condescending to teachers and staff alike, and his social skills were nonexistent. He failed students and angered parents, and was generally impossible to work with. But begrudgingly, she had to admit that he was an exceptional teacher. His AP students hated him, it was true, but they also achieved some of the highest test scores statewide, and he was recognized by the school district for his methods.

That didn’t keep him from being a total ass.

“And lastly, Friday mornings are when I prepare my next week’s lesson plan,” Cooper concludes.

Principal Andrews gives a patient nod and a resilient smile. “You can surely find another time to do that, so that we can better serve our students.”

His smile falters. “But I prepare my lesson plans on Friday.”

Obviously unaccustomed to being overruled, he’s fidgety and sullen while the advisor assignments are given out. Two teachers are paired together with 10 students, to meet once a week and talk about their schoolwork, extracurriculars, or any other problems they are having in school. When Principal Andrews is finished, Penny’s name hasn’t been called. She waits until after the meeting and then approaches the older woman.

“Mrs. Andrews, I wasn’t assigned any advisees.”

“For the last time, Penny, my name is Debra.”

Penny smiles quickly and starts again. “Sorry. Debra. I wasn’t assigned any advisees.”

Debra turns and smiles, clutching a folder to her chest. “I thought it best that we leave you available to fill in for other teachers as needed. That way we know there will always be someone to step in, just in case.” Her smile is strong and brooks no resistance, and Penny nods as she turns away.

It’s always surprising how much she’s hurt by being passed over. She figures she’d be used to it by now.

--

The get a new teacher the next week. He’s coming to fill in for Mrs. Harper, who’s on maternity leave. Penny’s glad she won’t be stuck subbing a chemistry class for an entire semester; she’s better when she sticks to English and history, and she can cover most of the math classes if she gets the materials a day in advance. Chemistry and physics are her two sore spots, so she’s relieved to see a nice-looking—if somewhat short—man walk through the doors of the staffroom.

“If you’re looking for the creamer, it’s in that cabinet,” Penny says. He’s rooting through the fridge, coffee cup gripped precariously in one hand, muttering something about milk. She takes a step forward and extends her hand, her smile wide. “I’m Penny Barnett. Substitute. Drama coach. You must be Mrs. Harper’s replacement?”

He straightens up and smiles and takes her hand, grip just a little too tight. “Yes,” he says. He looks nervous and Penny gives him her warmest smile. “I’m Leonard Hofstadter.”

Penny smiles again and waits a long beat for him to continue, and she laughs a little to herself when he just stares at her. “Okay. Well. Like I said, the creamer is in that cabinet. They buy the non-dairy, which is kind of lame, but it’s cheaper I guess.”

“I’m lactose intolerant, actually, so that’s helpful on my digestive tract. Otherwise, one glass of milk and I am zero fun to be around. Because of the … digestive distress.” His words are a jumble and he winces to himself, and looks away. “That was too much information. Sorry.”

Penny breathes out a laugh and nods her head toward the hallway. She remembers being new, having to prove herself to strangers and she knows the shoes he’s filling are exceptionally large. “You have time for a tour?”

Leonard nods his head while taking a sip of coffee and sloshes some on his hands. He winces again and Penny can’t help but smile, feeling instantly piteous and determined to help. “Come on, teach,” she says, taking his coffee from him and placing it in the sink. “I’ll show you the ropes.”

--

The first half of the semester passes smoothly, and she falls into the routine of things. At the school at 7 to start prepping lunches, waiting for word of teachers calling in sick. Drama club on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an hour and a half after school of helping kids learn lines and project emotion. Some days she fills classes as needed and helps supervise exams or day trips away from campus. Other days she stands over a buffet line and spoons beefaroni onto paper plates. Last year she got the superintendent to green light a districtwide reduction on styrofoam, so. That’s something.

Kurt gets a fifty cent raise at the market, and things at home are going smoothly enough. She catches him leaning over a counter at Zale’s one night at the mall, eyeing rings and other shiny things, but a month later he still hasn’t asked her to marry him. She figures she’ll wait it out until Christmas, and then figure out a way to have The Talk.

She introduces Leonard to Raj and the three of them are fast friends, eating lunch together in the staffroom when they can, bemoaning their sorry lives and lack of funding. Leonard makes moony eyes at her for approximately the first month of their friendship, but she mentions Kurt enough times that he backs off gallantly and it’s quickly forgotten. Things are actually picking up, it seems. Her drama kids take home a few more ribbons. She even finds a great pair of suede boots for half off.

Then it’s October, and things change overnight.

It starts with a fight she overhears between Mr. Cooper, Mr. Wolowitz, and Principal Andrews. She’d stayed behind in the lunchroom kitchen at the end of a particularly bad day when she hears voices from the hallway leading out to the main school corridor.

“It’s unjust that a mind like mine should be saddled with an inferior intellect!” There’s no mistaking the plaintive drawl of Mr. Cooper, and she edges closer to the hallway to try and catch a glimpse of whoever he’s arguing with. She peeks her head around the corner and sees Principal Andrews, mouth pinched tight and hands on her hips; Mr. Wolowitz, arms folded crossly in front of him and mouth opening and closing in disbelief; and Mr. Cooper, hands firmly clenched behind his back and nose pointed primly in the air. “It’s a travesty that I have to participate in this insipid program at all, let alone with someone whose intellectual merit can be outshone by my three-year-old niece.”

“I beg your pardon—” Wolowitz starts, but Principal Andrews—Debra, Penny corrects herself—raises her hands between the two of them and interrupts.

“Mr. Cooper, that’s an inappropriate and unprofessional way to speak about a colleague. Mr. Wolowitz is a perfectly adequate teacher, and by all accounts he’s done a satisfactory job advising the students the two of you were assigned.”

“Oh, that’s resounding praise. ‘Perfectly adequate.’ The toilets in the staff bathroom are doing a perfectly adequate job of removing liquid and solid waste from their bowls, let’s have them advise students too!”

“I’ll have you know,” Howard starts, raising a finger and stepping toward Mr. Cooper, “I was commended by my last school district for exemplary work in my field!”

“A district you were no doubt forced to leave due to your dubious behavior toward your female colleagues,” Cooper fires back, taking his own step forward. Penny bites her cheeks and grimaces. It’s true that Howard’s more than a little forward with the female staff, but he shies away when batted on the nose enough times and Penny’s even found herself enjoying his company in the rare, rare, rare moments he forgets she’s the owner of a vagina and two shiny breasts. It’s unfair of Mr. Cooper to go there, and her hands ball into fists at her side. She was already having a shitty day—there’s juice on the bottom of her shoes, and she smells like grease and fried meat—and her temper’s never very far from the surface these days anyway.

Penny sees Principal Andrews pinch the bridge of her nose, and when she speaks it’s through gritted teeth. “Okay,” she starts. “If the two of you really can’t work together, we’ll reassign Mr. Wolowitz to a different advisor group and pair you with someone you can work with instead. Are there any faculty members you’d be willing to partner with?” Penny can’t actually see inside Debra’s head, but she’s sure the older woman is mentally weighing the value of Mr. Cooper’s test scores against how much she’d like to punch him in the throat.

Mr. Cooper takes a step back and raises his chin. “Mrs. Harper is an acceptably worthy candidate.”

“Mrs. Harper is currently on maternity leave,” Debra counters. “Pick someone else.”

Mr. Cooper’s shoulders drop. “I don’t see why that’s necessary. There are other species of mammal that have recovery times of mere hours after giving birth. Allowing Mrs. Harper five months seems excessive.”

“Mrs. Harper will be back at the beginning of next semester. Until then, pick someone else.”

It’s then that Penny leans too far forward, picking her foot off the ground. The sticky sweet sound of the juice stuck to the bottom of her shoe pulling away from the laminated tile makes the three teachers turn their heads toward the kitchen, and Penny’s forced to make a split second decision and act like she was just rounding the corner, as natural as can be.

“Oh, hey,” she starts. “You guys looking for leftovers from today? Chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes are always a crowd pleaser so I’m afraid we’re all out.” Her smile is too wide, her voice too loud. Maybe there’s a reason she didn’t try to become an actress after all.

Penny’s greeted by three sets of narrowed eyes as she tries to move quickly past, and she gives Howard a sympathetic look as she walks by him. She’s stopped cold by Principal Andrews’ voice from behind her. “Penny, you expressed an interest in the advisor program if I recall correctly?”

She freezes with her back to them and twists her face in exasperation. When she collects herself and turns to face them, Sheldon’s got his hands up in front of his chest, a look of sheer horror on his face.

“Oh, no. No! There’s no possible way I will be paired with the school lunchlady. Even Lascivious Mr. Wolowitz is preferable to that alternative. To put it in language you’ll understand, I believe the colloquialism is: over my dead body.”

“Hey!” Penny squeaks.

“I’m sorry, but do you even have a teaching license? A bachelor’s degree?” He’s leaning down toward her, face full of superiority, and she can’t even muster the attitude to meet his gaze.

“I have an associate’s degree from John Adams College and, and—”

“You also have potato salad in your hair,” he answers.

It’s the last straw on an already bad day, but when the tension snaps, she feels herself pull inward, all her anger and frustration falling down until all she is is sad. She clenches her jaw and her eyes start to fill, and when she speaks her voice is barely louder than a whisper. “You can’t treat people like that.” She looks up to meet his eyes and his expression is oddly blank, his features drawn in, contemplative. “I know you think you’re ten times smarter than everyone else in this school, and maybe you are, but you work here just like we do, and you can’t treat people like they’re not worth your time.” She pulls her arms in front her chest, protective, and digs her nails into her skin. “You don’t care more about these kids than I do, and if you did, you’d quit complaining about having to spend more time with them and try to help them instead.”

They all spend a few tense moments just breathing, and Penny keeps her eyes firmly set on her soiled shoes. It’s finally Principal Andrews who breaks the silence. “Mr. Cooper, I will try to think of someone to partner with you for the advisor program. Until then—”

“That won’t be necessary,” he interrupts. His voice is different, lower, and Penny raises her head to find his eyes locked on hers. “Ms. Barnett, I apologize for my earlier behavior. It was uncalled for and out of line.” He clears his throat and raises his chin and turns to face Principal Andrews. “Pairing me with Ms. Barnett is an acceptable solution. We will meet tomorrow morning to discuss scheduling and any necessary details?”

Debra just nods her head, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. She looks back and forth from Penny to Mr. Cooper, who nods once in Penny’s direction and says, “That is acceptable. Excuse me.” He brushes past the rest of them, and Penny opens and closes her mouth a few times as she watches him walk away. When she turns back, everyone’s eyes are wide and unbelieving.

“Yeah,” Howard finally says, stretching the word out long. “I don’t understand what just happened.”

Penny doesn’t say anything, just swallows hard and looks around, but she feels the same way.

--

She tries to tell Kurt about it, about the way Mr. Cooper tried to talk to her, about how she kind of lost it and almost started to cry. She tries to tell him about the expression on his face, the way his eyes kind of softened and widened at the same time, how he was suddenly apologetic and changed. Different.

She tries to tell Kurt about it, but it’s Monday night and there’s football on and he probably wouldn’t care anyway.

--

Penny realizes that she’s nervous at about the same she realizes that she is wholly unprepared for this meeting. She got to school at 7, like she usually does, but instead of heading for the kitchen she went to the physics classrooms, where she now stands wordlessly, waiting for Mr. Cooper to show up. Her stomach is a knot as she takes a seat at one of the lab tables, fingering the handle of a gas outlet and counting in her head all the reasons this is a bad idea. She’s sure working with him is going to be impossible because he’s still a gigantic pain in the ass, his rare flash of humanity aside, and maybe these new students will hate her and he’s right, she probably isn’t qualified. She’s so focused on all the reasons this is already a disaster that she misses Mr. Cooper’s entrance into the room, and she starts at the sound of him clearing his throat for what is undoubtedly not the first time, if his annoyed expression is any indication.

He turns away from her, and she’s insulted for a moment before she realizes that she is meant to follow him, and when she catches up, she’s missed the first part of his sentence. “—But you were on time at least,” he concludes.

“I always get here at 7,” she replies. “I don’t really have to be here until 7:30, but I don’t want to be late and get behind on lunches. 700 servings of chicken fingers aren’t going to cook themselves.” She’s chattering nervously and she knows it; he doesn’t once look at her while they walk, and she doesn’t stop talking until they reach the door of what must be his office. She waits quietly while he unlocks it and then he motions her inside.

It’s as meticulously clean as she knew it would be, but with more personal touches than she was expecting. There’s a photograph on his desk of dark-haired women, three generations of wide, willing smiles that she cannot imagine seeing stretched across his face. There’s another of what must be his immediate family, two of the women from before and two men, father and brother. He’s posed like the rest of them, dressed just the same, but he still doesn’t quite fit, she notices, as she passes the photos to take a seat in front of his desk.

But even more than the photographs, what surprises her are the books. He’s got three book shelves crammed along the tiny walls of his office, and there’s hardly a free space to be found. She sees encyclopedias, scientific journals, and textbook after textbook on all sorts of subjects: zoology, history, poetry, astronomy. There’s also half a whiteboard sticking out from one of the bookshelves, and she sees part of a complicated formula sketched out in cramped writing.

He clears his throat again, and she turns back to him, embarrassed at being caught staring. He levels her with a barely tolerant look and says, “You know that advisor meetings take place first period Friday mornings, correct?”

She nods her head and then finds her voice. “Yes,” she answers, “I know.”

“We will be supervising a group of ten students, all from the sophomore class.” He hands her a print-out with ten names on it, as well as a list of the classes and extracurriculars of each student. “Any questions so far?”

“No, Mr. Cooper, I think I’ve got it.” He sounds like he’s talking to one of his high schoolers, and she’s remembering very quickly why this is a giant mistake. She’s about to make a pointed remark on his tone when he interrupts her.

“Sheldon.”

She pulls back, surprised. “What?”

“My name is Sheldon. Since we will be working together as colleagues, I believe it is expected we forego formal titles and adopt a more informal greeting, is it not?” He looks at her expectantly and she nods. “Okay then. We’ll begin by—”

“Penny,” she interrupts. He looks at her quietly, eyes cast down a moment as if remembering now that social decorum requires him to ask her name, too. She smiles quickly to herself, not quite as fearful as she’d been just moments before.

“Penny.” He clears his throat and turns back to the paper in his hand. “Noted.”

--

Raj and Leonard are both sympathetic when she tells them about her new partnership at lunch that afternoon. “It’s going to be fine,” she reassures them for the third—or thirtieth—time. “We met this morning and it actually wasn’t that bad.”

Raj gives Leonard a look that says plainly I do not believe this will not end in the death of all involved and then asks her, voice low, “I know you want to prove yourself to Andrews, but aren’t there any other ways?”

“Yeah,” Leonard says, pushing bits of corn around his plate. “Like eating glass, or walking over hot coals?”

“Seriously, you guys,” Penny pleads. “Stop talking about it like it’s the end of the world or you’re going to freak me out about it too.” She knows they have her best interests in mind, but really, she’s a little disappointed in them for not thinking she can handle this. She doesn’t need her doubts reaffirmed at all, let alone by two of her closest friends. She doesn’t say anything, though, just takes a bite of her tuna salad and steals a few of Raj’s chips.

She’s interrupted a moment later by Howard Wolowitz as he seats himself beside her and scoots his chair closer to hers. “Penny, thank you so much for yesterday. You really took a hit for me.” Penny’s smile is tight when she looks at him, at the sawdust clinging to the fabric of his turtleneck and the nervous play of his fingers over the thimble in his hand. “I couldn’t take another meeting with Mr. Annoying Cooper and all his rants! Inappropriate conduct this, incorrect Star Trek canon that, and god, if he didn’t shut up about—”

“Enough!” Penny’s voice is loud enough to turn more than a few heads in the lunchroom, and she gives them all a small smile before looking back to Howard. “No more talking about how terrible Sheldon Cooper is and how much it’s going to suck when I work with him. Now Howard, you may sit, but you may not speak or look directly at me if you’re going to address any part of my body but my face, okay?”

The guys all look properly chastised and sit quietly a moment before Leonard asks, “So, Star Trek, huh? What did you think of the new movie?”

From then on out it’s 100% sci-fi geekdom and she can only be expected to hold her own for so long, but at least they aren’t telling her she’s going to totally regret this anymore, so. That’s something.

--

“Baby, where did I leave my brown jacket? The one with the collar and the buttons?” Penny’s rooting around under the bed for her other brown boot, eyes darting quickly to the clock on the nightstand. They’re going to be late for the movie at this rate, and Penny doesn’t want to hear it if Kurt doesn’t get to watch things explode and hot girls run around beating people up. Not that she doesn’t want to see the movie too. She likes things exploding just fine.

Her hand closes around the heel of her shoe and she calls out, “It’s in the closet, in the back.”

“No, it’s not. I’ve checked the closet.”

“It’s in there, just—hang on, I’ll be right there.” She pulls her boot on and straightens her hair, grabs Kurt’s jacket and they’re out the door.

The movie is slightly less terrible than she was expecting, but it’s by no means a cinematic marvel. Kurt keeps his hand on her knee most of the time, and she spends part of the movie watching him watch the screen, which she knows he hates but she does anyway. He gets a look on his face when he laughs, a crinkle just around the eyes, that he’s had since they were kids, and it hits her square in the chest every time she sees it. She knows he isn’t perfect, that there are things about their relationship that leave a lot to be desired, but she’s known him since the tenth grade and that counts for something too. He knows the way she takes her coffee, and the spot on her neck that’s always tight with frustration, and his fingers are always gentle as they fall against her skin. There is a comfort in knowing so well the man she’s sharing her life with, but—when she lets herself—Penny sometimes wonders if that’s the only thing that’s keeping them together.

There’s another explosion on screen and someone goes flying, and Kurt laughs again. Penny lays her hand over his and they stay like that until the lights come on.

--

“So Jamie told Tommy that I said that Val and Rachel weren’t going to his party, because they were going to Austin’s instead, and then Tommy and Rachel got into this huge fight and broke up, and now Rachel and Val won’t even talk to me. And I didn’t ever say anything to Jamie because I was in Burmington with my dad all weekend and I left my phone at my mom’s!”

Nobody talks for a second, and when Penny looks over at Sheldon, he’s sitting with his hands on his knees and his mouth hanging open just a little. She smiles to herself and then nods at Sarah. “Well, it sounds to me like there’s something going on between you and Jamie. Did anything happen with you guys?”

Sarah dips her head and shrugs her shoulders, saying loudly, “It’s not my fault that Rachel asked me to go to Florida with her family instead of asking Jamie! Even if they had been best friends since fourth grade!”

The rest of the meeting continues in pretty much the same vein. A few of the kids are struggling with classes, and there are friendship problems and girlfriend problems. One boy’s parents are getting divorced, and one girl’s grandmother has cancer, but Penny handles herself well and by the time the kids all leave, no one’s crying or dropped out of school.

It hasn’t escaped her attention that Sheldon has stayed quiet nearly the whole time. When she looks at him as she closes the door behind the last student, he is busy shuffling the papers on his desk, his head dipped and eyes low.

“So,” she says, taking a seat on the desk at the front of the classroom, “is that what your meetings are usually like?”

He clears his throat and pulls out his chair, taking a seat and settling his hands on his desk. “Previous meetings have been markedly less talkative. I will admit I am unaccustomed to dealing with such disparate emotions from the students.” Penny supresses a smile. Of course the students didn’t feel comfortable talking to Cooper and Wolowitz, she thinks to herself, and a sense of pride blooms in her chest knowing that she did some real good this morning. “I believe your presence was … helpful.”

She knows it is the highest praise she’s likely to receive, so she smiles and stands, moving to the door. “Thank you,” she says, turning back to him, one hand on the knob. “I’ll see you next week to prep Friday’s meeting?”

He is already focused on something else, his eyes narrowed at the paper in his hand. “That is acceptable,” he says without looking up. She shakes her head and sighs as she goes.

--

It’s two weeks before Sheldon opens his mouth at all during one of their mentoring meetings, and it’s three before he says anything that’s actually useful.

“I’m going to fail math,” Bobby Newton says.

“You aren’t going to fail math,” Penny assures him. She’s talked to Ms. Walker; Bobby’s grades are low, but adequate, and it’s not for lack of trying. She’d tell him that some people just aren’t good at math, but she knows it’s no help, since the class is required.

She’s surprised to hear Sheldon pipe up from beside her. “What is the subject material that is proving too difficult?”

Bobby looks at Penny, his eyes questioning, but then he swallows hard and turns back to Mr. Cooper. “It’s geometry. The proofs. I don’t understand.”

Sheldon tightens his hands on his knees, narrows his eyes and gives the boy a once-over. He must be satisfied with what he sees, because he nods his head just slightly and says, “Bring your textbook and notes to me after school and I’ll go over them with you.” Off Penny’s pointed look, Sheldon just stares at her and raises his eyebrows, so she adds, “If that time is open in your shedule.”

She’s not there for the after-school meeting that day, but the next week Bobby doesn’t complain about his math grades any more, and Sheldon frowns in confusion a little bit less. Penny stops him to ask about it, but Sheldon just gives her a look and says, “The work of Euclid and Pythagorus is accessable to even the basest of mathematical minds, if presented in the proper way.” She still doesn’t quite understand, but he’s already turned back to his gradebook, so she leaves it at that.

--

“I’m just saying it would be nice if you would visit your brother.” Penny’s hand tightens around the receiver, and her mother’s voice bounces around the room, tinny and far away. “I know he’d like to see you.”

Penny sighs and runs her hand through her hair. She can hear Kurt banging around in the kitchen, and she turns away and lays her head back against the couch cushion. “Mom, I’m busy,” she lies, shutting her eyes and stretching her neck out long. “Maybe next week.”

“We never see you! You live ten miles away and only come over on days when the banks are closed!” her mother says. Penny knows that she doesn’t go home enough, that she doesn’t visit or babysit enough, that she keeps a certain distance between her family and her life that she is loathe to alter. There are too many things at home Penny can do without, so she keeps her distance and puts up with the phone calls instead. It seems like a fair trade-off, but it’s still hardly a win-win.

Her mother keeps going, on and on about her brother and her sisters and her father and the farm, but Penny doesn’t say anything, just swallows hard and keeps listening.

--

It’s a Wednesday the first time it happens. Driver’s Ed starts up and some of the classes shift, and Sheldon walks into the teacher’s loungue just as she’s sitting down to lunch with Howard and Leonard and Raj. She sees Sheldon walk over to the fridge, reaching in to grab a neatly packaged and profusely labeled lunch, and then turn and scan the room for an empty seat. Howard’s halfway through a story about a Maxim model he met at some party last weekend, and she takes a deep breath and interrupts, “Alright, don’t get mad at me for what’s about the happen.”

The three guys all look at her quizically as she stands up and calls out, “Mr. Cooper, there’s a chair over here.” He turns his head and finds her eyes and she makes an effort to smile extra brightly, pulling out the hard plastic chair beside her.

----

Does this count as official fandom retirement? Do I still need to fill out forms or something?

[fic] you & me of the 10,000 wars, downton abbey modern au, 10k words, 1/4

allthingsholy — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:59:54 GMT

Title: You & Me of the 10,000 Wars (A Downton Industries Fic)
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Words: ~10,000
Rating: PG-13 (R in later chapters)
Notes: A few months ago I posted this graphic on tumblr and, well. The damn idea wouldn’t let go. This is equal parts modern adaptation and modern au. Thanks to juniperlane & lulabo for the betas; thanks to Mary for the britpicking. Any errors or Americanisms that remain are entirely down to me. Thanks to everyone on tumblr who’s been so enthusiastic and interested, particularly Sam & Olivia. Cheers. [Also at AO3.]

Summary: Robert Crawley, president and CEO of Downton Industries, wants to make sure his family’s company lives on after he’s gone. Heir-apparent to the company is Matthew Crawley, industrial lawyer and Robert’s new-found right hand man. Less than thrilled with Robert’s decision? His eldest daughter, Mary. Expelled from Oxford and a constant tabloid presence, Mary’s rebellious streak constantly puts her at odds with her father. She very publicly butts heads with Matthew, much to the displeasure of her family. But Matthew quickly learns that there’s more to Mary than meets the eye, and Mary might’ve made a few misjudgments of her own.

Chapter One: Make Us Take Our Different Sides

By the time she wakes up, late afternoon light is filtering in through the curtains and there’s a steady drumming behind her eyes. When she slides a hand across the bed, she finds herself alone. There’s an indentation on the pillow next to hers and a familiar soreness in her back and legs, but the sheets are cold beside her and she counts it as a blessing. She wipes the sleep from her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before throwing the covers off and dragging herself from bed.

She pulls on a robe and nearly trips over one of Evelyn’s jackets on the way to the kitchen. There’s a half-empty bottle of champagne on the counter; last night it made her giddy, made her laughter climb two octaves, but it’s lukewarm now and bitter and it drips down between her fingers when she drinks. She stands in the middle of her silent flat and slowly stretches out the tightness in her neck and shoulders. The walls around her are a dusky pink that catches on the photos there, the light brushing over all the faces staring blankly from their frames. Mama and Edith at a birthday party, her sister’s gap-toothed grin wide and beaming; Granny and Sybil at a piano recital, flowers clasped excitedly in her sister’s small hands. The photos are all older than they should be and her father is absent from all but the smallest, which sits at the end of a shelf, half-tucked behind a stack of books. If any of her family notices on their infrequent visits, they’re not so foolish as to mention it.

Mary sweeps her eyes across the photos on her way toward the windows and squints into the glaring sunlight as it slips down toward the horizon. She reaches out to touch the glass, splays her hand out wide enough to cover a dozen city blocks. It’s there, between her first and second fingers, across the skyline and a taxi ride away. The ledges are crumbling and the windows full of sunset, but she still imagines she can see straight into her father’s office. When the estate agent first brought her in she went straight for the windows, found Downton Tower by force of habit and nodded, just once. She paid for it with her father’s money and signed the lease with a cold smile.

The fading light turns the tower’s windows orange. Mary’s fingers are sticky with champagne and they catch as she slides her hand along enough to press her palm over Downton, covering the whole building street to sky. She stands there until the glass warms beneath her skin and by the time she turns away, the sun’s slipped down beneath the skyline.

She drains the last of the champagne on her way to the shower, fills the bathroom with music and steam and doesn’t come out until her skin’s a fierce pink. She styles her hair, does her make-up, lines her lips and eyelids with colors so bold Granny’s eyes would roll back in her head. She’s methodical in her actions. She sways her hips as the speakers pulse and she runs her fingers along this blouse and that dress and a jacket Kemal gave her for her birthday. Buttons are done up and zips are zipped and when she walks across the foyer, she pauses long enough to check herself in the mirror. Her dress is tight, her jacket fitted, her hair curled just so against her shoulders. Chin up, shoulders back. There’s no give in the click of her heels across the tile, and when she steps out into the night she hardly feels the cold.

--

March, 2004

Mary wears the black chiffon for her mother, the hem grazing her knees and the fabric hugging her curves only loosely. When she was dismissed from Said (“dismissed,” her mother tells people when they ask, because it’s more forgiving than “kicked out” or “dropped out” or anything a bit nearer the truth) Mama had done her few favours, reigned her father’s temper in only slightly. What she feels she owes her mother is most often quite little, and yet. The black chiffon suits her, Mama says, when they’re finally sat for tea. Mary smiles demurely and pours milk into her cup, and doesn’t comment on the fact that Sybil’s sense of fashion wanders haphazardly toward the bohemian and no one seems to mind. Sybil just smiles and fiddles with one of her dozen bracelets.

Granny fills them all in on the latest gossip from around town: the Schaffer’s daughter is in rehab again, the Lennox boy ushered out of yet another school. Frederick Barton’s business is floundering and Jean Simpson’s been under the knife again. Mary sips her tea and wonders what the gossip about the Crawleys is these days. She hopes Jean Simpson looks as delighted to tell it as Granny does right now.

Sybil tells them about school, about the philosophers she’s studying and the books she’s read. Mama nearly beams and Granny says, with her usual air of satisfaction, “Of course you’re doing well. Crawley women are known for more than their looks, dear.” Maybe it’s Mary’s imagination but the silence that follows is unusually long and the look her mother and grandmother exchange seems more than a little pointed. Mary has the wisdom to keep her opinions to herself and ask after Sybil’s study groups instead.

Granny and Mama set off together after tea, kisses pressed lightly to Mary’s cheeks and her mother’s voice soft in her ear. “You should come to the charity ball,” she says. “Your father would love to see you.” Mary keeps herself from rolling her eyes, but only just.

She and Sybil decide to do a bit of shopping, though that gives way to walking up and down Knightsbridge just peering in the windows. Sybil keeps pointing out scarves in colors Mary wouldn’t be caught dead in, but Sybil’s always pulled them off well enough. There’s a bright blue spot of silk beneath her chin now, tucked into the collar of a leather jacket. Mary reaches out and teasingly tugs at the zip. As much as her family situation can be tense on its best days, things with Sybil have always run a smoother course. Sybil smiles and pulls away and asks, “How are things with Kemal?”

This time Mary doesn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes. She digs in her bag for a cigarette and lights it while they look through the window at a shoe display. “How should I know?” she says. She watches herself in the glass, smoke billowing away over her shoulder. “He’s abroad somewhere, I think.”

“You think?” Sybil’s eyes catch hers in the reflection; Mary tries not to notice just how grown up her baby sister has become. “You don’t know?”

Mary flicks ash onto the pavement and wipes at an imagined smudge of make-up in the corner of her eye. When he’d left two weeks ago--for a “sojourn in Italy,” as he’d called it--he’d swiped his thumb along her jaw and kissed her hairline. She hasn’t heard from him since and if she had to name the silence, she’d call it restful. “I’m not his keeper.”

Sybil’s laughter is just shy of mocking, but it’s still the kindest thing anyone in her family has had to say about her and Kemal in months so Mary doesn’t mind. They keep walking, tucked close together against the wind, while Sybil rambles on about her classes and her clubs and her committees, the thousand and one ways she’s intent on changing the world. “And I’ve been helping out at the office,” she says, very nearly under her breath.

Mary slows to a halt outside a display of evening dresses, fuchsia and violet and cobalt blue all flashing through the window. With all this talk of school and now the business, Mary’s fingers twitch and she lights another cigarette just to occupy her hands. She only takes one drag before Sybil’s fingers close over her own, pulling the cigarette away.

Sybil tugs at her jacket and pulls at her scarf, half turned away as she brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a drag. Mary waits a long moment for the cough and sputter that will surely follow, but they never come. “Don’t look at me like that,” Sybil says, exhaling. The smoke curls in ribbons above their heads.

“Give me that,” Mary says and Sybil doesn’t fight her. “That Branson’s a bad influence on you.”

“Don’t blame Branson.” Sybil comes to his defense as if by rote. Robert Crawley would be less than thrilled to find out his youngest daughter keeps company with a budding socialist, and if Mary loved Sybil less she’d have told their father long ago just to see the look on his face. “Gwen already harps on me enough.”

Mary breathes out a laugh. “As she should.”

Sybil smirks. “Hypocrite.”

“Bloody right.” They’re silent a long moment. Mary turns away from the window and watches the buses and taxis pass by. When the cigarette’s burned down to the filter, she finally says, “You’re helping out at the office?”

Sybil keeps her eyes on the gowns behind the glass. “Papa wants to get more involved with the charities the company gives money to. He said I could help.”

Mary crushes the stub beneath her heel and lets a wave of resentment creep into her voice. “Papa wants a tax advantage and to keep you under his thumb.”

Ever since they were little girls, Papa’s treated Sybil differently. A bit gentler, less roughness in his speech and mannerisms, more generous with his affection. Perhaps it was because she was the baby and always sure to be; complications during the delivery meant her parents knew there’d be no more. Maybe that’s what made Sybil precious to their father; what makes her precious to everyone else is a tougher question to answer, but Mary supposes it has something to do with the kindness that creeps into Sybil’s eyes when she leans over and nudges Mary’s shoulder with her own. “I like doing it,” she says. “I have real meetings and everything. Well, lunch meetings. Matthew and I--”

And whatever spell Mary might’ve been under is snapped in two. “Ugh, Matthew again. If I hear his name one more time, I’ll spit.”

Sybil narrows her eyes. “He’s not so bad, you know.”

“He’s a twat,” Mary answers.

Sybil stifles a laugh. “You’ve never even met him.”

“And I still know he’s a twat.” Six months of hearing his name, of hearing everyone refer to him so reverently, have given Mary enough spite to last a lifetime. She only keeps herself from pouting through sheer force of will.

Sybil turns back toward the shop window and peers through the glass. “He’s cute you know,” she says.

A bus clatters by behind them, sending Mary’s hair whipping around her face. “Of course, he is.”

“And single.”

“How do you know?”

Sybil keeps her eyes trained on the window. “Never mind that. He’ll be at the charity dinner,” she says, “and I think you should come meet him.”

Mary laughs and the traffic carries the sound off down the street. “And why is that?”

When Sybil turns to her, the grin on her face is very nearly wicked. No wonder Gwen can’t get her to stop smoking; she can’t be denied anything with a face like that. “Because if you wear that blue number in the back there, you’ll absolutely flatten him.”

They’re still laughing when they step into the store.

--

“Do we have the proposals from Crowborough?” Matthew shuffles papers around his desk, flipping over files and checking underneath his blotter. “I can’t find them.” Molesley shouts something from the outer office but Matthew can’t hear it. He pauses, hands pressed down onto his desktop, and sighs. It’s especially long-suffering and makes him feel perhaps a little bit better, but does nothing to locate the papers he needs.

Molesley comes striding into the room with a file folder tucked under his arm. “Here are the proposals for the Crowborough deal. Mr. Crawley needs them by four.”

Matthew takes the folder from Molesley’s outstretched hand and flicks through them hurriedly. They’re in the final stages of a deal that’s taken six weeks and a thousand man-hours, and Matthew’s felt the pressure every day since the deadline started to close in. Six months on the job and he feels sure-footed enough until someone who thinks he could do better walks in. Which is to say, anyone whose place he took when he got promoted apparently out of the blue. Which is to say, everyone. Matthew sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. “Did Bates--”

“He filed the papers this morning. Nothing but a few signatures left.”

Matthew snorts out a disbelieving laugh. “Touch wood it goes off that smoothly.”

Whatever Molesley was going to say is cut off by a knock on Matthew’s office door. When he looks up, Sybil’s in the doorway with a paper bag in her hand. “Am I early?”

Matthew waves her in and points her toward the sofa. “No, I just need a minute. Getting Crowborough sorted today.”

Sybil nods her head understandingly, even though she probably has little idea what he’s on about. She sits down and starts setting out lunch while he and Molesley finish marking the pages for signatures, checking that every last thing is in place. Sybil waits.

It’s been nearly two months since they started working together on Downton’s charitable contributions. It was Robert’s idea. He went on for awhile about social responsibility and the necessity of giving back; he stopped short of saying “noblesse oblige,” but only just. What Robert didn’t explain quite as well was why his youngest daughter would be helping with the allotments and approvals, and at first Matthew hadn’t understood it either. She didn’t have anything to do with the company and didn’t seem especially interested in the way it ran or what he did, but by the end of the meeting he knew why she was there. Her eyes were bright and she talked with her hands, floating them in front of her face as she told him about articles she’d read and research she’d done: living conditions in eastern Europe and southeast Asia, hungry children and felled forests and species on the brink of extinction. Her enthusiasm was catching. She talked like she’d give away the whole company out from under them, from the money right down to the office supplies. Matthew liked her immediately.

It takes a few minutes to get everything settled and by the time Molesley leaves and Matthew takes a seat on the sofa, Sybil’s halfway through a salad. She pushes his sandwich toward him and tilts her head.

“Africa, Asia, or England today?” It’s very like Sybil, he’s learned, to rush forward and wait for everyone else to catch up. His sandwich isn’t even out of the wrapper yet. “Well,” he says, pretending to give it extra thought. “England, I suppose.”

And with that Sybil’s off, pulling out folders and brochures and proposals. A women’s refuge in Cheapside, a children’s hospital in Surrey. There are ten different institutions laid out on the coffee table by the time she’s done. It makes for an intimidating spread. It’s amazing how enthusiastic she is; maybe even moreso than during their first meeting. Matthew listens and nods along, genuinely interested in the things she has to say, in her unflagging belief that they can change people’s lives. He’s more than a little bit envious at her tireless enthusiasm.

“And there’s a youth group in Chiswick that needs new classroom supplies,” she finishes. “Don’t worry, I made sure some of them have plaques we can put the company name on.”

Matthew laughs. “Yes, that’s very important too.”

Sybil pokes at the last bits of her salad. “I just want to be able to help,” she says. “We have so much, we should give back.” It’s basically the same speech he got from Robert ages ago and it’s the same speech Sybil gives him twice a month, but it sounds different when she says it.

Matthew picks up a folder for the classroom in Chiswick. “Tell me again how your father took it when you changed your major?” There’s a hint of teasing in his voice, but Sybil just smiles.

“Very well,” she says. “Social policies are important.”

Matthew looks over lists of crayons and markers, rulers and sheet paper. “They are,” he says, “but I’m sure when you got accepted to the London School of Economics he might’ve had something else in mind. Something, I don’t know, a bit more to do with the building we’re sitting in?”

Sybil laughs good-naturedly. Sybil does everything good-naturedly. “It’s the school of Ecomonics and Political Science. And I was rubbish at the economics bits anyway.”

“I doubt that’s true.” It seems impossible that there’s anything she’d be bad at. Two months and maybe a dozen lunches in and she’s already the closest thing to a friend he’s made since he came to Downton.

Matthew polishes off the last of his sandwich and stands. “Put your three favorites at the top of the pile and I’ll look them over tonight.”

“You promise?”

“I do. Now you should stop by your father’s office before you head back to school.”

Matthew looks at the folder. The hospital, the shelter, and a food bank in Clapham. Those will do. He puts the folder for the classroom in Chiswick in his desk drawer. He’ll take care of that one himself.

--

“You know, you don’t have to do that anymore.” Anna ignores her. “You didn’t have to do that at all, actually, not even back in our flat.”

Anna doesn’t look up from the sink, hands full of suds and dirty dishes. “If I don’t do it, you’ll let it sit forever. Black mold will take over this flat and you’ll die.”

“Mm,” Mary says, flipping the page of her magazine. “Pity.”

“It would be a pity.” Anna turns off the water and wipes her hands on a towel. Mary tried to explain about her cleaning lady being sick a day, that someone would get to them eventually, but Anna’s never been one to let messes lie. She flops down on the sofa with a sigh. “If you died, who would I borrow clothes from?”

Mary laughs and dog-ears the page, marks a shoulder bag that Anna would love. Her birthday’s in a few weeks. “If I died,” Mary says, pulling her feet up onto the sofa and wrapping her hands around her knees, “you could have all my designer things.”

Anna smiles and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. She’s possibly the only person besides Sybil who feels at home here, Mary thinks, and she pokes at Anna’s thigh with her foot. “You want to borrow something for the charity ball?”

The grin on Anna’s face could light the room. “Of course, I do,” she says, pushing herself off the sofa. She’s practically sprinting to the closet, and Mary hears her call from the hallway, “Even the Chanel?”

Mary laughs. “Especially the Chanel.”

Anna tries on what seems like a hundred dresses. There are piles of clothes spread across the bed and Mary sits in the middle of them, scoring each outfit. Mary tells her she looks beautiful in every one, but Anna disagrees, finds some reason or another each one doesn’t work; an unflattering seam, an awkward silhouette. It’s the same scene they’ve played out a million times, ever since University and all the days since.

Finally Anna comes out with the blue dress Mary and Sybil bought, dangling from its hanger with the tags still on. “What about this one?”

Mary plays with the hem of one of Evelyn’s dresses. “Actually, I thought I might wear that one.” She very studiously does not meet Anna’s eyes.

“Wear it to what?” Anna’s turned away, studying herself in the mirror.

Mary barely keeps her voice steady. “To the charity ball.”

Anna spins around so fast, the pattern on her dress blurs together. “You’re going?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Anna hesitates and Mary rolls her eyes. As long as they’ve known each other, as many things as they’ve been through together, there’s still a part of Anna that shies away from pushing too hard or saying too much. It’d make Mary laugh if it didn’t make her so sad. And Mary always thought aristocrats were the repressed ones.

She watches Anna pick her words carefully and only because it’s Anna, only because there are a hundred debts unpaid for a thousand different favours, does Mary keep herself from telling her to just spit it out. Mary’s not known for her graciousness, but she does have her moments every now and again. Anna finally settles on an acceptable phrasing. “Why the change of heart?”

Leave it to Anna to mull over her words and come up with the most inoffensive statement possible. Mary shrugs her shoulder. “No change of heart. Sybil asked me to come.”

“Sybil always asks you to come.”

It’s easy enough to lie to everyone else, but Anna sees right through her every time. Mary sets her jaw and her voice goes cold. She counts it as a small victory. “I want to meet Matthew.”

Anna’s always been a bad liar and Mary can read the surprise that crosses her face plain as day. There’s not nearly as much of it as she thought there would be; her features slide toward sympathetic almost instantly and it’s all Mary can do not to hit her with a handbag. Anna hangs the blue dress over the closet door and picks her way through Dolce wrap dresses and Gucci skirts. She clears herself a small spot on the bed and tucks herself next to Mary. Not too close, but close enough. “You want to meet him?”

Mary can’t keep the bitterness from her voice; even if she could, she wouldn’t bother. “Papa picked him out of the mail room and made him his pet, and all because we happen to have the same last name.”

“First of all, he didn’t work in the mail room, and second of all, you know that’s not why your father keeps him around.” Anna traces the pattern of a dress with her finger; Mary wore it to dinner with Kemal last month and she saw it later splashed on the inside fold of the society page. Anna's voice is quiet when she says, “He’s nice.”

Her father would call the groan that escapes Mary’s lips petulant. “Bollocks to nice and bollocks to Matthew Crawley.” She pushes herself off the bed and stalks over to the closet, pulling the blue dress off its hanger as she passes. Sybil had made her try on a few more just for fun, but in the end she’d bought this one. It dips low in the back and gathers at her hip and Sybil had been right--she looks amazing in it. She holds it close over her curves and feels Anna watching her, knows the exact look on her friend’s face without even having to check. Anyone else would accuse her of vanity as Mary studies herself in the mirror; Anna knows she’s just buying time.

Mary forgets sometimes that even though there are whole chunks of her life that her family and the company don’t touch, Anna isn’t one of them. Anna is still deep in the heart of Downton and as much as Mary will never admit it, as much as she denies it every time Anna asks, it bothers her, that the lines she tries to draw between Downton and everything else still blur and smudge together. She forgets sometimes that Anna knows more about the people Mary spends her time resenting than Mary does.

The sudden rush of anger feels good as it settles into Mary’s hands and chest. She sees herself in the mirror the way Matthew and her father will see her: steely and proud, unyielding. Chin up, shoulders back, just like Granny taught her. It’s a buoy she’s all too familiar with. When there’s a place inside her full to burst, these are the things she covers it with: next-season jackets and costume jewellery, and a disdainful expression like a knife. It’s harder with Anna on her best day and this is certainly not her best day.

Whatever changes Anna sees in her face, she doesn’t say anything as she walks up behind Mary and gently tugs on the ends of her hair. “You wear that. I’ll wear the silver Chanel.”

Mary doesn’t answer. Chin up. Shoulders back.

--

The Crowborough deal goes off without a hitch. The papers are signed and the deal is done and Matthew’s made them all a great deal of money. Robert sweeps him into his office after everything’s finalized and pours him a glass of scotch.

“To Downton,” he says, holding out his glass in salute.

Matthew clinks his drink against Robert’s. “This was a good day for you.”

Robert gives him a benevolent smile. “It’s a good day for us all.”

Matthew never feels quite so middle class as when Robert talks about Downton as a great moral and social responsibility. It had taken awhile for Matthew to realize: this company is Robert’s life as well as his livelihood, and he looks on it as a parent and a spouse and a child, all three together. Matthew still doesn’t entirely understand; his thoughts must be easily read on his face because Robert props himself on his desk and shakes his head.

“You don’t love it yet,” he says, swirling the liquor in his glass.

Matthew takes a seat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “What do you mean?”

There’s a strange look in Robert’s eye when he says, “This place. Downton. It’s still just a company to you. You don’t love it yet.”

Matthew doesn’t actually have anything to say to that. Truth be told, Downton Industries is really the last place he thought he’d be working, and he never possibly imagined he’d be heir apparent to Robert Crawley. But Robert, for reasons Matthew still hasn’t worked out, had pulled him aside in a meeting six months ago, picked his brain over a long lunch meeting, and nothing has been the same since. He’s never asked for Robert’s reasoning lest the man suddenly come to his senses and send Matthew back downstairs to stale deposition summaries and boilerplate contracts.

Just as the silence is about to get uncomfortable, there’s a knock on Robert’s door. Robert’s senior assistant, Mrs. Hughes, peeks around the frame. “Mr. Carson is here to see you, sir.”

Without quite realizing it, Matthew’s suddenly sitting much straighter in his chair, elbows tucked in and shoulders back. It’s not that he finds Mr. Carson intimidating, exactly, but he’s so perfectly composed all the time. It’s a bit unnerving.

Robert waves Carson in with a smile. “Carson, what can I do for you?”

Carson glances back and forth between Robert and Matthew. “I had a question for you, sir, but if you’d rather I come back--”

“No,” Robert says, shaking his head. “We’re just celebrating about the Crowborough deal, come in.”

Matthew’s never seen Carson be anything but entirely deferential to their boss and now is no exception. Carson walks to precisely the centre of the room and says, in his low, reverberating baritone, “Ms. Smith informed me that the eldest Ms. Crawley is planning to attend the charity ball.”

Matthew suddenly has a very strong desire to be absolutely anywhere else. He’s only been at Downton for six months and already he knows that any conversation revolving around Robert and Mary Crawley is best avoided. The air in the room is very, very still. “Did she?” Robert asks, and the edge to his voice is unmistakable.

For just a moment, Carson’s whole face seems to soften, the strong lines of his jaw easing ever so slightly, but only for a split second. Matthew probably wouldn’t even have noticed if Robert’s features hadn’t done the exact opposite, closing off with not even a moment’s hesitation.

Matthew has never met Mary Crawley. The closest he’s come is seeing the picture hung behind Robert’s desk of a beautiful wife and three beautiful daughters, and even that is years old. He’s seen her in the papers occasionally; while he doesn’t frequent the society pages or the style section, he’s seen her there, photographed at this fashion show and that club premiere. The photo behind Robert’s desk is, for lack of a better word, entirely too picturesque. Sybil’s smile is too small, less brilliant than it is when she’s harassing him about his energy usage or his eating habits. Edith’s eyes don’t have the mischievous glint to them he’s seen whenever she leans down to whisper something in Robert’s ear. He wonders about the ways Mary’s different, what more there is to her besides the tight smile she wears as she sits very primly between her sisters.

When he looks back at Robert and Carson, their voices are hushed and he can’t hear what they’re saying, so the only thing he’s sure of is that they’re suddenly looking quite apprehensively in his direction. It’s Carson’s expression that’s catches him off guard. As head of PR, it’s his job to keep the company’s--and by extension the family’s--image spotless. Matthew can’t imagine that’s an easy task with Mary Crawley waltzing onto the inside pages of The Daily Mail twice a month. But whatever they’re discussing now, Carson’s the one looking sympathetic and Robert’s harder around the edges than Matthew has ever seen him.

With a few more muted words, Carson leaves the room with just a small nod to Matthew on his way out. After a long minute Robert sets his glass down on the desk and takes the seat beside Matthew. He’s never seen Robert so unsure of himself as when he casts his eyes about the room, hands tensing around his knees, and says, “So Mary’s attending the charity ball this weekend.”

“Yes,” Matthew answers, “I heard.”

“You’ve not met, but--” Robert stalls again. Matthew looks over at the picture on the wall and wonders what about Mary Crawley has her father so tightly wound. If the gossip were true--though it hardly ever is--it could be any number of things.

When Robert speaks again his voice is changed; Matthew wonders if this is what he sounds like when he’s explaining something to his daughters. “Mary can be a bit difficult,” he says carefully, “and a bit of a child at times. And she’s sure to have no surplus of kind words for you.”

Matthew shakes his head. “Well, as you said, we’ve not even met.” By the look on Robert’s face and the rumours in the halls of Downton, there’s much more to this story than Matthew knows and he’s none too keen to waltz into the middle of anyone’s family affairs.

Matthew remembers once when he was small and got into trouble. He’d broken one of his mother’s crystal vases and his father yelled so loudly Matthew ran and locked himself in his room. When his father had come to apologize, had sat Matthew down to explain himself, his face had been anxious and drawn, and even though it was decades ago and his father’s long since dead, he’s never forgotten the look on his face. It’s very nearly what Robert looks like now as his eyes wander toward the photo of his family on the wall and he says, “Things between Mary and myself are strained, which you’ve surely heard. I’m under no delusions about the gossip at this company. So you should know that any ill will she bears toward you is certainly directed at me.” Robert leans forward, and in another man Matthew would call it affection but with Robert he’s not so sure. “I’d thought once, with Mary and Patrick, that they might--that the company should go to them, but--” Matthew’s not sure where to look, so he keeps his eyes on the ground. “But Mary left school, and then Patrick was in New York when--” Robert pushes himself out of his chair with an off-balance, lurching step. “Never mind,” he says and Matthew certainly doesn’t press him. “The dinner will be fine,” he says. The confidence creeps back into his voice by small degrees. “I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful impression, same as you’ve done with the rest of us.”

“Thank you,” Matthew says. The clock on Robert’s desk reads 3:00 and Matthew hurries to finish his drink. “Well, I’ve a meeting to get to.” The scotch is still burning down the back of his throat as a beats a hasty retreat to his office.

Matthew spends the meeting thinking about Robert and the strange edge in his voice, about Mary Crawley’s flat smile trapped on the wall in her father’s office. When he gets back to his desk, he hesitates for a reasonable minute before he clicks on his computer and types “Mary Crawley” into the search bar of his web browser. The results that come up are mixed, but third from the top is a spread from a fashion show, complete with pictures and a small blurb underneath. Mary Crawley, daughter of business tycoon Robert Crawley, walks the catwalk for the Napier collection wearing a sapphire evening gown. Her face is unsmiling and her features schooled into what he imagines is a perfect catwalk look, but it doesn’t sit much more naturally on her face than the smile in the photo on Robert’s wall. Both look like window dressing; neither reaches her eyes. Matthew spends longer than he’d like to admit staring at the photo and wondering exactly how painful the charity dinner is going to be, and whether or not the tight knot that’s settled into the pit of his stomach is dread or something else, something warmer and harder to name.

--

Evelyn likes to think he’s “of the people” or “part of the masses,” but the space he rents as his studio is still in the poshest part of the city and his dresses cost the average person’s weekly wages. Mary likes to remind him of that as often as possible but Evelyn never says anything in response besides, “It’s the thought that counts, dear.”

She spins a dress on one of the dolls and watches the fabric swirl out and settle back in, out and in as she moves it round and round. It’s not quite grey but barely silver and it’s more beautiful than any of Evelyn’s sketches. It makes the light dance. “Careful,” Evelyn says, pulling her away by the hand, “there’ll be plenty of time for twirling once you’re in the damn thing.”

“It’s for me?” She can’t help but bounce up on her toes a bit and slide her arm through his. “You don’t want someone taller?”

Evelyn rattles off a bunch of words about the draping of the fabric and the proportions of the design but Mary’s too busy looking back across the room at the dress, its fabric still swaying ever so slightly on the doll. Evelyn catches her staring and lifts her chin with a finger. “Not yet,” he says. “Have a look at these first.”

He steers her toward a table spread with sketches and swatches and bits of jewellery all around, pats her on the shoulder and says, “Have at it.” She shrugs out of her jacket, settles down on the stool and picks up the first sketch.

It had happened mostly by accident, their friendship. They’d been sat next to each other in class during their second year, something horribly boring and tedious like “British Economic History since 1870,” and he’d spent the first month making her laugh behind her hands while the professor lectured on in his insufferable drone. She’d known him a year before he’d shown her his sketches and designs, and it had taken two bottles of wine before he’d confessed he wasn’t studying finance with the family business in mind, thank you very much, but he wanted to know how to run his own company. She’d called him mad back then. She calls him mad now for entirely different reasons, but there have been enough nights spent stumbling toward the other’s couch after a long night on the town that the affection there is understood.

It had been Evelyn who’d introduced her to Kemal back at university. She’d been smitten instantly--with his dark hair and dark eyes, his olive skin and sly smile. He first kissed her the night she decided not to sit her last set of exams, not to go back to school at all, and the steady thrum of her blood when he touched her, equal parts rage and lust and a few different flavours of rebellion, has never gone away.

It’s not what she’s meant to be thinking about while she thumbs through the pages of Evelyn’s sketches and runs the bits of silk and chiffon between her fingers, but she can’t help but imagine her body in the gowns and jackets he’s designed, the way they’d pull across her hips and shoulders and set Kemal’s teeth on edge. When Evelyn comes back, pins held tight between his lips, she slides a few of the sketches forward and says, “These. The jacket there’s a bit matronly, and the lines on that gown won’t flatter anyone with a figure.”

“Like you’d know anything about that.” He knocks her shoulder with his. “What about the fabric? The patterned bits?”

They spend the next hour going over the designs and materials, finalizing accessories for his show next month. When he finally pushes back from the table and waves her toward the silver gown, now sitting still on its doll, she all but runs across the room to be fitted.

It’s tight in the bodice and loose below her natural waist, piles of fabric and amazing beadwork and a colour that makes her look like she glows, like she’s got lights pressed up beneath her skin and at the sharp edges of her bones. Evelyn leans back against the mirror and looks her up and down. “I knew it’d suit you,” he says, stepping forward to lift the hair off her neck. She raises her chin and pulls her shoulders back, adopts the studied catwalk look she’d worked so hard to get right.

“You’d think it’d come naturally,” Anna had said at her first show, surprised at Mary’s nerves. Of course everyone would think she loved the attention, the lights, every eye pinned on her as she walked up and down the catwalk. She’s got better at putting on the face since then, and truth be told, she loves helping Evelyn, even with something as superficial as this.

“I meant to ask,” he says, fiddling with a seam beneath her left shoulder, “I left something at Kemal’s awhile ago and he’s nowhere to be found for weeks now. Can you get it back for me?”

“You can’t get it?” She jerks away from a pin pressed too close to her skin.

Evelyn’s reflection scowls. “You know that doorman. Bit of a prick. Won’t let me up.”

Mary meets his eyes in the mirror. “Why did you try to use the front door?” Kemal had long ago showed her all the secret ways up to his flat, back stairwells and service lifts, all best used when avoiding unwanted attention. They’ve used them more than a few times, if only for the fun of it. “What do you need? I can go round tonight.”

“He borrowed a jacket of mine, black overcoat.”

“And you don’t have another one you could wear instead?”

Evelyn pouts at her, an oft-used expression in their friendship. “I like that one. I tailored it especially.”

Mary rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

Evelyn goes back to checking the seams and the lay of the fabric and it’s a long minute before he says, quietly enough that she could ignore it if she wanted--and that bit of kindness is why they’ve stayed friends so long--“Have you heard from him lately?”

He must know she hears him, if only by the sudden tension in her shoulders and chest. She opens her mouth to speak but shuts it just as soon. It’s no yearning heartache that stops the words in her throat but the words stop nonetheless. Evelyn lets the silence sit and when he finally steps back, the smile he gives her is best called kind. “Alright then,” he says. “Let’s see.”

Mary spins. The light dances.

--

The ballroom is decorated in silver; the centrepieces are blue. Matthew’s suit too tight in the shoulders and his hands tingle slightly when he first glances around the room. Beside him, his mother stares openly at the decorations, the baubles and streamers and lights hung from every corner and engulfing the room in an almost over-bright shine. He can’t help but feel out of place, even as he smiles at his mother’s apparent delight. There’s a flurry of people around all the tables and a band in front playing old standards. “Matthew?” His mother’s voice shakes him to action and he pushes them forward through the crowd to find their table.

Matthew recognizes only a few faces: Mr. Carson in the corner talking to a blonde woman--Ms. Smith, he’s fairly certain; someone whose name he ought to know from board meetings; someone he’s fairly sure won a BAFTA last year. They’re almost to their table when a figure clad in scarlet steps in front of them, the expression on her face as joyous as ever.

Matthew pulls his features tight into what he hopes is a smile. “Mrs. Crawley, the ballroom looks wonderful.” His voice doesn’t waver and he’s unreasonably proud. “You and Mrs. Crawley have outdone yourselves.” It seems a benign enough compliment, but judging by the expression on her face, Violet Crawley can find something to take issue with. Violet Crawley can take issue with everything, it seems.

If Robert sometimes makes him feel especially middle class, Violet makes him feel like a chimney sweep from Solihull. He only sees her at the bi-monthly board meetings, but her regard for him has been plain as day since the beginning. It’s not that her comments toward him are catty, exactly, but he’s often found himself at odds with his surroundings; he hadn’t fitted in at his posh public school, he hadn’t been like the other wealthy students at Cambridge. No one ever rushed to befriend the student on scholarship, with his jackets that came just a bit short at the wrists and were entirely too threadbare at the elbows. No one that wealthy is ever just rude, he’d learned quickly, but there’s a special tone of voice they take when talking to someone like him. Violet Crawley puts them all to shame.

“Thank you,” she says, managing to look down her nose at him even as he towers over her. “It’s so wonderful you could attend.”

He feels his mother getting anxious beside him and puts his hand on her back as he says, “Mrs. Crawley, this is my mother, erm.” Violet might as well be ten feet tall. “Also Mrs. Crawley.”

His mother extends a hand that Violet takes with a shockingly small amount of disdain, but the handshake is short-lived nonetheless. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Isobel says. “Crawley and Crawley, that’s quite a coincidence. Do you suppose we’re related somewhere down the line?”

Violet has the good grace not to sneer. “Oh, wouldn’t that just be charming?”

“I think it would be delightful.” Cora Crawley appears behind Matthew, one hand already outstretched toward Isobel. “Mrs. Crawley, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Cora clasps both hands around Isobel’s and Matthew can’t help but feel grateful, even as Violet narrows her eyes at her daughter-in-law. “Matthew always speaks so dearly of you.”

Isobel smiles warmly. “That’s wonderful to hear, Mrs. Crawley.”

“Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley.” Matthew smiles as Sybil leans around her mother, hair piled onto her head and long earrings dangling down toward her shoulders. Her dress is a deep purple and she looks entirely unlike the girl who pops into his office once a week with cheap Italian take-away and a folder full of charity information. He smiles, even as Violet’s eyes go wide at her grand-daughter’s choice of attire. If Sybil notices, she doesn’t show it, just squeezes in next to Matthew and says, “That’s entirely too many Mrs. Crawleys to be getting on with, don’t you think?”

His mother smiles and Matthew’s glad that Sybil’s here to diffuse the tension; he’s more than a little bit grateful when Sybil slides over and winds her arm around Isobel’s and says, “We’ll have to think of nicknames. Let’s find your table.” Matthew’s left staring after them, eyes darting between Cora’s and Violet’s. The former are warm if put-upon, the latter are edging toward hostile. He’s been around the both of them enough to know when to take his leave and he bows out gracefully before trailing after Sybil and his mother.

They’re all sat at a table in the corner, far enough away from the band that they won’t have to shout all night. He lets Sybil entertain his mother, only butting in to defend himself against the most embarrassing of childhood anecdotes. Sybil laughs so loudly at the story of Matthew and his punk rock phase that more than a few heads turn in their direction, but the sight of her and Isobel doubled over is enough that he doesn’t mind.

Just as he feels himself starting to relax, he hears a voice behind him. “Papa’s looking for you.” When he turns around, he finds Edith Crawley staring at them, her mouth pinched and her eyes narrowed. To say that Edith and Sybil differ in their demeanor and appearance would certainly be an understatement. It’s not that he dislikes Edith--as part of human resources they don’t interact too regularly, but she’s always seemed nice enough, if somewhat short-tempered and entirely too preoccupied by her father’s opinions. Still, he smiles at her and nods a hello.

Sybil’s smile never falters. “Where is Papa?”

“Over there talking to Carson and Mr. Bates.” Edith gestures across the room to where the three men stand huddled.

Their expressions are hard-set and Matthew perks up. “Is anything the matter?”

For a moment, Edith looks at him in a way she almost certainly learned from Violet. “He didn’t ask for you,” she says. She heads off after a pointed look at her younger sister, who smiles apologetically and then follows.

He and Isobel watch Sybil as she crosses the room and if anything’s the matter with Robert, he looks amiable enough when his daughters slide in beside him. “Sybil’s a charming girl,” Isobel says.

“Yes,” Matthew replies, “she is.” They watch more and more people file into their seats, all elegantly dressed and looking as if they belong right at home at five-thousand-pound-a-plate galas. The company footed the bill for the employees who were invited, thankfully; even though Matthew makes quite a bit more than when he did all his own filing, and even though the money’s going for a good cause, it’s enough to make his thoroughly middle class heart beat a bit too fast.

He’s busy calculating how many classrooms in Chiswick could’ve been sponsored on the money that was spent on centrepieces when his mother leans over. “Matthew, might you get us some drinks? White wine, if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly,” he says, and it only takes him a minute to squeeze past the assembled toffs before he’s at the bar. White wine for his mother, whiskey and soda for himself. The bartender turns away for glasses when he feels someone squeeze in by his elbow.

“I always feel a bit stuffed at these things,” Molesley says, signaling the bartender for another whiskey and soda. He pulls at his bowtie and looks around anxiously. “If you don’t mind me saying.”

Matthew huffs out a laugh and takes a too-large sip of his drink. “Not at all. I’m feeling a bit stuffed myself, now you mention it.”

He didn’t always get on quite so well with Molesley. It took Matthew the better part of a month to remember there was an office outside his, with someone there to answer the phone and make his appointments and do his filing and type up his reports. Truth be told, it had made Matthew uncomfortable at first, but after the initial gaffes and sputters, they’d got through it well enough. If nothing else, Molesley didn’t make him feel like he was better suited to a corner cubicle miles below the executive floor. It’s enough like having a friend that Matthew leans over and says, “Violet Crawley intercepted me earlier. I think if she had her way I’d be serving dinner instead of eating it.”

Molesley smiles. He’d worked his way up from the mail room himself, so the understanding look he gives Matthew isn’t faked. “Eh, never mind the old lady. It’s Robert you should concern yourself with.” Molesley gestures across the room to where Robert stands between Edith and Sybil, fatherly exasperation on his face. “And if you don’t mind me saying, the favour of one of them Crawley girls wouldn’t hurt too much either.”

Matthew laughs into his drink. “Oh, certainly. I’ll just get off with the boss’s daughter and then he’ll have to keep me around.”

“Well, that’s certainly one way to go about securing your new position.” It’s not Molesley who answers, and before he even turns around Matthew’s sure he knows who the voice belongs to. He tells himself the feeling that settles into his hands as he turns around is something other than fear.

Mary Crawley is both more and less beautiful than the pictures in the paper. She’s thinner than the photo in Robert’s office, her hair longer and her smile cooler. She’s dressed in a blue gown, sheer against her shoulders and cutting low on her chest. Her hair is gathered behind one ear, and when she steps toward him the fabric catches the light across her collarbone. To say she’s beautiful would be a ridiculously short sell, and it’s more than a few silent seconds before Matthew realizes he’s been staring, mouth half-open and eyes undoubtedly wide as saucers.

She steps between Matthew and Molesley and signals to the bartender. “Champagne,” she says, and Matthew gets no more than a sympathetic frown from Molesley before the older man heads quickly in the opposite direction.

There’s no avoiding it for Matthew. He stands awkwardly while the bartender pours Mary’s drink but once she turns back around, he steps forward. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, I was only joking.”

Mary gives him a long look up and down; he shifts uncomfortably on his feet, and when she speaks he can’t quite hold her gaze. “Sorry to tell you, but Sybil’s taken.” Mary takes a step toward him. “I know you two have been spending quite a lot of time together.”

Matthew nods and puts on what he hopes is a winning smile. “Yes, she’s been helping--”

“There’s always Edith,” Mary interrupts, “but I’m not sure you’re quite up for that challenge.” She looks him up and down again, lips purses and eyebrow raised. It’s like being in school, shuffled off to mingle with the girls of St. This or St. That. There’s a hollow pit where his stomach should be. “And then there’s me of course. And everyone knows I’m a sure thing.”

It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. Matthew wouldn’t be surprised if he looked away to find everyone else staring at them, or everyone else making quickly for the exits to avoid witnessing the scene. But he can’t look away, not when she’s leaning toward him and pressing a hand against his chest, tugging lightly at his tie as she raises her lips to his ear. “Dear Matthew,” she says, “don’t believe everything you read.”

When she pulls back, there’s a gleam in her eyes that he’d almost call soft, but it sharpens in an instant when she looks over his shoulder and across the room. She straightens, lifts her chin, and all the sound comes flooding back in his ears, people jostling past them on their way to the bar. “Oh look, we’re being summoned.” She pushes past him and sets off across the room, and once he takes his eyes from the swing of her shoulders as she slides in and out of the crowd, he sees Robert and Cora at the table with his mother, glances cast warily in his direction. He drains the whiskey and soda in one gulp, grabs his mother’s wine, and heads toward them.

The first thing he hears when he gets to the table is his mother’s laughter. Cora’s got one hand over her husband’s and Robert’s smile is as tight as a drum. “Yes,” Mary says, twisting to look at Matthew over her shoulder, “Matthew was just telling me about his plans for his future at Downton.” The panic that flares up in Matthew’s chest is quelled when Mary smiles brightly and says, “Everything with Crowborough? Quite a triumph.”

He tries not to let his relief show. There’s still a warm spot on his chest where her hand had been, or maybe that’s just his imagination. “Yes, that was quite a coup for us.” He tries to catch Robert’s eye but it’s Cora who smiles up at him, fingers ever tighter around her husband’s hand.

Mary gestures to Sybil as she takes a seat beside Isobel. “Sybil’s been telling me about your charity work, Matthew. What a wonderful idea, getting her involved. Papa’s always made sure we know that family is an important part of the business.”

Matthew’s wise enough to keep his mouth shut, but he sees the marks of Cora’s fingernails on the back of Robert’s hand. Beside Sybil, Edith leans forward and asks, loud enough for her parents to hear, “Where’s Kemal tonight? Surely you’d rather be with him instead of here with us.”

Mary takes a sip of champagne and looks at her sister with a syrupy smile, slick and sweet enough to trap a hundred flies. ““He has better thing to do than come here with me.” Sybil opens her mouth, eyebrows turned down questioningly, but Mary silences here with a look and continues, “I’ll be meeting him later. Would you like to come? I’m sure he could show you a good time.” There’s a bite to her words that twists Edith’s coy smile into a frown, and just as the younger woman is about to respond, Robert’s voice hisses out across the table.

“Enough,” he says. Mary doesn’t flinch; Cora does. Robert casts his eyes around the room and slips his hand from his wife’s. He pushes his chair back too roughly and if Matthew knew him better, he could maybe read the lines of his face--it’s more than anger that sets his jaw and narrows his eyes. If Mary knows him well enough to decipher the sad snarl of his lips, she doesn’t show it. Robert tugs at his vest and straightens his jacket. “You shouldn’t have come,” he says, almost underneath his breath. “Cora, we’ve other people to see.” He holds out an arm for her, expectant.

Mary looks at Robert; Cora looks at Mary. There’s a whole room around them of laughing, happy people and it fades just at the edges of this table, at the inflexible bend of Robert’s elbow and the concrete contours of Mary’s smile. Cora looks for a moment as if she might speak but a man appears at Robert’s shoulder and whatever Cora might’ve said, she’s silent now.

“Anthony,” Robert says, turning to extend a hand. Anthony Strallan smiles at Robert and then at everyone else, oblivious to the tension he’s interrupted. Matthew notices for the first time just how tightly Mary’s fingers grip the chair in front of her, how much tension there is in the lines around Cora’s mouth. It’s obvious that this isn’t the first time this scene has been played out and he wonders how many times Cora’s had to play peacemaker, how successful she’s been in the past. He wonders whether this was a step forward or backward in whatever is so obviously broken between her husband and her daughter. He gives his own mother a smile in sympathy and thanks and by the time he turns back to glance at Mary, she’s smiling sweetly again, the corners of her eyes turning down.

Anthony Strallan lifts a hand toward Sybil and smiles amiably. “I hear you’re helping out at the office now,” he says. “Your grandmother was telling me.”

Sybil’s as sweet as ever when she answer, “Just sitting in, mostly. Working on a bit of charity business with Matthew.”

“She’s doing brilliantly,” Matthew says. “Always keeping me on my toes.” The smile Sybil gives him is almost conspiratorial. Matthew pretends not to notice the way Mary’s back straightens in response.

Strallan doesn’t seem to notice a thing. “It’s always the mark of a true entrepreneur,” he says, “giving back to one’s community. I worry your generation might not know that.” His tone is even stuffier than Robert’s. Matthew’s about to make the same bland response he’s given a hundred times but Mary who beats him to it.

“I couldn’t agree more,” she says. Mary, who in the space of five minutes talks so sweetly and earnestly about social responsibility and giving that Anthony Strallan nods his head and smiles the whole time. Mary, who in the space of those same five minutes has secured herself a spot on Sybil and Matthew’s unofficial charity committee. Mary, who posits the idea in front of Anthony Strallan and gives her father no choice but to grit his teeth and say, “Of course, Mary, that’s a wonderful idea." It’s more impressive than any haggling Matthew’s ever seen between CEOs of top-market companies and he’s reminded all in a rush that she’s Violet’s granddaughter, Robert’s daughter, and a force entirely her own. By the time she’s finished talking, Strallan’s smile is so wide it doesn’t fade the entire time he walks back to his table, Cora and Robert on either side.

Isobel has the forethought to excuse herself after Robert and Cora. Edith is quick behind her, pushing out of her chair in a rush. Matthew’s eyes trail behind her until she disappears into the crowd.

It’s Sybil who breaks the enveloping quiet that falls between them. She looks uncertainly at Mary, fingers running along the stem of her wine glass. “I thought Kemal was away.”

Mary turns sharply, glances first at Matthew and then at Sybil. “Papa doesn’t know that,” Mary says. Her words are pointed, her mouth a sour pinch of lipstick and anger. “Let him think what he likes.” She slumps inward just a bit, only for a moment, and Matthew has the urge to apologize. It comes unbidden and sticks in his throat. Just as the words push up past his lips, Mary looks over at him and says, “I thought you’d look more like Patrick.”

Matthew has no response. He wants to apologize, to explain himself, to ask the hundred questions circling around in his head--but he says nothing instead. Everything will be wrong.

Mary takes a step away and draws her shoulders back. “You’re right you know,” she says. Her face is a mask. “This is all a complete joke.”

He watches her as she crosses the room, keeps his eyes on the stiff set of her shoulders as she weaves through the crowd and out the main door. The knot in his chest is equal parts ice and fire, and he stares after her long after she’s gone.

----

Chapter 2: One & One Make One

[fic] let nothing you dismay, bbtfic, s/p, 2500 words

allthingsholy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:21:38 GMT

Title: Let Nothing You Dismay
Author: allthingsholy
For: ishie at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: Penny and Sheldon and the things they're afraid of. (Let’s just SAY that this fits the original prompt.)
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for the beta.
Summary: Sheldon, Penny, New Year's Eve, and conquering a few fears.

----

New Year’s Eve is and has always been Penny’s least favorite holiday. Ever since she was a kid, dragged to her parent’s friends’ houses and shunted down to the basement until the wee hours of the morning, fending off Josh Simpson’s midnight kiss attempts every year from the ages of 6 to 16. It’s a continual disappointment and she’s tried to explain that to Leonard 5 times, but he doesn’t seem to be getting it.

“But it’s New Year’s Eve,” he keeps saying. He bounces up and down on his toe a little bit the way he does when he’s equal parts excited and exasperated, with just a touch of petulant child. “We should go out and do something. We’re young! We’re exciting! We’re hot!” He stops bouncing for a minute and shrugs his shoulders. “You’re hot! Let’s go out!”

Penny settles a little bit more firmly into Sheldon’s spot on the couch. “Every time I try to do something for New Year’s Eve, it ends up being a giant shit-storm. I’ll either end up in the hospital or in jail, or taking someone to the hospital or bailing them out of jail. No.”

Leonard cocks his head. “That’s not going to happen.” When Penny gives him the look, the look she perfected during the months they were together, he says, “We’ll leave Wolowitz and Bernadette to fend for themselves and that probably won’t happen. Come on.”

It might be mean, but Penny really doesn’t relish the idea of spending New Year’s Eve with her ex-boyfriend and a guy she almost slept with a few months ago. Plus, she’s already wearing her pajamas, pink pants with white polar bears in festive winter hats. She traces the bears with the tip of her finger and gives Leonard an apologetic look. He sighs heavily and seems to finally give up, walking past her toward the door. “Fine, I’ll leave you here,” he says. “But you’re going to be spending the night with Sheldon. Alone. With Sheldon. Who, might I remind you, has ended up at both the hospital and in jail with you at some point in the last few years.” He leans back around the doorframe and gives her a shit-eating grin. “So good luck with that.”

Penny listens to the click of the door lock and then kicks her feet up on the coffee table and reaches for the remote. There’s got to be a Law & Order marathon on somewhere.

--

Sheldon gets back to the apartment at 10 and if he’s surprised to see her sitting on his couch alone, he doesn’t mention it beyond shooting her an annoyed look and saying, “I suppose your cable got shut off again.”

Penny shrugs. “It’s so annoying how they make you pay the bill every month.”

Sheldon rolls his eyes and heads to his room lugging shopping bags in both hands. She tries to remember where exactly he’s been all day, but all she can remember is some rant about budget electronics and post-holiday discounts. She mutes the tv and flicks her toes back and forth while she waits for him to come back out. Benson and Olivia are chasing after a rapist or something, and no matter how many episodes she watches of this marathon (this is her third, for the record) they keep refusing to make out. It’s annoying, but she doesn’t change the channel. Damn Chris Meloni and his stupid jawline.

Sheldon finally comes back to the living room and stands in between her and the tv. “Move.”

Penny leans around him. Alex Cabot’s yelling at a perp. “No.”

“You’re in my spot.”

Penny looks up at him, tips her head so far back her neck twinges. “Sit somewhere else.” Sheldon doesn’t even deign to respond. She rolls her eyes and scoots over to the far cushion. “You know, it’s almost the start of a brand new year, Sheldon. Why don’t you venture out into the great unknown and, I don’t know, sit somewhere else?”

Sheldon settles down into the seat, his movements precise and affected as he adjusts everything until it’s perfect. “Perish the thought,” he says.

Penny turns back to the tv with a groan. There’s a commercial running for laundry soap and Penny actual sits up a bit straighter. She auditioned for this, she remembers, went in a few weeks ago and tried her best to look chipper and cheery about grass and red wine stains. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job. She didn’t get many jobs this year, or last year, or the year before.

Penny sighs to herself and tries not to think too hard about all those other jobs, the times her phone didn’t ring and her agent “forgot” to call. She’s not even paying attention to Sheldon, who’s snagged the remote and changed the channel to something else entirely. They watch for the better part of an hour and Penny doesn’t say a word. It’s not that she’s paying attention (she’s really not paying attention) it’s just that she’s started on a downward slope now and it’s hard to stop. She finds herself sliding deeper in the couch until she’s practically sitting on the floor thinking about bad line readings and bad first dates and bad everything. Oh yeah. This is why she hates New Year’s. Because she always gets disappointed and maudlin and depressed.

“Sheldon?” She reaches her foot across the cushions and pokes him with her toe, which she knows he hates, because germs, Penny or personal space, Penny or something else ridiculous, Penny. Sheldon doesn’t look at her but he grunts in acknowledgement. “Did you make any resolutions for next year?”

Even though he doesn’t turn away from the tv (where aliens and other guys are chasing each other around, maybe, she’s reallynot paying attention) she knows the look of contempt on his face anyway. “I certainly did not.”

“Why not?”

“Because New Year’s Eve is an arbitrary holiday that serves no real purpose beyond marking time on the Georgian calendar and New Year’s Eve Resolutions are even more ludicrous. Plus, I never make it past January anyway.”

Penny rolls her eyes. “Well, what about something else? Oo!” She lifts herself up onto her knees, slides onto the middle cushion and gets way too close for Sheldon’s comfort. “What about end of the year resolutions? Let’s do something before the year is out! Something stupid or brave or whatever.”

Sheldon glares and leans ever so minutely away from her. “Stupid and brave are very often synonymous states of being.”

“Whatever, Sheldon.” Penny bounces a little on her knees. She doesn’t know why she’s so excited about this, but it probably has a lot to do with laundry soap. “What’s something you’re afraid of? Like, something besides academic failure and basic human intimacy?”

Sheldon mutes the tv again. “I won’t pretend not to understand the nature of your request, but I’d like to raise the following objections. Firstly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. Secondly, I don’t want to engage in your silly exercise. And thirdly, Dune is on.”

Penny reaches for the remote and shuts the tv off entirely. “Well, Dune isn’t on anymore. Come on. What’s something you’re afraid of?”

Sheldon folds his arms across his chest and looks twice the petulant child Leonard did before. “Why should I have to go first? What’s something you’re afraid of?”

Penny grits her teeth and turns away. “Fine, I’ll go first.” She breathes in deep and rakes her brain for something big enough to be symbolic but not so big that it’s impossible, something that will get the ball rolling but not actually kill her. She finally leans toward Sheldon and says, “I’m afraid of heights.”

Sheldon narrows his eyes. “That seems unlikely. I’ve seen you on the roof before.”

“Well, I used to be afraid of them,” Penny says, “and I still just sort of hang out away from the edge where it’s safe. I’m not, like, terrified, but. They just make me uncomfortable.”

Sheldon sighs and drops his head, and Penny knows him well enough to know that he’s given up already. “Is it going to be useless to fight this?” he asks.

Penny grins. “Of course.”

“Is this going to end up with me on the roof?” He sounds so resigned it’s actually hilarious and Penny swallows the laugh that bubbles up in her throat.

“Of course,” she says, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him up off the couch. “Let’s go.”

--

“This building is not that tall.”

“I could’ve told you that from inside. On the couch. Where there was Dune and a roof over my head.”

“It looks taller from the ground.”

Sheldon says a lot of words after that that probably have to do with science (the distorted perception of reality and relativity and blah blah blah), but she doesn’t really pay attention. She creeps to the edge of the roof and looks down, over the parking lot and down onto the streets she can see.

It’s not so much that she’s afraid of heights now as it is that she was afraid of them once and she’s less afraid of them now, but when she clambers up onto the ledge and swings her feet over, the pit of her stomach still falls a little bit and her hands are like a vice on the bricks. She kicks her feet back and forth a few times and feels stupid and brave, but when she looks over her shoulder, Sheldon’s standing in the middle of the roof. “Sheldon, come on.”

He shuffles back and forth from foot to foot but doesn’t move toward her. “No, thank you.”

“Sheldon,” she says again, more forcefully, “come on.”

“No,” he says again, and his drawl slips out in his vowels, “I won’t. This ridiculous gesture is symbolic for you, not me. I’m fine right here.”

Penny cocks her head and slides off the ledge, both feet planted firmly on the rooftop again. “You’re afraid of heights,” she says, leaning back against the rail.

Sheldon lifts his chin haughtily, which is hard to do when he’s backing slowly away from her but he manages it anyway. “I don’t fear them. I respect them. Come back over here.”

“No,” Penny says, crossing her arms over her chest. She can be as stubborn as he is and she’s got better aim, faster feet, and a mean right hook. “At least come stand over here.” Sheldon opens his mouth (to protest, of course he’s going to protest) but Penny settles him with a look. “Don’t make me make you.”

He clenches his jaw so hard she can practically hear his teeth grinding together, but he puts one foot ever so slowly in front of the other until he’s standing next to her looking out over the parking lot. His knuckles are white where he’s got his hands clamped down on the ledge, and he’s breathing too evenly not to be silently panicking a little bit.

Penny looks out into the night, at the buildings and the lights and the city in the distance. They’re not so high up, and it wasn’t the most grandiose gesture she could make while the year slowly winds itself out, but she figures there’s always next year. She feels the breeze lift her hair off the back of her neck and resolves to resolve herself, to go to more auditions or pull out her unfinished screenplay or do something that makes her heart beat as fast as it did when she heaved herself up onto the ledge.

When Penny turns to Sheldon (to thank him, maybe, though she’s not really sure what for) he’s still gripping the rail too tightly and the muscles in his neck are taut. “Jesus, Sheldon,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from the rail, “alright already.”

She drags them a few steps toward the middle of the roof and Sheldon wipes the specks of dirt and stone from his hands. “Are we done now?” His voice is mostly even but it’s still strained a little at the edges. He’s flushed and flustered and Penny wants to laugh or wrap her arms around him or jump back on the ledge just to see him faint.

“You did very well, Sheldon. But this was supposed to be my turn.” She takes a step toward him. “What’re you afraid of?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He doesn’t look back toward the ledge but keeps his eyes locked on hers. “I am a leaf on the wind.”

Penny smirks. “So just academic failure and basic human intimacy, then?”

“Exactly.”

She hears horns blowing from the open windows of the building and when she leans back over the railing she can see people emptying out onto the street, noise-makers and sparklers in their hands. “It’s midnight,” Penny says.

Sheldon snorts and even though his heart rate is probably still through the roof he manages to sound as condescending as ever. “Your powers of deduction are astounding. Congratulations. There’s a fruit basket with your name on it inside. In my apartment. Where there’s a couch and Dune.”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” she says, walking back toward him. When she kisses him it’s as much about midnight as it is about the squeak in the back of his throat as her lips cover his, and when his hands scramble for purchase on her hips she can’t help but smile against his mouth. All in all, it’s a pretty chaste kiss, no tongue or anything (she wants to push Sheldon’s buttons a little bit, not send him into an all-out tailspin), but when she pulls away her heart’s beating a little bit faster and she’s got that stupid brave feeling in her fingertips again. Sheldon, god help him, is wide-eyed and silent, his nails digging into her skin through the thin cotton of her shirt. Penny steps away, leaving Sheldon holding onto nothing but the January night air.

She smirks at him and then turns toward the door to take them back downstairs. “So that’s basic human intimacy, then. I told you, Sheldon. Venture out into that great unknown.”

Sheldon pushes past her on his way back inside. “You manage to make even imaginary holidays uncomfortable.”

Penny just laughs. “Happy New Year to you too, Sheldon.”

[fic] root, root, root for the home team, bbtfic, s/p, 1500 words

allthingsholy — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:51:51 GMT

Title: Root, Root, Root for the Home Team
Author: allthingsholy
For: juniperlane at the sheldon_penny Saturnalia 2011.
Prompt: A SportsNight AU where Sheldon & Penny are Jeremy & Natalie. Basically, they work on a cable sports show. She’s the producer’s assistant and he’s a stats-obsessed production guy. And if you haven’t watched SportsNight, well. I guess that’s enough to be getting on with.
Notes: For Meg, because of course, and thanks to slybrunette for the looking over. This is just the first bit. I’ll probably go back and write, you know, the rest of it. Later. At some point. Any and all mangling of sports trivia/knowledge is all my fault.

--

“Do we have film from Seattle?” Dana slides into her chair and bumps up against Penny’s elbow. Her coffee cup tilts a little but manages to stay upright, not that Dana notices. She’s in pre-show mode. Casey could be walking around without pants on and Dana wouldn’t register it at all. (At least she didn’t the time it actually happened before.)

Penny squints down at the clipboard next to her. “Yes, we have the film.”

“Are we sure?”

Penny did notice that time Casey wasn’t wearing pants, but she double-checks anyway. “Yes.”

Dana grabs her wrist and leans in close. “Are we really sure? This isn’t going to be like last week when Dan and Casey narrated what should’ve been the Ohio State game but was instead footage from Pebble Beach?”

Penny barely manages not to roll her eyes in her boss’s face. Instead she leans around Dana and says, “Kim, do we have film from Seattle?”

“We do!”

Penny looks back at Dana (stressed, over-worked, beautiful Dana) and says, “We really do.”

And when they get to the thirties, the Seattle film’s the Seattle film and everything goes off without a hitch. Dan stumbles over his words in the sign-offs, but other than that it’s smooth sailing. Penny makes an America’s Cup pun in her head and Dana catches her snorting into her Diet Coke when they’re doing the post-show breakdown in her office.

“What’s so funny?” Dana’s got her feet scrunched up under her, her shoes kicked off and under the coffee table.

“Nothing,” Penny says. “I told you the Seattle film was ready.”

Dana leans back and stretches her hands above her head. It’s been a lot of long nights for the past few weeks and it shows in the slow reach of Dana’s arms toward the ceiling. They’ve all been carrying extra weight (Dan, Casey, even Eliot) but nobody carries as much or works as hard as Dana. And nobody beats herself up as much as Dana does when something slips through the cracks.

“You know,” Penny starts, and her voice is extra sweet and unassuming, “you wouldn’t have to worry so much about little things like the Seattle film if you’d hire a new guy.”

Dana doesn’t say anything but she does let out an impressive sigh and glare at Penny just a little bit. It’s the fifth or fiftieth time they’ve had this conversation in the past two months and Dana’s reaction is almost the same every time.

“Penny,” she starts, but Penny leans forward on her knees, scoots close and interrupts.

“We need to replace Kyle. I know you don’t want to, but we have to. And it’s not that you aren’t doing a great job holding everything together, but we need another set of hands.” Penny waits for a second and tries to judge her boss’s reaction. “I mean, it’s not like Kyle’s irreplaceable.”

Dana sighs again. “I know.”

“Kyle was an idiot.”

“I know.” This time when Dana looks up, there’s a bit of a smile on her face. “We’ll look at some resumes tomorrow.”

Penny leans back against the arm of the couch and smiles. “Good.” She nudges Dana with a toe. “And quit harping on me about that Pebble Beach thing.”

Dana shakes her head. “Pebble Beach, Penny. Casey was talking about a sixty yard punt return over footage of Phil Mickelson chipping onto the green.”

Penny shrugs her shoulder. It’s the end of a long night. The show went well and outside Dana’s window there’s a whole Manhattan skyline, lights in the sky as far as the eye can see. Tomorrow they’ll look at resumes and find someone to replace Kyle, and until then they’ve at least got their hands around it. She takes another drink of her Diet Coke and smiles. “You know, there’s a good reason that film got screwed up.”

“And what’s that?” Dana asks.

“I put Eliot in charge.”

--

The first three people they interview are, to put it mildly, awful. One guy talks about the Knicks for twenty minutes straight and when Dana says, “We do cover other teams, you know,” he gets this look on his face like Penny’s dad used to get when she asked to stay out past curfew. (The look he got on his face when Penny stopped asking altogether and just started coming home at dawn was entirely different.) One guy gives his entire career history to Dana’s chest. One guy calls them “ladies” when he sits down and asks when “the guy in charge” will be joining them.

“You know, I remember how to hog-tie a sow,” Penny says when the door closes behind the last guy. Well, the door’s not quite closed, in the sense that it’s still open and the guy’s still in the room, but he doesn’t say anything when he leaves (quickly) so it’s really all the same.

When the next guy finally sits down, Penny’s sure this is either going to be the best or the worst interview they have all day. He’s lanky, all knees and elbows and meticulously ironed clothes. His hair’s too perfect and when he sits down in front of them, his knees are probably perfect right angles. Penny sits a little straighter in her chair, suddenly super aware of her posture and the crease down the front of her shirt.

Dana launches right in with her usual slew of questions and Penny follows along on the copy of his resume on her clipboard: Sheldon Cooper, 28, graduate of MIT and former Fox Sports employee. His words are clipped and a little bit anxious, and he manages to fidget while also appearing rigidly controlled. Everything about him is at opposite ends of the spectrum, which is pretty much Penny’s exact reaction to him: he’s kind of super awkward, all elbows and knees and vaguely unflattering haircut, but at the same time Penny kind of can’t stop staring at his hands and his jawline and this little patch of freckles behind his ear.

“Penny?”

“Huh?” Maybe being a little too distracted by the hint of a drawl is a problem, since Dana’s looking at her expectantly and Penny has no idea why.

“Do you have any questions? Maybe about the Rangers or the Mets?”

“Oh!” Penny’s got a handful of hypotheticals at the ready, easy lobs and a few curveballs, things to check for general awareness of the sports world. “What do you think about the Knick’s prospect of picking up a big center? Will that help them get to the postseason?”

Sheldon clenches and unclenches his hands (Penny notices) and says, “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”

Dana shoots Penny a look. “Okay, well. I’d like you to.”

Sheldon draws his shoulder back and narrows his eyes. “I’d rather not.”

Dana draws herself up, positions herself just so in a way Penny recognizes immediately. This guy either gets his shit together in two seconds or this interview is over. “I’d really, really like you to try.”

Judging by his shoes and his general demeanor, reading social cues is maybe not at the top of Sheldon’s list of marketable skills, but he must be at least somewhat aware things aren’t going well because he stands up suddenly, curling his hands around the seatback of his chair. “Ms. Whitaker,” he starts, “I’m afraid if sheer speculation is all you’re looking for out of an assistant manager, we’ve reached the inevitable conclusion to this meeting. Speculation is imprecise and useless. I could tell you that a big man won’t do anything for the Knicks unless Carmello Anthony stops missing jumpers from outside the arc, or that D’Antoni needs to reinforce offensive rebounds in all his players, no matter their height, or that the Eastern Conference has teams stacked with big men who can’t perform and setting up a strong perimeter offense is more likely to keep the Knicks playing until May. But if you’re looking for thoughtful and detailed analysis, and I sense that you are, I’m going to need at least twenty minutes, a whiteboard, and a computer with Excel.”

Dana doesn’t say anything for a really long time. Sheldon just stands there, doing the times tables or naming every team in the AL Central and their average on-base percentage for the past three years. Penny looks back and forth between them and waits for Dana to say something, anything, to make this horribly awkward silence end. Finally Dana stands up and shakes Sheldon’s hand and for once she’s totally unreadable, even to Penny. Penny leans over and shakes Sheldon’s hand too, nods along for “thank you” and “we’ll be in touch” and then waits for the door to close and Dana to finally speak. It takes awhile. A really long while.

Finally Dana sits back down in her chair and looks at Penny. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure: that guy wouldn’t mix up Pebble Beach footage with an Ohio State game.”

--

Dear Yuletide Writer:

allthingsholy — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:51:37 GMT

First of all, thanks so much for writing for me! (I'm so sorry.) Yay Yuletide!

Now. My four requested fandom:

Downton Abbey: I requested Mary, Matthew, Richard, & Edith, and I'd be happy with a story that features any or all of those characters. I'd love some Edith gen, or some Edith backstory, or I crack!ship Edith & Neville Longbottom in a huge Hogwarts!AU kind of way. As for Matthew/Mary/Richard, I actually ship her with both of them. (I mostly ship Mary/Having a Fulfilled Life, but I'm by no means afraid of angst either.) I think her and Richard are really well suited for each other if not necessarily romantic ("We're strong and sharp and could make something worth having") but at the same time, Mary/Matthew, man. I'd like to know what a real marriage between Mary & Richard would look like, and how her continued feelings for Matthew would factor into that. (Or straight-up Mary/Matthew is more than fine too.)

David Tennant/Catherine Tate RPF: They're basically my favorite celebrity friendship of all time. I went to London in September to see them in Much Ado About Nothing at the Wyndham, and I'd love something centered around their experience with that play, with playing a romantic relationship as opposed to Ten & Donna. I equal amounts ship them and don't ship them, so I'm fine with all ends of that spectrum, from straight-up friendshippy fic to a full-blown romance to some sort of ambiguous middle ground with lots of lingering glances and enjoying stage kissing more than they should. (Bonus Adam James in anything Much Ado related would be aces, but TOTALLY not necessary.) Unrelatedly, I'd love something for them like "Five Episodes of Nevermind the Buzzcocks They Never Hosted."

The Station Agent: Man, I love this movie so much and I'd be happy to see absolutely any fic for it. I'd love for all three characters to be featured, though I probably slant more toward Fin and Olivia than I do Joe. But really I OT3 them a lot. I'd love them just sitting around drinking and talking about trains and going on walks and ... anything.

Another Earth (request contains spoilers): I'd love something centered around Rhoda, either version of her. I'd really, really like to know how Rhoda II came to Earth I, whether she knew either version of John Burroughs, how her life was different from Rhoda I's, whether she came as an actual scientist because she went to MIT this time. I'd be happy with something for either of the Rhoda or John versions, and I really liked Rhoda I's relationship with Purdeep too. I'd just really like something for this movie.

Wow, I feel like these are the least helpful things ever. I'm totally happy with whatever you write for any of these fandoms, I really am. I am fine with any rating, any wacky AUs, anything at all. If you need more specific specifics, juniperlane is my roommate and all-around brain twin, so she would probably be able to answer any questions.

Again, thank you so much for doing this! Best of luck with your writing and I can't wait to read whatever you write! Thanks so much and Happy Yuletide!

[fic] in that winter, a day, downton abbey/harry potter, edith/neville, pg

allthingsholy — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:24:04 GMT

Title: in that winter, a day
Fandom: Downton Abbey/Harry Potter
Pairing: Edith Crawley/Neville Longbottom
Notes: For the AU prompt meme on Tumblr, for the prompt, "Downton Abbey meets Hogwarts," from dreamingofdownton. Prompt came from there; the crazy came from me. Roughly 1k words.
Summary: Edith!fic. The Crawley sisters at Hogwarts with the rest of the HP characters, which makes no sense, but alas.

----

The Great Hall is a riot, a steady, buzzing din against her ears. She is ten and her fingers clench the stool so tightly she is like never to let go. When she walks to join her new House table--red and gold banners, a lion whose mane seems charmed to flow even on the still of the velvet flag--it’s Mary she sees, twirling the end of her blue tie between her fingers. Even at ten, Edith knows the look on her face is one of surprise.

She tucks herself at the end of a bench, confused and withdrawn. Mama and Papa were sure she’d be in Hufflepuff. She’s got a black and gold pennant in her bag. She tries to think if Mama knows of a charm to change its color and she’s so distracted she doesn’t notice when a small boy squeezes in beside her, all elbows and cheeks and terrible hair. He looks as lost as she feels.

They knock knees when they turn to face the Headmaster, brush hands when they reach for the same pumpkin pasty. He is Neville, he tells her.

She thinks very little of him yet, but that will change.

--

“You must sign it, Edith, you must.” Sybil’s elbow is perilously close to her inkpot and Edith reaches out, pulling it away from her sister’s far-flung limbs. She’s not averse to messes but two feet of spoiled parchment and a scene in the middle of the library seem especially pointless.

Sybil doesn’t even notice the inkpot. “It’s a great social injustice,” she says, hitting her palm against the table loud enough to turn the heads of two seventh year girls across the aisle. Edith ignores her sister and turns back to her Transfigurations essay. They’re vanishing invertebrates. If Mary were here, she’d no doubt have a choice comment or two. Take pity on your fellow spineless creatures, she’d say. How can all of you without a backbone stand up if you don’t cling to one another? Edith’s hand tightens just thinking about it and she nearly rips a gash in her parchment.

Sybil lets out another pointed sigh and then perks up suddenly. Edith follows her gaze across the library to Hermione Granger, no doubt pestering someone as equally disinterested as Edith’s proven to be. Sybil gathers her things in a rush, parchment flung this way and that, and hurries across the room. The inkpot turns over, black ink running a river over Edith’s half-finished essay. Sybil doesn’t notice.

--

She follows Neville to the first meeting and then the next. Signs her name to a piece of paper and feels, for once, as if she might belong.

Harry teaches them disarming spells and shield spells. She and Neville practice together. She does not tell him that she’s had more practice than he thinks at parrying blows. Harry teaches them offensive spells, too. Edith’s moves are disorganized and heedless, lashing out at everyone for want of a proper target.

They’re sparring, Neville at one end of the hall and Edith at the other, and she sees a gap in his defense, a break in his protection. She strikes, throws him back, knocks him down onto the pillows laid out for just this purpose. When he lifts his head, his face is split into a grin. “Edith,” he says, “that was brilliant!”

A blush rises in her cheeks, pride pulling her shoulders straight and lifting her chin. She learns the value of a proper blow, the worth of a pulled punch. Her shoulder brushes Neville’s on the way back to the Tower and it might just be her imagination but the look the Fat Lady gives her might well be proud.

--

They’re going home for the Christmas holiday. Edith leans her head against the window and watches the scenery, the rise and fall of the hills and the twists and turns of the water.

Mary is not impressed. “That Slughorn’s a menace,” she says, curling her feet up under her. “He’s always pestering me about Granny and Papa. You should’ve seen him at the holiday party, tripping over himself to make sure I was comfortable. He’s odious.”

Sybil rolls her eyes with affection--there’s always affection, Edith notices, when someone looks at Mary. “You didn’t have to go.”

Mary picks at the hem of her skirt. “Well, one of us had to go. You were too busy and, well. Not all of us were invited.”

It’s pointed and pleased and the sort of thing that would usually have Edith up in arms, but instead she just runs her fingernail along the windowsill and asks, “Have you heard the news from the Ministry?” There are reports coming from in from the city and the southern counties, things the Daily Prophet doesn’t try to explain. She reads all the papers. There’s even a Quibbler tucked into the bottom of her trunk where Papa will never find it.

“Really, Edith,” Mary says, smiling at someone passing in the hallway, “I have better things to do than pore over the papers every morning.” But Mary’s voice is strained and more than a little bit anxious and Edith knows the disinterest is as much an act as the way Mary leans casually against the cushions, limbs and hair arranged too perfectly to be natural.

She wants to speak up, wants to ask what Mary’s so afraid of, but she knows the answer well enough. Something’s coming, something real, and Edith has learned the value of choosing her battles.

--

It’s finally spring. There’s a spot next to the lake where a tree hangs especially bowed, its branches nearly trailing across the lawn when the air comes tripping off the water. Edith leans back against the trunk and runs the grass between her fingers. Neville names the trees, Latin falling thoughtless from his mouth. Salix babylonica, salix alba, salix herbacea. She jots down the final line for her Potions essay and then stretches out, toes pressed against Neville’s knee.

She asks him about plants and flowers; he tells her about late bloomers and sturdy perennials and things that grow and flourish against all odds. The breeze off the lake is cool but his palm against hers is warm.

She thinks him rather a lion-hearted boy.

thoughts on downton 2x01

allthingsholy — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 05:02:05 GMT

I'm not going to go into this saying I can be unbiased: I love this show. It gives me a lot of feelings and I think it's beautiful and I have a ridiculous amount of affection for many of the characters. That being said, I'm reserving judgment on some of the storylines until they progress a little bit more.

Ethel, the new housemaid: After discussing it with myself, I've decided that I like her. I don't know whether or not we're meant to (my first inclination is that we're not, but I hope I'm wrong) but I do. I've been reading some criticism of the show generally and Julian Fellowes specifically and the consensus seems to be that he has too much sympathy for the social stratification of Edwardian England, which seems to be a perfectly valid claim to make. There's more than a bit of reverence for the aristocracy. The worst thing Ethel's done so far is: want the hell out of Downton, and given O'Brien a bit of a smack (which she certainly can't be faulted for). The most upsetting thing for me was the scene where O'Brien sends Ethel into the drawing room. I was upset with everyone upstairs for laughing at her (especially Sybil) and I was upset with everyone downstairs for delighting in her embarrassment. I hope that Fellowes takes the story in a constructive place, that he uses it to illuminate the ways in which the social stratification was accepted by the serving class to their own detriment and the ways they overcame it. I hope that he doesn't use it as a way to say, "This is what happens when you get above yourself. This is what happens when you dream too big."

Sybil & Branson: I don't care about Sybil and Branson. I think Branson came off kind of like a dick in this episode. Bring back Gwen. I'll be in the corner shipping Sybil/Daisy until she gets back.

Bates & Anna: Man, Bates, you continue to be noble to a fault. And I do mean a fault. I think you're making a bad choice here, but I'm sure it'll right itself in the end. I liked the scene between Bates and Lord Grantham (to a point) because the viewer knew more than Robert: Bates wasn't doing it for Robert (despite what Carson tells Robert later). He was doing it for Anna. I know that Robert thinks they've "successfully bridged the great divide" (which, see above for my
thoughts on the social structure of the house, but I hope the lower class is allowed to bring itself up without the outstretched hand of someone better positioned), but I don't think Bates did it for the Crawleys at all. (It probably factored in, to be fair.) He did it for Anna. And I like that. I want to see him be a bit selfish. And man, Anna. Joanne Froggatt, you get it. Her face killed me. When she told him that she was willing to live in sin with him, she didn't care, she just didn't want him to leave, man. HEARTACHE. Poor Anna. I am curious about what these two have been up to for the past 2 years though. Clearly he's been trying to get a divorce but hasn't been able to find his wife or get her to agree, but what about the rest of the staff? Bates clearly told Robert his plans, but what about everyone else? Do they know Bates and Anna have a thing? What do they think? I WANT TO KNOW.

Mary: Oh, jeeze. Lady Mary Crawley, I love you so dearly. I've been a Mary fan since the start and I know she's got her detractors, but I really fail to understand what you could possibly hate about Mary. I've tried asking and no one will give me an answer because I honestly want to know. I think that the conversation between Mrs. Hughes and Carson was the perfect encapsulation of everyone's problem with Mary: Mrs. Hughes prefers Lavinia because she's "gentle" where Mary is "heartless"; Carson gets to see behind the curtain with Mary and knows she's not at all heartless, that it's all just a matter of what she lets you see. And that's so perfectly Mary. She doesn't ask for anyone's sympathy or pity. She doesn't want it. (It was, however, really nice to see everybody in Mary's corner when Cousin Isobel was telling them all that Matthew would be home and Mary would have to see him with this fiancee. Everyone looked so concerned and worried for Mary (which she would hate, but it's nice that they realize she's entirely heartbroken and are trying to watch out for her).)

In preparing for the second series, I rewatched the first one and it is literally all about Mary and her family pushing her into a marriage she doesn't want. She feels relief at Patrick's death (I construe it as relief, and seeing Mary "not as sad as she should be" is telling enough, I think); then she's immediately pushed toward Matthew. Everyone's in Matthew's corner--why should he have to marry this lady he doesn't even know when she's not nice to him and she doesn't like him? What about Mary? Why should Mary's reaction be any different? Why should she welcome the opportunity to marry a man she doesn't know just to make her family happy? Everyone spends the season pushing wealthy man at her while she repeatedly says, "I WILL DO WHAT I WANT." Evelyn Napier says, "I think marriage should be based on love, at least at the start," and no one hates him. Edith says she's more than willing to marry Patrick, or Anthony Strallen, and seems like at the most critical a gold digger and at the least critical then entirely self-interested. Mary has the audacity to not do as she's told. I don't think that makes her less worthy of the audience's affection--I know it makes her more worthy of mine.

Relatedly, I think the bond between Sybil and Mary is the most interesting female relationship in the series (though not one we get to see much of). The both of them are pretty much determined to do as they like and they're clearly fond of each other, but Sybil's rebellion comes in much more productive fashion than Mary's. Edith tells us why though: Edith and Sybil don't matter. Mary's the oldest, the one who will or will not inherit, the one best placed to make a beneficial match. Mary's got her whole family staring at her, wanting something from her. No wonder she fails and falters when she does. I think it's so telling and perfect that the only people Mary will let her guard down around are Carson and Anna, people who have to love her, or have to at least let her by herself without commenting on it. She's like that with Matthew too, to an extent (somewhat last season, a bit more (and a bit less) this season).

Speaking of Matthew, man. He really, really thinks he's not coming home, doesn't he? When he was saying goodbye at the train station, it was just all so defeated and resigned and awful and Mary's barely holding it together and. These two. They give me all the feelings. ALL THE FEELINGS. I love seeing them have this adult relationship after they were particularly catty and snide to each other when they first met. I like that Mary asks what it's like at the front. I wonder if Lavinia asks, if she feels comfortable enough to, if she wants to know. I don't dislike Lavinia (it makes sense that Matthew would try to take comfort in someone else when everything with Mary seemed so hopeless) but I don't particularly want her to marry Matthew either.

All in all, this episode didn't disappoint me in the slightest. I was worried I'd set the bar too high, but I hadn't. I'm very much looking forward to next week. I'm very much looking forward to every Sunday from now until the end of October. BRING IT, FIVE-TIME EMMY WINNING MINISERIES.

[fic] everywhere i go (the hard to keep track of you remix), sheldon/penny, pg13, 1500 words

allthingsholy — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 21:50:54 GMT

Title: everywhere i go (the hard to keep track of you remix)
Author: allthingsholy
Remix of: Half-Awake in a Fake Empire (BBT/Dollhouse Crossover) by juniperlane
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: MORE PLEASE. Either how Sheldon ended up being a doll. Or more of what happens after. Or Sheldon and Penny during the Epitaph timeline. JUST MORE PLEASE. For the remix challenge at sheldon_penny.
Notes: You should really, really, really go re-read the original fic before you read this, or you will only understand about half of this remix. Sheldon/Penny, during the "Epitaph" timeline. Clocks in at a mod-approved 1500 words since, for remix-purposes, I wanted it pretty much the same length as the original fic. Thanks to slybrunette for looking over it for me. Title from Lissie/The National.

----

The first time she sees him, she’s hiding behind a dumpster in the middle of downtown LA and the city’s a war zone. Her fingers still around her gun (one at her hip, one more in her bag, and one always, always in her hand) and there he is: the same posture, the same mannerisms. He waves a group of people forward with a long-fingered hand and she remembers him too well, even now. The group surges toward her and then he’s there, just out of reach, and she steps out into the street, one hand on her gun and the other dangling useless at her side. When he jerks the gun to his shoulder and stares at her down the barrel, she thinks, Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

His eyes are still so very blue.

She steps forward and for a second she forgets about the war and the chaos and the rest of the world falling to pieces around them. This is her first mistake.

--

He doesn’t have gaps in his memory, or know about the in-betweens. His eyes narrow in recognition and then he says her name (he draws it out with more drawl than she remembers) and something comes to life in her chest, but then she realizes: there’s no familiarity there. She’s a famous actress, and even with the world shot to shit, more people than not knew her face. It hurts more than she thought it would and she’s had to withstand a lot.

He introduces himself with little courtesy. “Sheldon Cooper, Ph.D.” He’s the head of a motley crew, tech experts all, and they think they have a plan. It takes a thorough round of questions before they decide to trust her and the hesitation with which he finally drops his gun makes her think he never really will. He surely doesn’t yet. There’s little time for pleasantries as she wins most of them over with hidden stockpiles, safe places she’s ferreted out in the months since the city went crazy, but when she nails a walker between the eyes from 100 yards away, there’s a flash of respect in his eyes she won’t let herself mistake for affection.

--

They become a unit. A unit she doesn’t want to leave, either. There’s safety in numbers. That’s what she tells herself. It doesn’t have anything to do with his hands on a gun like she always imagined, with the thrill that runs up her spine when they’re on the move (in perfect sync, in perfect harmony, and she tells herself it’s nothing more than latent programming), with the fact that for the first time in a long time, she’s happy to be alive. There’s a skirmish and a victory and when she turns to him in triumphant jubilation, she watches his face to see if something flickers or gives (it never does). And then her hands are cold on the hot steel of her gun again and the world feels a little bit smaller.

She catalogs his differences like a penance. The bark in his tone that is all bite, the detached kick of his boot as he shifts a body out of his path. She wonders if the coldness she sees in him—the calculating, objective eyes he casts on everyone and everything they meet—come naturally or if they’re just a by-product of the war. There are moments when something in his face seems to give, when it is a war and a lifetime ago and they are happy again.

It isn’t real, she tells herself. It was never real. There’s a fire, an explosion, something pushing them always, always forward and whatever flickered in his face is gone.

It always ends the same.

--

They catch sleep in starts and fits, pull a few hours’ rest when they can. She dreams of him, of their time together, of lazy Sundays doing the crossword in bed, of his hand on the inside of her thigh, of his mouth at her shoulder or her neck. It’s been years since she last saw him (a relocation to New York and she couldn’t quite bring herself to find the Dollhouse there, couldn’t look too closely at the reasons it felt like betrayal) but she’s thought of him often in the interim. His eyes, his hands, the steady weight of him above and beside her. It’s what she dreams about at night and when she wakes to find him looking at her, eyes alert as he keeps watch, there’s a burning in her belly that has nothing to do with too many days without food. She takes the rifle from his hand and passes him the scrap of fabric that serves for a blanket these days, and when their fingers touch (their fingers always touch and it is never, ever by accident) she bites her lip hard enough to break skin. She spends the hours until sunrise watching him sleep, wanting to slip down beside him and kiss the familiar spot behind his ear. She never does.

--

The others talk about the tech like it’s superhuman. They theorize, speculate, try to imagine what kind of greed and entitlement made anyone think they could handle such power. Penny bites her tongue and cleans her gun. Sheldon talks about moral relativity and the rights of the few and the many. He talks about string theory, about parallel universes where none of this ever happened.

Penny hopes in one of those universes, the lives she imagined for them (neighbors, friends, lovers, partners) actually happened. Even as a dream, it feels like too much to hope for.

--

The others may speculate, but she’s seen enough to know where the world went wrong. Blank faces, empty eyes. People filled with lives and memories that aren’t their own. It’s so familiar it turns her stomach.

She never tells him he was a part of the thing that ruined the world. She’s glad they took the memory from him, left him with a clean slate.

She envies him the easy judgment he passes on people like her.

--

“What did you do, before?”

Sheldon’s hands still over the bread he’s portioning, meticulously exact measurements for each of them. “I was a scientist.”

And Penny knows that, knows where he did his undergraduate studies, his post-grad research. She knows where he was born and she asks anyway.

It’s a still night. Everyone else is lounging around (as much as they can lounge with loaded shotguns at their feet), telling stories from before. He frowns (and she knows the lines of his face, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and she wants to reach out and smooth them away with the pad of her thumb) and says, “I watched your show.”

It hurts like the worst kind of disappointment. That he knows her face, her eyes, all through the plasma flat of a TV screen. That for him, the distance between them is endless. For her, it’s just heartbeats.

There’s a long silence. She doesn’t know what he thinks about, if when he crawls inside his head (as he so often does, and this is maybe the most notable difference of all, how prone he is to silences) whether he looks forward or behind.

Someone at the fire laughs. Penny scrapes the last bits of juice from a can of beans. Sheldon stands to go back to the fire but stops for a minute, turned away from her. His jaw muscle works for a long second before he says, “Maybe we deserved this. Maybe we got exactly what we asked for.”

He doesn’t wait for her to answer. She watches him go back to the group, watches him pass the plate of bread and make sure everyone’s getting exactly their fair share. Maybe we got exactly what we asked for. She doesn’t know if he meant the war or what came before, and she wonders not for the first time (or the hundredth, or the thousandth) what he was running from. What made the Dollhouse seem like a better option.

Maybe we got what we asked for. It’s moments like this when he’s so unlike the Sheldon she knew. When she can close her eyes and pretend it’s just another role, another scene partner, a guy she met at the end of the world and that could be all it is.

But when she heads to bed without dinner, stretching out next to her gear and looking up at the stars, she can’t pretend. In another life, Sheldon taught her the constellations, their names and the stories to go with them. He’s just there, just out of reach, sitting still on a tree stump and keeping watch over all of them. He feels so goddamn far away. Penny curls around herself, pulling her knees to her chest, all on her own. Again.

--

They make their way out of the city and into the desert. They leave their tech behind, and more than a few of their number. Their camp is small and limping, but resilient. One month passes, then two. No butchers. No dumbshows. (Penny still sleeps with a gun in her reach. Quiet is one thing. Safe is something else entirely.)

Sheldon comes to her one night, hands clasped behind his back as he stands at her feet and there’s no mistaking his intentions. She waits for that flicker of recognition, that shimmer of something when he says her name. His voice sounds the same when he whispers into her neck. He still fits so perfectly against her, pressed up against all the places she’s missed him. She slides her hands up his shoulders, across the plane of his back, and wonders if he’ll remember (remember the sex, remember the crossword, remember anything about her before she had a gun in her hands), but he won't. He won't.

----

[fanmix] damage control: a ben/april tracklist

allthingsholy — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:55:55 GMT

ill with want - the avett brothers
the loneliness & the scream - frightened rabbit
warning sign - local natives
the future's nothing new - the alternate routes
white light - vienna teng
not for all the love in the world - the thrills
old haunts - the gaslight anthem
various stages - great lake swimmers
darkest things - the submarines
not miserable - frightened rabbit

Click for individual downloads or:

>>>THE FULL TRACKLIST<<<

A fanmix for Just Trying to Get the Good, a Ben/April fic. Though by "fanmix" I really mean "the songs I listened to excessively when I wrote it plus the awkward graphics that I made to go with." The songs are probably ten times better than the fic, but I acknowledge that fully. Enjoy. (Artwork included in the zip file, or click the graphic for the mediafire link.)

[fic] just trying to get the good (2/2), ben/april, nc-17, 15000 words

allthingsholy — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:57:10 GMT

Title: Just Trying to Get the Good (Part 2/2)
Author: allthingsholy
Pairing: Ben/April (Parks & Rec)
Rating: R? NC-17? Let's say NC-17.
Words: ~15000 total; ~6500 this part.
Notes: Thanks so much to cypanache for looking over all of this one, two, three times and helping me work out some plot and characterization kinks. Thanks to ishie for the once-over and slybrunette for being the best cheerleader ever. Cross-posted to geegollythanks, a Ben/April shipping community that everyone should check out because these two are awesome. Title from "The Future's Nothing New" by The Alternate Routes.

----

After The Bulge, Ben decides to try harder to be a normal person, a functioning member of society, something other than a waste-of-space asshole. For every step Ben tries to take forward, April’s determined to take two steps back.

He wakes up in the morning and actually makes breakfast, scrambles eggs and fries bacon. He steers clear of waffles, sure, but give a guy some credit for trying.

Even though he makes enough for two, April stands at the counter and picks at a pop-tart. She throws her crusts at him and even though he’s somehow shaking crumbs out from under the flap of his collar in his mid-morning meeting, he doesn’t relent.

He turns off the tv and reads a book instead. April plugs her iPod into the speakers and cranks club music until he’s rocking a truly impressive headache.

“Jesus, Ben, this isn’t a library.” She’s got her hands on her hips and what he’s come to realize is the April version of a pout on her face. “‘Man vs. Food’ is on. Let’s go.”

Ben doesn’t look up from his book, like if he avoids eye-contact then winning this battle is just within his reach. “Why don’t you do something other than watch tv tonight? Don’t you have homework?”

“It’s July, asshole.”

The sex does not get more tender. Even if Ben tried, April has more tricks up her sleeve than any 22-year-old has a right to know. They have sex on the floor in the hallway, one night in the backseat of his car while it’s still parked in the garage. There’s a particularly memorable encounter after April brings home a “Vote Knope!” yard sign, proving that Ben’s new life-attitude only extends so far. Ben shoves the sign behind a cabinet, next to an old Slip ‘N Slide and a dusty lawn dart set.

So. Baby steps.

--

Tom throws an Entertainment 720 party at the Snakehole. They’re promoting Dennis Feinstein’s new fragrance (and how he got away with the licensing for a perfume named “Sluts” is something Ben will never understand) and Tom’s convinced it’s a total coup, that it’s the thing that’s going to break them, send them into the multimedia conglomerate stratosphere. Those are the exact words he uses. The whole thing’s ridiculous.

Ben begs out early, has one beer and then sneaks out the front door. He doesn’t tell April he’s leaving.

He gets a text a half hour later. “Hey asshole, where are you?”

He’s well into his nightly routine now, sweatpants-ed and Food Network-ed, and he texts her back: “Home. Headache. Have fun.” And maybe he left because he’s 36 and the Snakehole is for twenty-somethings, because April is a 20-something and should be out there having fun and living her life, not sitting at home feeling sorry for herself all the time. And it’s not that she’s not old enough to make her own decisions (god knows April Ludgate is perfectly capable of making up her own mind, and he’s got a hickey just above his collarbone to prove it) but still.

He gets a text back not two minutes later. “Fucker. Come back and get me.”

He waits almost ten minutes before he answers her and he spends that whole time thinking about the lights in her hair that night at the Bulge. “Can’t. Private time with Nigella. Sock’s on the door.”

She doesn’t text him again, but he hears her come in sometime after midnight (Donna was there to drive everyone home again) and he’s not sure, but she might be humming. He hopes she danced.

--

Eventually Ben pushes it one step too far. (Truth be told, it’s probably, like, 30 steps too far, but he’s working with limited knowledge.) He finds the marshmallow gun under the sofa one afternoon while April’s at her parents’ house for some birthday party and he’s waiting on the couch when she gets back. Andy used to drag her into the living room on Saturday mornings to make blanket forts, and whatever new found energy Ben’s got, it doesn’t include blanket forts.

April comes in and shrugs her bag off her shoulder, walks toward the couch and then sees him. Everything in her face goes entirely still and her voice is oddly low when she asks, “What are you doing?”

Ben holds up the gun. There’s a bag of mini-marshmallows on the cushion next to him and he makes a truly awkward attempt at a smile. “I found this.”

April walks toward him and takes the gun from his hand. She’s really calm about it, so calm it’s almost creepy, and Ben watches her as she walks down the hallway and throws the gun in her room.

When she comes back, there’s something off about her face and Ben realizes that for as much time as he’s spent with April (on the couch, at work, inside her, whatever) there are whole parts of her he’s never gotten at. She stops a few feet from the couch.

“What are you doing?”

This is some sort of trap. He can’t see exactly how, but this is not going to go well. “I told you. I found it. It was under—”

But April shakes her head at him. “That’s not what I mean. These past few weeks, you’ve been, I don’t know.” Her hands are just hanging there at her sides, and god. She’s so young. “I don’t need your help.” Her voice cracks. Jesus, what the hell did he step in?

“We both need something.” That much is pretty fucking obvious. April's more tense than he’s ever seen her.

She bites off her words and her hands are balled into fists. “And what, you think you’re the something I need?”

Woah. Not the point. “I never said that.”

“But you think that if I’m all better then suddenly you’re all better? You can’t even put up a fucking yard sign.” April’s voice is a lot more flippant than she probably feels given the fact that she looks about ready to burst into tears.

And that isn’t what he’s been doing. Is that what he’s been doing? Using April as a pathetic proxy so he can pretend he has his shit together? He starts toward the garage. “You want me to put up the yard sign? Fine.”

But April’s in his way and she doesn’t budge an inch. “I want you to stop treating me like solving all my problems somehow solves all of yours.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” And so what if it is? At least he's trying, or trying to try. Whatever. Fuck.

“Bullshit. Why do you even have to mess with things?”

And Ben doesn’t care that it’s almost certainly misdirected anger because they’ve spent so long just simmering in their own juices, stewing in each others’ misery, that the explosion feels fucking great and finally raising his voice is the best he’s felt in weeks. “Because we’re both miserable." He’s just so fucking angry all of a sudden, and it’s the first time he hasn’t tried to stifle it with a clipped smile or inappropriate sex. "Jesus, April, isn’t not giving a shit just fucking exhausting?”

April huffs out a breath and shakes her head and he can see her get a handle on whatever made her so unhinged, reign back in whatever had her so close to actually being vulnerable. She spins on her heel and heads to her room and whatever tenuous thing they had going, it's snapped right the fuck in two.

Ice Clown Gets Kicked While Down.

Great.

--

They don’t speak to each other for a week. At work, she calls him Mr. Wyatt.

Probably just to spite him, April throw herself into Leslie’s campaign. Elections are in October, so they have two months to get her name out there, make the community aware of the fact that she’s more than just “Park Lady” now. It’s part of the reason Leslie’s so stressed out about Harvest Festival, like, if it tanks right before the election then she’s got absolutely no chance. And it’s not that Leslie tries to put more pressure on everybody else but she can do 200 things at once and expects that much of everyone else too. It’s more than a little wearing.

April takes to it like a fiend. Spends more time at Leslie’s house doing campaign things, more time canvassing and dragging people to events. And even though Ben’s 99% sure she started out doing it just to fuck with him (he’s come home to “Vote Knope!” pamphlets so many times in the past week he’s lost count, and the pile of signs behind the cabinet in the garage is getting pretty impressive), he can tell she likes it. And maybe that has something to do with him, with what he said to her, because it’s obvious that she does care, not just about Leslie winning, but about Leslie.

Ben does not miss the irony in the fact that all his honest effort got him nowhere and getting her mad enough to scream at him seems to have done the fucking trick.

If any of what he said got to April, it’s no doubt that he took her words to heart. After a dozen failed attempts at being a contributing member of society, Ben has to admit what a sham it was before, how focused he was on making April feel better instead of actually focusing on his own problems. As if making breakfast and trying to get April out of the house didn’t just mean he had a lot of time on his hands to be the same cranky bastard as before.

He tries going out with Tom but spends most of the night pissed at the fact that if April were with him, she could help him decide whether or not Tom’s wearing a woman’s blazer and when he gets home that night, he can’t help but check for a sliver of light from under April’s bedroom door.

And maybe checking up on April is falling right back into old patterns, but still. Baby steps.

--

He comes back late from work one night and April’s sitting on the couch with her laptop cycling through a bunch of songs. She doesn’t really look at him when he comes in. She’s been doing that for a week, not really talking to him, being ambivalently hostile. He’s been working his way through a Pamela Dean cookbook (and telling himself it counts as making an effort) while she sits at the table and throws her wadded up McDonald’s wrappers at his back. It’s super fucking awesome.

Some Beyonce song (it’s probably Beyonce, it’s maybe Rihanna, he’s a full grown man, he isn’t supposed to know these things) is blaring from her laptop and Ben’s halfway to his room when April says, “I’m picking a new campaign song for Leslie, want to help?”

Two months ago she wouldn’t let him look at the campaign posters without a heaping serving of pity on the side. Now she’s shoving it in his face and loving it. Her mouth’s twisted into this half-formed smile and it’s so fucking ugly, so fucking wrong, that Ben turns around and sits down on the couch right next to her. “We should look for something to appeal to the youth vote, I think.” He leans over and clicks on a song, something peppy and fast that he’s never heard before and bops his head along with the beat. “What about this one?”

April changes it to another, and then another, and they go back and forth like that. Ben snaps his fingers, says things like, “This one doesn’t quite capture Leslie’s pep.” Or “I think ‘Let me see them Hanes’ is just Leslie’s message in a nutshell.”

And then April scrolls down and clicks and it’s “Whoomp! There It Is.” She’s not smiling anymore. She’s looking at him like it’s painful, all wide eyes and pursed lips, and he knows she knows exactly what she’s doing, that she googled him back during all that Crazy Ira bullshit and some things just stuck, because she’s April and that’s just how she is.

He wants to say something biting to one-up her, maybe lean over and play a Mouse Rat song, but instead he just taps the space bar and the room’s really quiet all of a sudden.

Of all the things Ben tried to pull April out of her funk, genuine honesty was never one of them and no, he’s not yelling this time, but the truth is still probably his best bet. His tongue sticks in his throat a little bit when he tries to talk. “You know, I spent 18 years running away from the worst thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t go back to Partridge for a decade after I went away to school.” April doesn’t pull her laptop away or anything, doesn’t give him the finger and run away to her room, so he keeps talking. “It’s just a shit-ton of wasted time, after awhile.”

For them, it’s almost sentimental. When he looks over, April’s looking at him—actually looking at him—and it’s a whole lot more intimate than the month and a half he spent fucking her. She’s so fucking full of promise it’s unbearable and the feeling that comes to life in Ben’s chest feels a lot less like sympathy than affection. He leans over and taps the space bar but when he gets up off the couch and goes toward his room, April pauses the music again. “Do you think you loved her?”

April’s voice is tiny and genuine and when he looks back at her, she’s as vulnerable as she was the night they fought. There’s no heat now though, just genuine curiosity and something that looks an awful lot like guilt.

Ben turns around and slides his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t let himself think about it too often because it’s literally the most depressing thing in the world to think about, whether or not he loves Leslie when they’re not even together anymore. Sometimes he thinks yes, sometimes he thinks no. Sometimes he think he fell in love with a lot of things, Pawnee and his job and the way the town made him feel, but when he looks at all of that hard enough it’s really just Leslie all over again. So he just shrugs a shoulder and says, “I don’t know. I definitely don’t love feeling like this all the time.”

It may not be profound but it at least has the benefit of being true.

--

They have a sort of truce after that. Ben stops pushing so hard and April stops fighting and they’re just kind of doing it, just being real people. April even comes into the kitchen to “help out” with the cooking, which mostly consists of stealing bits of carrot off the cutting board and calling him Benjy Crocker. She sits on the counter and tells him all about the new porn series she’s thought of, Ben and Nigella and all sorts of world cuisine and sexual positions he’s pretty sure are physically impossible. And when Ben leans over and lobs the ladle at her, cocks an eyebrow and winks, April huffs out a laugh that’s the best thing Ben’s heard in a long fucking time.

He wakes up one Sunday morning and April’s sprawled out on the sofa watching tv. He makes a cup of coffee, a few pieces of toast, and when he takes them into the living room, April doesn’t look at him but she does slide her feet off the cushion on his side of the couch. They sit and watch some nature program about gorillas and Ben reaches out and slides a hand around her ankle, dips his thumb into the hollow around her tendon. They haven’t fooled around since they stopped being dicks to each other and his hand on her leg isn’t entirely sexual, but he can’t help but feel super aware of her next to him, extra conscious of how much this is like the first time they fucked. Or maybe it’s not so much like that at all anymore. Things are by no means perfect but it all feels a little less dire. Going to work in the morning isn’t quite so hard. Walking into the Parks Department for meetings doesn’t make him want to die. And Ben thinks if Ron asked how April was doing now, telling him she’s fine wouldn’t be as much of a stretch.

--

There’s another Harvest Festival meeting. They’re in the Parks Department conference room and Jerry and Leslie are trying to nail down the placement of all the food vendors. (Jerry got put in charge of food under the strict understanding that he was not actually to eat any of it until he was very much off-duty, lest they have another incident.)

Leslie’s noticeably distracted. She keeps interrupting mid-sentence to ask about something they just got done talking about, and when she tells them all to take a five-minute break, Ben stays behind in the room. Maybe he’s growing. Maybe he’s faking it, but even the effort feels like a step in the right direction.

Leslie’s at the head of the table totally engrossed in a spreadsheet. Ben taps his pen against his notepad. “Everything okay?”

Leslie looks up like she didn’t even know he was there and given how distracted she’s been, maybe she didn’t. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, and maybe it’s a little less painful to look at her than it was yesterday? It’s hard to keep track.

“Oh,” Leslie says. She puts the spreadsheet down and nods to herself a few times. “Yeah, everything’s fine.” Her smile’s fake. Even if he hadn’t dated her for three months, even if he wasn’t probably still totally crazy about her, he’d be able to tell so he just kind of cocks his head and waits for her to say something.

Finally Leslie breathes out, this great big sigh that shakes her shoulders, and he can see her hesitate a long time before she says, “It’s the campaign.”

Ah. He must have some sort of visible reaction because Leslie’s immediately backtracking. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—”

But Ben holds up a hand. “It’s fine.” And it is, it totally is, except for how it makes him feel like there’s a vice around his chest, this thing that came between them, this thing that ruined everything, and really it’s the last fucking thing he wants to talk about, and yet. “What’s wrong?”

Leslie shakes her head. “Nothing in particular, just.” She bites her lip and god, he used to love when she did that. “It’s just a lot to deal with, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” And he does. So he asks what’s going on and listens while she tells him about the long hours and the stress, how it’s everything and nothing like she thought it would be. By the time Jerry and Donna get back, some of the air has come back in the room and it’s actually not so awful. Maybe he really is growing.

Leslie starts talking about cotton candy stands and he looks out past her shoulder to where April’s sitting at her desk. Maybe his mind’s playing tricks on him, but he could almost swear she smiles at him.

--

It's a Saturday and Ben leaves the house, actually goes out and runs errands and buys groceries. Late August is basically awful. Summer is the only time he really misses Nebraska, when the river makes the city a hot, humid mess.

April apparently doesn't share his distaste because when he gets back to the house, she's sitting in the backyard, feet propped up on a lawn chair and a bottle of tequila on the table next to her. Ben puts away the bags of things he brought back and then slides opens the back door. "What are you doing?"

"Knitting a sweater." April doesn't look at him. She's got her head tipped all the way back and her hair twisted up. She looks peaceful but that's probably more due to the alcohol. He can't tell how much she's been drinking but her words aren't slurred or anything so it's probably not too much. Yet.

He steps outside and shuts the door, crosses to the table but keeps to the shade. They got the lawn set at Goodwill for a steal, so it's battered and beat to shit but April looks comfortable enough. He pulls out one of the chairs and sits down. "What are you drinking?"

She slides the shot glass across the table, then nudges a bottle of lemon juice toward him. "Drink up."

"What the hell is this?" He has never seen anyone drink this before. And he went to college, where basically the only liquid that was off-limits was lighter fuel.

April seems unfazed. "It's a legitimate shot in Venezuela."

"It's a really sad margarita."

"Whatever." April rolls her neck and her head lolls toward him. There's a line of sweat under her ear that’s working down toward her collarbone and Ben's suddenly very aware of the fact that they haven't had sex in awhile. And he's in the middle of imaging a host of different things (the backyard's pretty shaded, their neighbors are cool enough, no one else is outside in this fucking heat anyway) when April says, "I saw Andy today."

Oh. So that explains that.

The sum total of what April has said about her relationship with Andy since they split is about the same as what she's said to him about her favorite shades of nail polish. (For the record, black and probably purple, going by the most frequently used. Not that he's kept track or anything.) And it's not like April really does feelings (though at this point, he's come to realize that that's more than a little debatable) so he's sure as shit not going to ask. For want of a better option, he leans over for the shot glass and downs it in one and Jesus fuck, it burns like heartbreak.

"That's fucking awful." God, his eyes are watering.

April rolls her eyes. "Pussy."

It takes four more shots between them before she brings up Andy again. She was canvassing at an apartment complex across town and he answered the door. April doesn't seem worked up about it, which is almost definitely worse than if she were in hysterics.

There's a small part of him that wants to look at this as payback, wants to remind her how long she spent throwing Leslie in his face and there's a stack of yard signs in the garage that makes a damn convincing argument. But this new thing between them (on one hand, it's just civility, but on the other it feels a lot more like camaraderie), it's tentative and fragile and fuckall if Ben's going to screw with it. So instead of needling her, he just listens to everything April has to say. Granted, the April version of spilling her soul is basically the Leslie version of ordering a sandwich but he gets the gist.

Eventually she stops talking and just kind of sits there spinning the shot glass in her hands. Ben leans his elbows on the table and picks at a gash in the plastic.

“I’m sorry.” If it weren’t so quiet, Ben might’ve missed it, but he doesn’t. When he looks up at April, she’s picking at the label on the bottle of lemon juice. “For the yard signs and all Leslie’s campaign stuff, whatever.” She meets his eyes. “I’m not always a bitch, you know.”

He can tell how much seeing Andy must’ve shaken her because it’s the most sincere apology he’s ever gotten from her. It helps stem the little piece of him that wants to say some version of “I told you so,” and instead he says, "It helped. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was horrible. But it's not like I could avoid all that forever. It's not like it goes away."

If somebody had asked him in June to guess the one person he'd come through this break-up with, April would have been at the bottom of the list. If somebody had asked him the one person he'd be fucking for the majority of the summer, the result would have been pretty much the same. But they’re still a unit, a fucked-up crazy Ben and April unit, and when he starts talking about all the ways he’s tried to put himself back together it feels a lot less like being a pushover and a lot more like taking one for the team. He talks about Leslie and Partridge and tries to tell her some version of a story about things not going the way you think they will, how you have to rally and keep going, soldier on and all that trite Hallmark bullshit, only a little less Hallmark and a little more April Ludgate. He can't tell if he's successful but at least she doesn't walk out on him.

He ends up talking for awhile and by the end of it April's just kind of staring at him. "And, you know, I had an actual conversation with Leslie the other day. And it was good, I mean, it wasn't great or anything, but it was a step."

"I get it," April interrupts. "Your heart grew three sizes that day." It has a lot less bite in it than it would've had a week ago. Even a lot less bite than it would've had three months ago. April takes a deep breath and stands up. "God, it's disgusting out here, can we go inside already?"

It's not exactly "thank you" and it certainly isn’t “I’m sorry,” but it'll do.

--

Just when it feels like they’ve been planning the Harvest Festival forever, it’s right around the corner, time to start setting up tents and first aid stations and clearing the lot for the Fat Coaster. Entertainment 720’s handling some of the logistics and it’s nice having Tom around more, even if Jean-Ralphio’s still a giant tool. Ben stays late one night to make sure all the licenses are cleared, stops by the grocery store on his way home and picks up ice cream and the makings for enchiladas (definitely not because April takes way too much pleasure in insulting his attempts at Mexican food). But when he walks through the door, bags in hand, April’s sitting on the couch waiting for him. She’s got the marshmallow gun in front of her, so. This is either a really good sign or a really, really bad one. Ben takes a very careful step forward but she raises the gun and says, “Not so fast.”

Ben shakes his head, still super wary of where this is all headed. “April, what are you doing?”

She slides the pump back and fires, one single mini-marshmallow that hits him in the shoulder. “Nothing. What are you doing?” And there’s not exactly a smile on her face but there’s definitely the start of a grin, a light in her eyes he hasn’t seen in a really long time. It’s pretty much exactly the reaction he was hoping for last time he tried this, but back then it was about a lot of other things and trying to make her smile was all wrapped up in his own bullshit. Now he’s just genuinely relieved.

He sets the grocery bags very carefully on the floor and lunges for her. She’s quick though, up and off the couch before Ben’s even halfway across the room. The gun’s not that big and she’s careful with her shots, only fires when she knows they’ll land, and Ben takes a few in the chest, more than one to the face, one very nearly in his mouth. He picks up speed and chases her down the hallway but she surprises him by taking a right turn into his bedroom and now she’s firing with reckless abandon, mini-marshmallows landing on his sheets, rolling down behind his bookshelves, underneath his dresser. Ben would probably be pissed if she weren’t so damn gleeful about it, so wildly, enthusiastically pleased to be fucking with his stuff. Because for the first time, the joy looks genuine, and then she leans her head back and laughs and it’s like something in Ben’s chest bursts open, something wild and uncontained, because if April can be that fucking happy again then maybe there’s hope for him yet.

Ben advances on her until her back’s against his bedroom wall and then he’s got her wrists over her head, the gun still dangling from her hand. And Ben doesn’t care that he’ll be finding marshmallows in his things for weeks, doesn’t care that there’s a carton of ice cream melting on the living room floor.

She arches her back toward him and squirms a little against his hands. “Is that C-3PO on your dresser?” Her voice doesn’t exactly falter but there’s this tiny note of uncertainty, this little moment where her eyes flicker down to his mouth and she takes a breath and it’s maybe the only time he’s ever seen her almost ask for something in his life.

And because tender is exactly the wrong move here, he squeezes her wrists and leans toward her. “Fuck you,” he says, and then he's kissing her and it’s not so different than it used to be, but it is. It’s definitely slower, a little gentler and a little less desperate, and it goes on for forever. She grinds her hips into his and when he lets go of her wrists she wraps an arm around his neck while her other hand snakes up the back of his shirt. He nips at her lip, tangles a hand in her hair, and god, he's never spent so long just kissing her.

By the time he backs them up toward the bed, April's tugging his shirt over his head and reaching down to unbutton his jeans, and when he trips a little bit stepping out of them, she smiles against his mouth and it's, god. It’s kind of amazing.

They don't stare longingly into each others' eyes. She still runs her nails down his back a little harder than necessary and she has more than a few dirty things to whisper into his ear. But when he slides into her, he slips an arm around her waist and pulls her toward him and her hands on his back pull him closer and it feels like a lot. When she spins them around, plants her hands on his chest and rocks her hips and moans, she keeps her eyes on his the whole time. And it’s not that it’s romantic, it’s just that it’s—fun, or easy, or whatever. It’s exactly what it is, not anything else, and that’s pretty fucking amazing enough on its own.

They end up sprawled across the foot of the bed, April on top, and by the time he slides a hand down to press his thumb to her clit, they're both already so fucking close that April tips her head back and comes. He watches her, manages to hang on until she finally opens her eyes and smiles this wicked little grin, this fucking amazing happy thing, and he reaches out and pushes her hair behind her ear. He pulls her down toward him and flips them over and it's not more than a few thrusts before he collapses down on top of her, lips pressed to the side of her neck.

April doesn’t leave right after. She wraps the sheet around herself and slings a leg off the bed, kicking it back and forth. Ben’s still got a hand on the back of her thigh and when he slides his fingers against the skin there, she huffs out a laugh and pulls away from him. “Stop it,” she says and god, she’s ticklish after she comes? Is this really the first time he’s ever noticed that? It makes him want to press her back against the pillows and find every spot that makes her smile and flinch. Instead he find a marshmallow under his pillow and tosses it at her, arcs it right onto her stomach and when she lifts a hand to flip him off, she’s laughing.

--

The first night of Harvest Festival, it's already better than last year. No power outages, no Indian curses, no Joan Callamezzo running around trying to ruin everything. Perd Hapley even does a broadcast from the coaster that's Leslie's sure will win him a local media award.

It's not actually as awful as he thought it would be. There's a moment in the staff tent where Leslie smiles at him like they've just pulled off something incredible and Ben remembers a lot of things all at once (cotton candy and secret handshakes and feeling like the king of the whole fucking world) but it's not unmanageable.

He stays until everything's squared away (and double- and triple- and quadruple-checked) and when he goes to leave, there's a hand at his elbow pulling him back.

It's Leslie. Of course it is. She has this hesitant, awkward smile on her face and he makes sure his own smile’s genuine when he looks back at her. (It's almost not even that hard.)

"I just wanted to say thanks. For everything you did this year." She gestures toward the Ferris wheel and the game tents, toward the whole fair like he made it happen and for the first time, he looks at it too. Not as just a reminder of last year and everything that changed since then, but as something with as much promise as Leslie always seems to think it has. It's a good feeling. And he thinks maybe he did fall in love with his job and the city and all the crazy things about it, and maybe that did have a lot to do with Leslie, but maybe he fell in love with other things too, and those things are still there.

He's not eighteen anymore. It's not Partridge, if for no other reason than the fact that he's still here. It doesn't seem like much, but it feels like a whole hell of a lot.

He turns back to Leslie, reaches out and squeezes her wrist. "You too."

He takes his time walking back to the parking lot, makes sure to stop by the Li’l Sebastian memorial to say goodbye to Ron. When he gets to his car, April's sitting on the trunk looking out at the fair. He walks over and leans against the bumper. "You ready to go?"

April doesn't turn away. It's well past sunset and all the lights are on, the rides flashing different colors and the music from the mainstage audible even from halfway across the lot. He wonders what memories this place has for April, whether really looking at it all feels as important for her as it does for him. He wants to ask but he doesn't, just nudges her knee with his hip. "April?"

She shakes her head and the lights from the carousel catch her hair. "I think I'm going to stay. Tom convinced Jean-Ralphio that flashmobbing the bandstand would be great PR."

“Is anybody going to do it with him?”

“No.”

“Does he know that?”

“No.”

He laughs and turns his keys over in his hands. "Yeah, that might just be too sad to witness."

April pushes herself off the trunk and sways toward him when she lands. Her hand's warm around his wrist when she catches herself and she lets it lay there a second before pulling away. "Fine, go home. Tell Nigella I said hi."

He drops his eyes and smiles, unlocks the car and opens the door.

"Ben?"

April's a few cars down and Ben has to raise his voice over the music. "Yeah?"

"She's going to win." April shifts back and forth on her feet. "Leslie. She's going to win."

It takes him a second to smile but he does, nods his head and says, "Good."

April doesn't say anything else but she smiles at him like she means it and then turns and heads back to the fair. He watches her weave between the aisles on the way back to the entrance and she's well out of sight by the time he starts the car.

He drives home with the windows down and for the first time it feels like the summer's coming to an end. The air almost feels like fall.

When he pulls into the garage, he sits in the car for a long second, leans back against the headrest and waits. He thinks about the Harvest Festival and Partridge, about sad margaritas and marshmallow guns, about towns (home, blonde, and otherwise) and starting over.

When he finds the yard signs behind the cabinet, they don't look any worse for being stuck in the garage for a few weeks. He swipes at a line of dust with his sleeve and then picks a spot in the yard that’s visible from the corner. Vote Knope! The ground's soft enough that it doesn't take more than a few good pushes to get the sign to stick.

He stands there awhile looking around the yard and even though it’s probably just his imagination, he thinks he can see the top of the Ferris wheel over the trees across the way.

Ice Clown Gets Down, Turns Things Around. It might be a few weeks before he puts it in the Journal, but still. Baby steps.

[fic] just trying to get the good (1/2), ben/april, nc-17, 15000 words

allthingsholy — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:54:43 GMT

Title: Just Trying to Get the Good (Part 1/2)
Author: allthingsholy
Pairing: Ben/April (Parks & Rec)
Rating: R? NC-17? Let's say NC-17.
Words: ~15000 total; ~8500 this part.
Notes: Thanks so much to cypanache for looking over all of this one, two, three times and helping me work out some plot and characterization kinks. Thanks to ishie for the once-over and slybrunette for being the best cheerleader ever. Cross-posted to geegollythanks, a Ben/April shipping community that everyone should check out because these two are awesome. Title from "The Future's Nothing New" by The Alternate Routes.

----

Here’s the thing about turning over a new leaf, about raising your expectations: when everything goes to shit (because everything in Ben Wyatt’s life eventually goes to shit), it’s fucking awful. And it’s that much worse because he set his sights so high, that much worse than when he didn’t really expect it to work out in the first place. Now he has actual fucking dreams and shit, and when everything just kind of peters out, Ben’s an actual fucking mess.

So yeah, Leslie decides to run for city council. The rest should be pretty self-explanatory.

--

Ben’s mom always told him that bad news comes in threes, so he should be expecting it when he comes homes from work two weeks after breaking up with Leslie to find Andy sitting on their front lawn with piles of his clothes on the grass around him. At first he thinks it’s just some new writing thing Andy’s trying, communing with commercialism or something, or that Tom convinced him to start a Pawnee nudist colony and Andy’s just saying one last goodbye to all his t-shirts. Weirder things have happened, and all of them seem to have happened to Andy. But when Ben tries to open the door and it slams back in his face followed by April yelling in deafening Spanish, he finally gets a clue.

So yeah, something happens between Andy and Ann. Ben doesn’t get all the details (because again, Spanish, and honestly, he has his own shit) but he gets most of the pronouns and it works out somewhere along the lines of: “Mouse Rat” and “Ann” and “Snake Juice” and “asshole” and really he just wants to go inside so he can put on sweatpants and sit on the couch and moan, which is pretty much all Ben’s been doing since Leslie broke up with him.

First Leslie, then Andy. Bad news comes in threes and now it’s just a lot of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

--

The house is basically the saddest place in Pawnee. April takes down all the Mouse Rat stuff on the walls and nobody talks very much. They watch a lot of cooking shows. April never says anything explicit about his break-up with Leslie (it was supposed to be a secret, after all), but she knew when he stopped sleeping at the house and exactly when he came back, and indifferent is one thing but dumb is something else. The closest she gets to actually saying something is the first morning after she kicks Andy out, when they’re getting ready to leave for work and she freezes with her hand on the doorknob and breathes out for what seems like an hour. She looks at him, hard eyes and sturdy frown, and says, “Fuck them both,” before leading him to the car.

That was almost a week ago. The number of times he’s had to clear flowers and candy-grams off the porch is, well, a lot. April handed him her phone one day and it rang thirteen times before it died, buzzing around in his sock drawer like the worst reminder that things had gone to absolute shit. He hasn’t actually seen her cry because April spends a lot of time cooped up in her room. He knocks and tells her when dinner’s ready, orders her favorite kind of pizza, and it’s almost nice having something else to worry about besides how he’ll get through tomorrow’s planning meeting without looking at Leslie.

When April does come out of her room, she tucks herself into the corner of the couch, scrunches her feet up under her and makes herself as tiny as possible. For whatever reason, it makes Ben sadder than pretty much anything else. She and Andy used to sprawl all over the place, take up as much room as possible just to piss him off, and now here she is with her arms hugged tight to her chest and it kind of makes Ben want to die.

Ben’s so busy staring at April’s knees that he almost doesn’t hear it when she finally says, “I think before her cooking career, Nigella Lawson probably did a lot of porn.”

April goes on to elaborate in very graphic detail the specific kinks Nigella was probably famous for, including some very interesting uses for her kitchen utensils. She doesn’t really crack much of a smile but Ben actually snorts into his beer when April lists the ten most erotic uses for a ladle. (“The ten most erotic uses? Like there are more than ten kinky things to do with a giant soup spoon?” “Be more vanilla, Ben. Jesus.”) The corners of her mouth flicker up for just a second into something that could almost be a smile.

And yeah, they’re two heartbroken people who spend a lot of time staring at walls and through tv screens, but it could be worse, right? Maybe the situation’s not as dire as it seems.

--

Andy comes by the Parks Department so often, drops off flowers and balloons and teddy bears, that Ron actually has to sit him down and tell him to quit it. Ben walks by when the two of them are sitting in the chairs at the shoeshine stand and Andy’s immediately on his feet, half-chasing Ben down the hallway to ask about April.

Ben rubs a hand over his face and looks at the ground. He likes Andy, he really does, and god knows he never thought he was going to have to choose sides in this relationship (though he moved in with kids who got married after dating for three weeks, he should’ve at least considered the possibility that things were going to go horribly wrong) but he chooses April. He’s seen April’s face in the morning when she gets in the car to go to work, the extra few seconds she sits there after he turns off the engine where she shuts her eyes and steels herself for the walk into City Hall.

Yeah. He’s definitely siding with April.

But Andy’s still Andy, looking at Ben with those wide, puppy dog eyes, and he has to tell the guy something, so Ben takes a deep breath and says, “Andy, you shouldn’t be asking me about April. I’m, I can’t, what am I supposed to say?”

“I just want to know how she’s doing.” And the thing is, Andy legitimately looks miserable. His eyes are red like he hasn’t been sleeping and there’s this vein in his neck that jumps a little bit while Andy stares at Ben and waits for him to answer.

Ben feels like he should ask how Andy’s doing or where he’s staying since April kicked him out but he knows April would kill him for even this much, so he just says, “She’s … she’s April. I don’t know. It just all kind of sucks.” Truer words were never spoken.

Andy starts to say something else but Ben begs off, heads for his two o’clock meeting. He spends the whole hour feeling like he’s betrayed April somehow. And it’s not exactly adequate amends but he makes a note to stop and pick up ice cream and movies on the way home. He’ll even pick out a chick flick, something with Ryan Reynolds, just so April can spend the night teasing him instead of staring off into space like she does so often lately.

--

He comes into the Parks Department for a meeting and April’s working the front desk. She so focused on the computer screen that she doesn’t notice him walk in right away. He looks over her shoulder (maybe it’s unprofessional but it’s not like they have that many boundaries anymore) and sees she’s looking at graphics from her email.

Leslie Knope for City Council.

He must make some noise, some awkward, awful noise, because she X’s out really quickly and spins to face him. And she almost looks guilty, almost looks ashamed, and they just stand there for a minute, staring at each other and not saying anything. And it’s weird that he’d even expect April’s loyalty, that he’d expect April to side with him the way that he sided with her. After a minute, she rolls her eyes and shoulders past him, heads for her desk to grab her notebook and pen. He spends the meeting not looking at Leslie, staring at the doodles April’s drawing in the margins of her notebook instead.

Leslie Knope for City Council.

That night, when April’s tucked up into her corner of the couch with her computer on her lap, he manages to just go for broke and swan dive into full-on self-punishment. They’re watching some shitty reality show full of people who are clearly awful at whatever they think they’re great at, which April usually finds hilarious but now seems to find only mildly entertaining, and Ben chews on the words for a full half-hour before he asks, “Can I see them?”

April doesn’t even look over at him. “See what?”

Ben watches some blond guy wipe out on stage, totally eat shit in front of a giant crowd, and doesn’t even manage a giggle. “Can I see her campaign posters?”

April’s fingers go really still on her keyboard and she gets the same almost-guilty expression she had in the office and she won’t quite look at him. And he knows it’s not fair to expect her to choose him in the nonexistent battle of Wyatt vs. Knope, knows that she admires Leslie, respects her, loves her even. But her voice is really quiet when she says, “Ben, don’t—” and from April that almost feels like compassion. (Every day this week he’s cleared stuffed animals with “I’m Beary Sorry” stitched across their chests from the porch, so maybe he’s due, but it’s still weird to have April look at him like he’s just as miserable as she is.)

“Just, just for a minute,” he says. And even to himself, he sounds so fucking sad, so fucking desperate. Get it together, Wyatt. Fuck. Maybe it’s melodramatic to feel this way after only dating Leslie for three goddamn months, but he can’t help it. It’s like there’s an actual hole in his chest, this gaping thing where all his rational thought and self-preservation instincts should be.

When she finally slides the computer over to him, she pulls her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around her shins and doesn’t look at him. He flips through the files, a bunch of different poster layouts, graphics for what might be a campaign website. They’re really good. He’s seen a few graphic design books floating around the house, but he can tell this is something she’s really good at, can see the ways her twisted mind can twist just so into creative and crazy and awesome ideas.

He focuses on the colors and fonts April’s using instead of the ten thousand “Vote Knope!” images all over everything. It’s probably a defense mechanism. Part of it’s Leslie, part of it’s Partridge, and all of it’s fucking awful. This shouldn’t feel so much like completely starting over, but it does.

He looks at everything two, three, four times, then closes the laptop and slides it back across the couch, stands up in the same motion and heads toward the fridge. He grabs a beer for himself and another for April, twists off the caps and lobs them in the trash.

When he holds out the beer she finally looks up at him, eyes not so much guilty anymore as sympathetic which is somehow a lot worse. She just stares at him and his hand tightens around the bottle. “You want it or not?”

She reaches out finally and her fingers slide against his, against the drops of condensation on his skin, and while she spends the next hour watching talentless people moan and cry onscreen, he spends the next hour watching her.

--

To be clear: this is not Ben’s first bad break-up. He lived on the road long enough that goodbyes were always necessary, always expected, just a natural part of his routine. And sure, some goodbyes were harder than others, but this. This is so much worse. This is like trying to put down roots and finding out not one fucking thing will grow here.

And it’s not that he stayed in Pawnee just for Leslie, because he didn’t. When he and Leslie broke up, he probably said it a thousand times, until it felt really, really true. He didn’t stay for Leslie. He stayed for him, for a chance to finally shrug off Mean Ben and be somebody worthwhile again, somebody who did things for people just because he could, somebody people liked and cared about.

Maybe that’s what makes it worse. That he’s not even really mad at Leslie (because honestly, what would he have done in the same situation?); now it’s all turned around on him until it’s all his fault.

He lays awake at night and tries not to think about history repeating itself.

All he comes up with is: Blonde, Town Give Ice Clown Permanent Frown.

God. Even his jokes are fucking terrible.

--

The thing is, Leslie keeps trying to make it better. She keeps overcompensating, keeps being way too nice and friendly and it’s just about the most awful thing in the world. She always asks his opinion on things when they have group meetings, very pointedly trying to prove to the world that nothing is going on between them, nothing was ever going on between them, they’re just coworkers and sometimes friends and everything is fine.

Everything is not fine. Ben’s a professional, sure, but there’s only so long he can keep his lips in a tight smile before they twist into a grimace and nothing seems to be getting any easier the more everybody’s conversation starts to revolve around Leslie’s campaign.

And then there’s Chris, fucking Chris who should’ve seen this coming, who spent so long telling Ben and Leslie that they were wonderful together, his superstars, his magical duo, that the fact that they were also crazy about each other should’ve registered on at least some level. But as much as Chris can work a room of a hundred people, the finer nuances of one-on-one relationships escape him, which is never more obvious than when he schedules a meeting to tell Ben and Leslie that they’re heading up the Harvest Festival again this year, both of them on point, and they should get started right away. Ben’s never really hit a guy before, but he understands the impulse now because the prospect of spending however many afternoons cooped up with Leslie and two dozen file folders is excruciating. It’s maybe the worst meeting Ben’s ever been a part of, and he had to stare at pictures of his impeachment hearing in the Partridge papers for fucking weeks.

After Chris finally lets them leave (it’s time for his daily sprints up all four flights of stairs at the back of the building), Leslie follows Ben to his desk. “So we’ll meet this afternoon then? Start looking at all the funding information? I’ve got binders of ideas, all sorts of plans.”

Ben sits down in his chair and stares at his blotter for awhile before he manages to look up and meet her eyes. And it’s not that they haven’t interacted since everything went to shit, but he’s pretty sure this is the first time they’ve been totally alone since they broke up and the room feels kind of like it’s collapsing in on itself. He really should’ve known better than to fall so hard for a coworker, because this ungodly feeling in his chest is apparently all he’s got to look forward to for the foreseeable future. Jesus. He cannot catch a fucking break. “Yeah,” he finally answers, and he can tell from the way her smile is way too wide that he’s taken far too long to answer such a simple question. “Yeah, we can use the conference room on the second floor. I’ll meet you there.”

Leslie nods her head and spins on her heel and then she’s gone. He spends the next three hours making mistakes on his paperwork and miscalculating basic budgetary problems. He contemplates for the hundredth time just quitting, moving back to Indianapolis and calling it a day, but that’s apparently his line in the sand. So he stares at the clock until two and then heads to the second floor with all the budget info tucked under his arm.

Even though he spent a half hour deciding exactly how on-time to be, when he gets to the conference room, Leslie’s not there. Which is ridiculous because Leslie’s always ten minutes early for things and he expected her binders to already be set up and graphs and charts and mock-ups to be pinned to the whiteboard. Instead there’s just silence and an empty room. He waits for ten minutes before he sucks it up and heads down to Leslie’s office, and when he gets there she’s elbow-deep in binders. Some are piled on the floor, some on Tom’s still-empty desk. He stands in the doorway for a second and watches her, then clears his throat loud enough to get her attention.

“Hey!” she says when she sees him. “I was about to leave for the meeting and suddenly I couldn’t find my binders. So I came back in here to look for them and I was sure they were next to the zoo expansion project binder. Did I tell you about that? Adding an aquarium? With manatees and sting rays and dolphins?” Ben just stares at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll get the dolphins trained, it’ll be great.”

God. He’s suddenly so grateful to whatever deity lost those binders that he fights off a visible sigh of relief. His voice is almost steady when he says, “So we’ll just reschedule. I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

“Okay.” For the briefest of moments, he thinks he sees a flicker of disappointment wash across Leslie’s face. And even though he tries not to hold her decision against her, he hasn’t spent a lot of time cutting her any slack for how this whole thing’s affecting her. They stare at each other just a little too long until suddenly April’s nudging past him into Leslie’s office, saying, “Leslie, if you aren’t going to this thing with Ben, you can go to the Little League tournament meeting Ron was supposed to go to.”

Leslie perks up a little. “The tournament meeting? Does he have notes?” April doesn’t answer because of course the answer is no, and while Leslie goes to her desk to get her things together for the meeting Ron probably never planned on going to anyway, Ben turns to leave. He stops when he sees April’s face because it’s almost devious, but not in the usual way. She’s nearly got those same sympathetic eyes she gives him sometimes when she thinks he can’t see her. And suddenly he’s sure he knows exactly what happened to Leslie’s binders. It’s the weirdest thing to realize that somehow they’ve turned into a unit, April and Ben, watching each others’ backs because there’s no one else around to watch out for anymore. He tries to smile at her just a little as a thank you but as soon as he does she shoulders past him back to her desk.

He tries to thank her again during the car ride home. She doesn’t let him get more than the first syllable out before she’s rambling about some stupid thing Jerry did today and just when he thinks he’s gotten the message loud and clear, Ben finds a key hanging around his bedroom doorknob when he heads to bed that night. They’ve been watching Lifetime movies, the horribly hilarious ones about stalker boyfriends and bad teachers, and there’s a key on a silver chain swinging from the doorknob.

April’s just ducking into her room but when he calls out, “What’s this to?” she stops and looks back at him.

“One of the empty offices on the fourth floor.”

Ben knows better than to try to say thank you, so he plays dumb instead. “What’s in one of the empty offices on the fourth floor?” And even though he knows when he goes up there tomorrow he’ll find Leslie’s binders, color-coded and perfectly organized, he asks anyway.

April doesn’t answer though, just kind of shrugs in a way that’ll have to substitute for “You’re welcome.”

It’s the first night in a long time that Ben heads to bed with a smile on his face.

--

Some days are better than others. Sometimes he lets himself sleep in on Saturday morning, wake up late and read the paper in the backyard, listen to the ballgame on the radio. The simple things that’ve always made him happiest. April sometimes comes outside, plops down not too far away from him and reads books he’s never heard of, puts on her headphones and looks almost peaceful.

Then July is two straight weeks of rain and it casts a cloud over everything. Both their tempers run shorter, until they’re fighting in the kitchen over who drank the last of the milk, who didn’t run the dishwasher, why there’s never anything good on tv. Everything feels fuzzy and dank, like whatever breeze blew through and made them feel almost normal again has been replaced by too much rain with no end in sight. Andy takes a job at the hospital. Ben has no idea if he and Ann are still doing whatever it is that got them in this mess in the first place but April’s mood when she finds out is a pretty clear indication that she’s fucking pissed either way. And Ben eventually makes April give the binders back so now he and Leslie have been spending hours in whatever conference room they can get ahold of, planning vendor placement and wrangling corporate sponsorships. It’s so much like last year it hurts.

One night there’s a thunderstorm so intense it actually shakes Ben awake and when he goes to the kitchen for a glass of water, he sees April in the living room. All the lights are still off and she’s got one of the kitchen chairs pulled up to the windows, the curtains thrown open and the windows cracked. Her knees are pulled to her chest and he can’t see her face because she doesn’t turn to look at him, probably doesn’t even know he’s there. There’s something so sad about the shape of her, the lines of her back and the slouch to her shoulders, that he goes back to his room without water, stretches out in the middle of the bed and just lays there, listening to the storm, wondering what exactly it is they’re both waiting for.

--

April’s shockingly good at Jeopardy. It’s not something Ben would’ve guessed about her before he moved in, but April’s actually a sponge for random facts and trivia. And it’s not exactly that they’ve turned watching it into a competition, but maybe Ben mentally keeps score. She beats him a lot more often than not.

They’re halfway through Double Jeopardy one night when April slides over from her corner of the couch, turns herself the wrong way around and just stares at him. He tries to ignore her because she used to do this sometimes, stare at him and sit too close just to make him squirm, and he’d gotten really good at ignoring her before she disappeared into her tiny corner of unhappiness at the other end of the couch. She’s not looking at him like she’s trying to fuck with him, though, purposely getting between him and the screen or anything.

Ben’s doing a pretty good job of keeping his eyes on the tv until April slides a hand up his thigh. “What the fuck?” Her hand’s almost in his fucking crotch and he just gapes at her. She blinks a few times, then flicks her eyes down to his mouth and flexes her fingers against his leg. She looks old and sad, and when she shifts her eyes to look at the wall, he knows she’s looking right at the place a Mouse Rat poster used to be and it twists him up inside. “April, what are you—?”

“Don’t you just not want to feel like shit for awhile?” she says. Her eyes crinkle a little at the corners but her voice is steady, almost flat, and maybe that’s worse, maybe this is as bad as it gets for the both of them and anything else is just damage control. He hasn’t found flowers or teddy bears on the porch in almost a week and suddenly he wants to give her anything she wants, just to get her to stop looking at him like that, so when she leans in and presses her mouth to his, he doesn’t pull away. Her lips are warm and kind of frantic, almost desperate and a little bit rough, and everything about it is all so April that when she slides her tongue along his lip, he opens his mouth and lets her kiss him.

She pulls back finally and he’s still got a grip on her wrist. She doesn’t push toward him and she doesn’t pull away. She just stares at him, her face inches from his, and the second he loosens his grip (and it’s just for a second, just the tiniest bit, and even if that’s not exactly true, when he thinks about it later it’ll make it all feel a little less lecherous on his end) she works her hand into his pants and curls her fingers around him. She kisses him again, once, then slides her lips along his jaw and licks at the spot just beneath it. He leans his head back and even though this is probably ten times worse than every other bad idea he’s ever had, he doesn’t stop her.

She uses her hand until he’s hard and then pulls away and stands up. She pulls down her shorts and underwear, these pink things with white stripes and it’s so fucking youthful and sweet it feels wrong. He almost says so, almost tells her to forget it, forget him, he’ll move out in the morning and never, ever come back, but then she leans over and presses a wet kiss to the underside of his jaw again, grabs the waistband of his pants with both hands and tugs them down to his knees.

She crawls into his lap but his hands are still useless at his sides and when he stutters to life and brings them to her shoulders, he’s not sure if he’s pushing her away or pulling her closer. She’s got her hand around his dick, supporting herself on her knees while she guides him to just the right spot. He finds his voice finally and tightens his hands around her arms. “April, we shouldn’t—”

But she fists her other hand in his hair, whispers, “Jesus, just shut the fuck up,” and kisses him again as she sinks down on the head of his cock and Jesus Christ. She just stays there with her forehead pressed against his temple and it’s so fucking unbearable for a million different reasons, so desperate and needy and even though it shouldn’t be, it’s fucking amazing. She’s not very wet at first, so it takes a few tries, a few thrusts until everything works itself out, but then he’s all the way inside her and it feels better than pretty much anything that’s happened to him in the past few weeks.

He doesn’t move for a minute, suddenly filled with rational thoughts like workplace policy and condoms, but fucking Chris can go to hell and Ben sees her take her birth control pills every morning before they leave for work, and when April rolls her hips into him, she leans her head back a little and shuts her eyes and she looks so damn relieved, almost happy, and he can’t help himself. He thrusts up into her and tugs at the hem of her shirt. When she shifts away to pull it over her head, she braces her hands on his chest and keeps moving her hips, puts her head down so her hair falls all around her face. Ben reaches out to push it back, to tuck it behind her ear, but she shakes him off, pushes his hand away and lifts herself up, slides back down again so slowly that Ben leans his head back and curses, strings of nonsense words and random syllables. April just makes these little noises in the back of her throat and every once in awhile, when he hits a particular angle, she lets out a breathy moan that makes him tighten his fingers around her thighs.

She tugs his face back up toward her but doesn’t lean in to kiss him, just settles her hands under his ears for a second and looks him in the eyes. It’s weird and intimate and really uncomfortable and April bites her lip and leans in to rest her forehead against his neck. And god, she’s hot and tight around him, moving up and down like this, and his hands are everywhere, on her hips and the small of her back and tangling in the ends of her hair. Her nipples keep brushing against his chest and he reaches up to grab her breast and that’s when it hits him all at once, how different she is from Leslie, how much smaller, more compact. April’s all angles where Leslie’s curves and it’s a thought that makes feel Ben feel fucking terrible.

April starts speeding up, rolling her hips and bouncing herself up and down on his dick, and when she slips a finger into her mouth for just a second before dropping it down to rub at her clit, her hand jammed in between their bodies, it’s by some miracle of god that Ben manages not to come until April’s clutching at his shoulders and finally collapsing down against him. He thrusts up a few more times, finally comes with one of his hands around her knee, one against the back of her neck.

They both just stay like that, all heavy breathing and tangled limbs. They don’t say anything and honestly, there isn’t much to say. April’s chest is kind of sweaty against his and her face feels hot against his shoulder. He drops his hand from her neck to the arm of the couch, the other still tight around her knee, but when she moves her hands to the back of the couch and pushes herself up off him, he lets go of her altogether, just sits there with his t-shirt on and his pants somewhere between his knees and his ankles. April’s stark naked in front of him and somehow manages to look more dignified, not totally composed but way more together than he is. She doesn’t say anything, just kind of purses her lips and then reaches down to pick up her shirt and shorts and underwear, turns around and heads for the bathroom.

“Order a pizza,” she says over her shoulder.

Oh. There’s that third shoe. Ben should’ve fucking known.

--

After that first time, Ben swears it isn’t going to happen again, writes it off as a mistake, a lapse in judgment, a sign that he really needs to get his shit together and act his age. He spends the whole day after it happens holed up in his office, not leaving his desk unless absolutely necessary, and he gives the Parks Department a wide berth. He briefly considers getting his own place, but when he mentions it to April in the car Friday morning (two days after he fucked her on the sofa, his fairly guilt conscience helpfully fills in for him), she keeps staring out the window and says, “You can’t leave, you signed a lease.”

Ben changes lanes and the guy behind him leans on his horn (douchebag). “I actually didn’t.”

“Whatever.” April jerks his rearview mirror down to check her hair, though really it’s just to annoy him. “I can’t afford the rent on my own. You can’t leave.”

Ben jerks the mirror back into place. “Get roommates.”

They stop at a red light and he can feel April staring at him. He fights to keep his eyes straight ahead because he can’t look at her without thinking about the faces she made while she was on top of him, the way she felt against his chest and around his cock, and Jesus, he could get hard just thinking about it now and he’s almost 36 years old. This is a problem.

He’s so busy not thinking about having sex with April that he misses the green light and the guy behind him honks again (giant douchebag). Ben pulls into the intersection and he’s about to tell April the many benefits of socializing with people from her own peer group when she says, in this awful, quiet voice, “I don’t like anyone else.”

Ben doesn’t have anything to say to that because for April it’s practically begging him to stay, which she would never do. It’s not a long drive from the house to City Hall and he doesn’t spend the rest of it thinking about having sex with April. He spends the rest of it thinking about her in other moments, like early in the morning before she’s had her first cup of coffee or late at night when she tries to fight off sleep, when she keeps forcing her eyes open and jerking her head back up to the tv. And he knows she’s probably doing it for the same reason he is, because the prospect of going to bed alone with just his own miserable mind for company is the single-most unappealing idea in the world and even if they’re miserable, it’s better being miserable together than being miserable alone.

He’s pulling into the parking lot before he realizes he’s halfway to rationalizing sleeping with her again. This is a big fucking problem.

--

Harvest Festival meetings are always the worst part of Ben’s day. Leslie and her department already had a lot of stuff in place before Ben even got involved, but now it’s time to get down to brass tacks: getting all the vendors in line, making sure the security will be tight enough to keep Pikitis and the raccoons out again this year. And it’s not that the work is hard (it’s easy enough to take the framework from last year, but Leslie’s adamant that there should be new stuff too, so people are excited to come back again) but just, God. Every time he thinks about last year’s Festival, about everything it meant to him then, it’s like a tiny reminder of all the ways it fell apart.

It’s a particularly difficult Friday meeting and everybody’s over-tired and itching to leave and Leslie keeps trying to nail down the plans for the Wamapoke display. Ben finally snaps, loses it, yells, “Leslie, it doesn’t fucking matter if the fonts on the banners and the wall displays match!” Leslie shuts up and Jerry and Donna are wide-eyed and silent and April’s sitting at her desk watching it all go down. The minute he says it, Ben feels like the world’s biggest asshole. He tries to backtrack but Leslie shuts him down, tells everyone they can pick this up on Monday and heads to her office. It’s the first time he’s ever yelled at her. Even when they were breaking up, he was pretty quiet about it, already resigned from the second she told him about the campaign.

He spends the drive home mentally berating himself, because even if it wasn’t intensely dickish, it was totally unprofessional and Jesus, what’s wrong with him? Why can’t he get a handle on himself? He’s a grown fucking man, not some heartbroken kid. He’s not 18 anymore. This isn’t Partridge. April keeps her eyes fixed out the window and won’t look at him, doesn’t even comment when he runs a yellow light, then two, and brakes way too hard when he finally pulls into the driveway.

April takes the keys out of his hand when he misses the lock on the front door for the second time. She pushes the door open and he follows her inside, sinks back against the wall the second he’s in the house. April just stands there and stares at him, chews her lip and waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t have anything to say because fuck it, seriously, fuck all of it, and then he’s pushing her up against the living room wall, his lips on hers and his hands already working up under her shirt. She scrambles her hands against his back, fists one around his tie and pulls him toward her and from there it’s just desperate and rushed. Ben slams his knee into the coffee table when April’s walking them back toward the couch and he can’t get the button on her jeans undone, but eventually they’re as naked as they need to be and he’s got two fingers inside of her while she runs her thumb over the head of his cock. Neither of them says a word. And she stills gets that happy relieved look on her face when he slides into her which is somehow even hotter than it was last time and he keeps his head buried in her shoulder while she wraps her legs around his waist. It doesn’t even last as long as the first time which Ben would feel self-conscious about if he weren’t so busy feelings a thousand other things. April digs a heel into his ass when she arches her back and comes and he holds on for another few thrusts before he’s collapsing down on top of her.

It’s a few seconds before Ben can get his breathing back under control and when he lifts himself off April, she’s just looking at him like she can’t decide exactly what to think. She purses her lips and says, “Well. Looks like Mean Ben’s back.”

Fucking great.

--

It gets to be kind of a habit after that. They go a few days where everything is normal and then April climbs into his lap during a commercial break and they fuck during the eleven o’clock news, or he catches her on her way out of the bathroom, pins her against the wall and slides his hand into her shorts. It’s by no means the most romantic relationship he’s been in. Not that he’s under any sort of delusion that what they’re doing could even passably be called a relationship.

Eventually April starts to get bossy, starts to tell him exactly what she likes, guides his hands or his mouth with more force than is probably necessary, but it’s so unlike Leslie that Ben can’t help but feel grateful. Leslie never said much of anything beyond, “Oh, Ben,” or “Oh, god,” but April says all sorts of things: how she’d let him bend her over her desk at work, how that’s probably what she’ll be thinking about during his one o’clock meeting with Ron tomorrow, and how she’s sure that’s all he’ll be thinking about now too. And it might be just to fuck with him, but god help him, if it makes him focus a little less on all the ways he misses Leslie than he’ll never tell her to stop.

It’s a welcome distraction, even if it makes Ben feel like the worst kind of asshole, like the biggest dick on the planet. Still, it’s a break from feeling like a victim, like a sad-sack sorry loser, and Ben’ll take what he can get these days.

April has somehow managed to remain entirely cool about the whole thing, and how she can go down on him in the shower before work and glare at him indifferently from behind her desk is something he’ll never quite understand, but if she has trouble getting through meetings with Leslie, she certainly doesn’t tell him.

And the sex, well. It’s good. Ben spent the last 12 years on the road, so deep connection isn’t something he got particularly accustomed to. (Leslie was the exception, not the rule, but that’s true of so many other things besides his sex life. He has the feeling April could say the same thing about Andy, but the totality of what April says about Andy is pretty fucking negligible.)

They never do it in their bedrooms. He eats her out on the living room sofa and bends her over the kitchen table, sure, but apparently seeing his bedroom furniture is too much, which isn’t something he’s entirely aware of until he’s dragging her down the hallway toward his room and she stops him short, spins him and pushes him against the bathroom door.

“I’m not going to fuck you on your Superman sheets,” she says, and he’s about to reply, about to tell her he’s a full-grown adult, fuck you very much, but then she’s on her knees in front of him and she blows him right there outside the bathroom, his fingers tightening around the door handle when he comes.

He doesn’t try to take her back to his room again, and she never, ever pulls him back toward hers.

--

Ron doesn’t usually participate in the Harvest Festival meetings beyond a grunt or a request for more meat-specific food carts, so when he catches Ben coming out of the conference room and says, “Can I have a word?” Ben is adequately wary.

When he gets in Ron’s office, all he can think about is April, that she said something, that Ron somehow found out, but Ben’s been extra careful to keep his phone out of his back pocket. Still, there’s an awful lot of artillery in Ron’s office.

“Ben, I want to talk to you about April.” Oh, holy shit. There’s a shotgun. And a grenade. This has to be against some sort of city code. There are little pinpricks of moisture on Ben’s forehead and god, Ron’s going to kill him. Ron is actually going to kill him. “Is she okay?”

“Excuse me?”

It’s not what Ben was expecting Ron to say and for a second or two he’s sure he’s heard him wrong, but Ron leans over again and says, “Is she okay?”

Ben keeps his eyes firmly on Ron’s shotgun and tries to think of something, anything to say that isn’t, “Yeah, she’s fine, my penis is a cure-all and I’m totally fucking her, is that all?” Instead he says, “Yeah, she’s fine.” Nothing about his penis. Well played, Wyatt.

Ron must be able to tell that Ben’s nervous because he leans forward and lowers his voice, gets all conspiratorial and concerned and says, “I’d never want to do anything that would encourage April to be better at her job, but she’s a smart girl and she took this thing with Andy pretty hard. Love makes us all her bitch eventually.” And he’s got this sympathetic look on his face too, like he knows about everything with Leslie and truth be told, he probably does.

Oh. Genuine concern. That makes Ben feel even worse. If he had to answer honestly, he has no idea how April’s doing, though if she’s anything like him (and he’s come to realize that they have more than a few personality traits in common, despite appearances) she’s not doing that great. But he smiles at Ron, tries to sound as genuine as possible. “She’s fine, you know, she’s a tough girl, she’ll be okay.” He can’t quite manage the lie for himself.

--

They’re eating Domino’s for the third time in a week and they’ve been watching a Top Chef marathon for four hours. Number of times Ben’s left the house today: zero. Number of times Ben’s left the house since he got home from work yesterday: zero. His joints feel wooden, his chest feels stiff. His ass hurts from too much sitting. They’re out of beer and there’s no ice cream.

Ben reaches over to grab the remote and turns off the tv.

“Hey,” April says, “Jamie was about to do something bitchy. Turn it back on.”

Ben slides his hands over his knees and stands up. “We need to get out of this house.”

April just rolls her eyes and sighs. “There’s nothing to do around here.”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. We just need to—come on.” She gives him the look she sometimes gives him when he orders her around, a look he imagines her parents got a lot when she was growing up and it makes him feel old and pervy so he says, “Get your ass off the couch.” He goes to his room, puts on jeans and a t-shirt and brushes his teeth. God, is this the first time he’s brushed his teeth all day? He needs to get a fucking grip.

When he comes back out to the living room April’s still sitting in the same spot on the couch only now she’s got on jeans and a tank top, this little strappy pink thing that makes him want to run his tongue along her collarbone. And even though he usually gives in to his inappropriate April urges lately, he doesn’t do that, doesn’t push her back against the cushions and slide his knee between her thighs. Instead he grabs his keys, says, “Come on,” and heads for the door.

They drive around for awhile with the windows down. Ben suggests different places to go (the ice cream place across town, or there’s bound to be some movie playing where they can at least watch shit blow up for a few hours) but April shoots them all down, and it’s never been until this moment that Ben’s considered how cut-off they both are from other people. April hasn’t gone out with friends in months. Ben doesn’t hardly even talk to Tom anymore. It’s pretty fucking pathetic that the most frequently called number on his contacts list is his mom. Jesus.

So Ben just drives aimlessly, bopping his head to whatever terrible music April put on when they got in the car. Then she says, “Pull in here,” and points to the parking lot of The Bulge. Ben pulls in and parks but doesn’t take off his seatbelt.

“Really? The Bulge?”

April gives him a look. “You’re the one who wanted to leave the fucking house so bad.” And then she’s out of the car and halfway across the parking lot and really, she’s got a point. There isn’t anything to do in this town.

Everything about The Bulge is just the way he remembers it: really fucking gay. April orders him a beer and herself a shot, this disgusting-looking green thing with sugar on the rim. She knocks it back and orders another and then drags him out to the dance floor.

“April, I don’t dance.” She should know that. She’s met him before. He’s exactly as awkward as he looks.

She rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Fine, then get me another drink.” He gets her another shot, pink this time. A blond guy offers to buy him a drink. It’s the best part of his day so far.

He doesn’t head back to the dance floor with his drinks. He heads to a booth in the corner instead, sits down and watches the room. (Yes, he realizes he’s still just sitting around, but at least this booth doesn’t have a permanent impression of his ass like the couch back at the house does.) April’s in the middle of the dance floor by herself, bouncing up and down on her toes in time with the music. It’s bass-y and pounding and it thuds in his chest, but in a way that’s less irritating than the fact that it just makes him feel kind of alive, almost young and a little bit reckless.

He watches her out there, swaying back and forth with her eyes half-closed, her hair swinging down around her shoulders. She’s beautiful. And even though he’s currently fucking her a couple times a week, that’s not something he thinks all that often, even though it’s true. She was beautiful at her wedding and she was beautiful after, the way she smiled at Andy, the way she cared about things. He’s not sure which is the real April, whether she’s naturally as sullen and dour as she’s been the past few weeks or whether she’s more like the way she was when Andy was around. He has a sneaking suspicion it’s the latter and he suddenly realizes what a big fucking lie he told Ron. Neither of them are doing fine.

He watches her dance for a long time, the way her skin gets sweaty and reflects all the different colored lights. By the time she comes over to get her shot her hair’s started to curl a little at her temples. She slides in next to him, lines them up hip to hip and knee to knee. It’s closer than he’d usually let her get in public, but he doesn’t pull away.

“We should do this more often,” he says. It’s like if he could just make her smile or laugh then everything would be better for the both of them.

April just shrugs disinterestedly and throws back her shot. “Whatever.” She leans back in the booth and tilts her head all the way back. Ben wants to kiss his way up the line of her neck, wants to shove her out the door and take her out of town, far away from all the things that’ve ever hurt her. The urge isn’t romantic or idealistic so much as it is cowardly. As if there’s any place they could run that all their bullshit wouldn’t follow, and he’s spent enough time running from his problems to know exactly how much good it does.

So instead he drains the last of his beer and nudges April’s knee. “Come on,” he says. “One dance.” She narrows her eyes but slides out of the booth, and even though he makes exactly as big an ass of himself as he expected to and April can’t stop rolling her eyes, the smile she gives him is almost worth it.

----

Part 2

just trying to get the good rush

allthingsholy — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 03:24:48 GMT

geegollythanks
graphics by gigglemonster (@lj|@tumblr)

This happened. I have no regrets.

If you've ever thought, wow, those two characters might be super interesting together because they both start off as really cut off from other people and slowly blossom into folks who are more open and engaged and emotionally invested in things, and those similarities are appealing to me, there's a community for you! Now, I ship Ben/Leslie and April/Andy pretty severely in canon, but canon is canon and fandom is not, and this is how I deal with that.

tl;dr, they're my new Jim/Jan, only I've turned my crazy up to 11 and this is what happens.

So if you've ever wanted Ben/April, if you've ever written Ben/April, if you've ever WANTED to write Ben/April (certain people on my flist, I am looking right at you), yeah. geegollythanks. Please come and play.

[fic] no time to second-guess it, parks and rec, ben/leslie, pg13, 3200 words

allthingsholy — Wed, 04 May 2011 03:44:30 GMT

Title: No Time to Second-Guess It
Pairing: Ben/Leslie, April/Andy
Fandom: Parks & Recreation
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3200
Notes: Man, I got bit by the P&R bug BUT GOOD. And these two, I literally cannot even. It's been awhile since I've written fic for a sitcom (BBT isn't a sitcom, right? At least not a funny one?) so forgive any rough edges. juniperlane did her best to smooth them out, and fujiidom gets props for being a cheerleader and crack dealer, since she's probably to blame for how much I love this show. Title from Neko Case (obsessed), "I'm an Animal." Anything of quality is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fuck, Ben thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well.

----

When Ben wakes up in the morning and manages not to trip over any trash on his way to the kitchen, he thinks things are looking up. The house didn’t catch fire in the night because Andy made a midnight snack and forgot to turn the oven off, what minimal furniture they have seems to still be in the same place it was when he went to bed, and there’s no new writing on the walls. All good signs, he thinks.

But when he steps into the bathroom to shower, he sees a piece of paper stuck to the mirror. (It might be held up by a piece of gum. He’s not going to check.)

“Ask out Leslie.” That’s all it says. The writing’s far too legible to belong to Andy and Ben’s pretty sure it was done in lipstick. He hangs his head. Fuck, he thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well. He tears down the paper (there’s definitely gum on the back) and throws it in the newly purchased trash can, then spends the whole morning trying to figure out how to make this go away.

--

Ben’s stuck in budget meetings until noon, but when they finally let out he heads straight for the shoeshine stand. Sure enough, April’s sitting in one of the seats and Andy’s behind the counter. When they see him coming, April gets this look on her face that’s equal parts superior and indifferent. It’s pretty much how her face always looks when she sees him.

Ben checks to make sure no one important is in the hallway when he walks up to them. He scans quickly for the cameras but they must be in Leslie’s office or following Ann. “Hey guys,” he says. The way April’s looking at him is even more unsettling than usual and he clears his throat and rocks kind of awkwardly on his heels, then climbs up into the seat next to her. “So about that note on the mirror this morning. I need you to not ever say that again, okay?”

“Andy didn’t say anything about you liking Leslie.” April picks at a thread on her jeans and Andy flips through a course catalog for the community college and won’t look Ben in the eyes. Ben rubs a hand over his face. April looks up at him, eyes as blank as always. “I’m lying, he told me. Ask her out.”

Ben sighs, that deep, long-suffering sigh that seems to have only gotten long-suffering-er since he got to Pawnee. He likes this town, he really does, but it is honestly filled with the craziest, strangest people he’s ever met. And he’s from Minnesota.

Ben checks the hallway again (this is usually the time when Leslie heads to the commissary for lunch, not that he’s all that familiar with her schedule or anything, and not that he tries to time his lunch with hers so they can sit in the courtyard and talk about politics or city projects or the weather) and then turns in his seat. “April, I’m serious. You cannot say anything. I know you’re just here because you don’t have anything better to do, but this is my career.” He tries to be stern; fatherly or brotherly or whatever, but judging by the look she’s giving him, he just sounds kind of pathetic. No wonder Andy brought home a marshmallow gun; she’s got weird powers, fueled by apathy and silent hostility and big, cute eyes. This isn’t going very well.

“I won’t say anything,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter. You always look at her like you’re about to ask her to prom. It’s weird.”

“I don’t,” Ben starts, but really, if he’s being honest with himself, he’s probably not doing a very good job of hiding his feelings. Not that he should have to, he thinks, and he wishes again that Chris could be just a little less Chris about some things and lighten up. So what if it’s a huge conflict of interest and could potentially tarnish both of their future politic careers? Small potatoes compared to the tight feeling he gets in his chest whenever she walks in a room. Chris noticed once and prescribed wheat germ and fish oil or something equally dubious-sounding, but Ben blamed it on the burrito he’d had for lunch and Chris didn’t mention it again.

He ends up just sighing and running his hand through his hair. He’s almost got a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue when Andy calls out, “Leslie!”

Ben looks up and Leslie’s walking down the hallway toward them, cameras in tow. He glances at April and she’s looking right at him, eyes set and unwavering, and his heart starts beating really quickly. Then again, that might be because Leslie’s got three pencils holding her hair up and the wisps of blonde frame her face in a way that Ben finds professionally adorable.

“Hi, Leslie,” April calls out. She’s suddenly way too chipper and Ben jumps down from the chair, tries to win control of this potentially disastrous situation.

“Lunch?” he asks. “I hear the commissary’s serving turkey chili.” Leslie smiles and nods, waves hello and goodbye to April and Andy, and they take off down the hallway. Ben looks over his shoulder at April and she’s still sitting in the shoeshine chair, eyes deadlocked onto his.

Fuck, he thinks again.

--

It goes on like this for two weeks. He keeps finding notes stuck all over the house: in the silverware drawer, taped to the fridge. She pastes photos of Leslie’s face all over his steering wheel and he seriously considers moving out (for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time).

He gets home from work one day and Andy’s sitting on the couch, his guitar in his lap, halfway through a verse that sounds suspiciously like, “Ben, Ben just ask her out, she’s cool and blonde and good with math.”

“Andy, what the hell?” Ben tries to focus less on the fact that Andy’s writing songs about him and Leslie and more on the fact that he’s finally using a coaster, but it doesn’t work.

“Sorry, dude,” Andy answers. He moves his guitar onto the couch and stands up. For a grown man, he looks like a kid caught sneaking into the candy jar way too often. “I usually just write what I know, and April’s been complaining about you and Leslie a lot lately, and I guess it just got into my head. But I’ll write about something else!” Andy looks eagerly around the room. “Hey, what rhymes with the word carpet?”

Ben just sighs and runs his hand over his face and prays to god Mouse Rat doesn’t get booked for any live shows in the foreseeable future.

--

For being a nonessential department, Parks and Recreation has more meetings than anyone else in Pawnee’s city government, which probably has less to do with additional projects and more to do with Leslie’s love of color-coding and organization and hearing the sound of her own voice. In a way that Ben finds (totally inappropriately) cute.

“So we’ll be taking names of volunteers for the Ramsett Park clean-up day. You guys can sign up in shifts, and don’t worry: I’ve already made snack packs for everyone.” Leslie’s walking back and forth in front of the table, talking with her hands while everyone else doodles on their packets. Jerry’s staring out the window. Ben’s trying to look interested but it must come off as something else (something like I’d like to make out with you or at least buy you dinner) because when he looks across the table, April’s looking back and forth between him and Leslie, rolling her eyes and smirking. He clenches his jaw and puts on his best “I’m a responsible adult” face, but when Leslie dismisses the meeting, she heads right toward him.

“I thought I’d sign you up for a mid-morning shift? Mornings in Ramsett Park are beautiful, and there are a lot of moms there with their kids. Push a few swings, smile a lot, you’ll get plenty of sign-ups. It’ll be great.” She’s talking really quickly all of a sudden, it’s like she just ate a NutriYum bar. Ben’s always been pretty bad at reading signals, so she either likes him or snuck a few treats while making their snack packs. Knowing Leslie, it might even be both.

Ben smiles and gathers up his padfolio. “Definitely,” he says. “I will, yes, that’ll be, sure.” He sees April watching them from across the room where Tom’s showing her something on the computer that’s probably not work-appropriate. He looks back at Leslie and says, “Umm, will you be there?”

She smiles and shakes her head. “Sunday mornings I lead a kids’ exploration troop in the forest preserve across town. This weekend, we’re studying coniferous trees!”

She’s way too excited in the way she’s always way too excited and Ben can’t help the way his mouth splits open into a huge grin. “Okay,” he says. “Well, I’ll do my best.”

On his way out of the office, April bumps into him and he doesn’t notice until he gets back upstairs that she slipped a piece of paper in his pocket. It’s a far more graphic depiction of Jerry’s painting (he’s had enough trouble getting over the sight of her tastefully painted half-naked self, he’s not ready to deal with the things April’s drawn), and scrawled across the bottom in April’s now familiar hand are the words, “Quit being a bitch.”

He stuffs the paper in his pocket and goes about his day. Disposing of it on government property would just be irresponsible.

--

Ben wakes up in the middle of the night because there’s something (probably a raccoon, possibly a Yeti) rooting through the trash outside. He lays there for a long time, staring at the shadows on the ceiling before he decides to get up and get something to drink.

When he gets to the kitchen, April’s sitting on the counter in an over-sized Mouse Rat t-shirt eating ice cream out of the carton. For a second he feels self-conscious, standing there in just his boxers and a t-shirt (he’s her boss, or her boss’ boss, but they’re roommates and it’s not weird and maybe he didn’t think this all the way through before he moved in), but she kicks her legs back and forth against the counter and goes back to her ice cream like there’s nothing strange about meeting her boss’ boss in the kitchen at 3 am while he’s just wearing his underwear.

“Hey,” he says. He gets a glass from the cabinet (they’d bought sets of glassware like he’d told them to, but there are four different cups from, like, 4 different sets in there: Andy set up a Beatles vs. Stones war last night, using the Muppets cups as refs) and fills it with water from the fridge. April just licks ice cream off the underside of the spoon and kicks her feet back and forth again.

They don’t say anything for awhile. Ben leans back against the counter and drains his glass of water and April’s heels thud hollowly against the cabinet door. He finally opens his mouth to speak but April interrupts him.

“Ask out Leslie.” She’s said it to him a thousand times, it seems: under her breath when they’re in a Parks Department meeting, when she sees him in the hallway at City Hall, when he’s making breakfast in the morning and she comes in to get her first of a hundred cups of coffee. It sounds different now, more sincere, and that’s not a word he uses to describe April all that often, so he doesn’t tell her to shut up, or act like an adult. He doesn’t say anything.

April jumps down from the counter and sets the carton of ice cream next to the microwave. “Leslie’s awesome,” she says. She kind of toes at the floor and Ben remembers how young she is, how ridiculous this whole marriage is, how much he’s secretly hoping she and Andy last forever and never, ever become as cynical as he’s been these past few years. He was at their wedding and usually he forgets about that great big smile on her face when she said “I do” (or “fine” or “whatever” or however she and Andy ended their vows), but it’s times like these when he remembers.

He purses his lips and nods his head. “I know,” he says. And he does. She is awesome, and April’s not the first person to tell him so, but he’s glad that she did, that April cares about Leslie. Ben thinks everyone should. It’s only fair, since Leslie cares about everybody else.

April drums her fingers on the counter and looks out the window over the sink, shrugs her shoulders like it’s no big deal, she’s just trying to give him life-changing advice. She did get married after three weeks of dating Andy, so. It’s all relative. “She likes you, you know. It’s totally obvious. And confusing, because you’re a huge dork.”

“Thanks,” Ben answers. He’s getting better at reading April after all these weeks (his accuracy varies day to day) but he’s pretty sure she’s not actually insulting him.

April puts the lid back on the ice cream carton and stuffs it in the freezer. “I think you make her happy,” she says. Her back is to him and the hum of the refrigerator seems louder than usual, but he’s pretty sure that’s what she says. His face doesn’t even betray the fact that his heart kind of swelled in his chest a little, or something equally cliched that April would mock him for. “Leslie should be happy.”

“Wow,” Ben says. “That’s actually really sweet of you.”

April turns on her heel and glares at him. “Don’t tell anyone I said that or I’ll tell Oren the trick to jimmying your bedroom window.”

Ben laughs. Then he stops laughing. “Wait, what?”

April doesn’t answer him, which means he’s probably going to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if the lock on his window holds. She leans back against the fridge and crosses her arms over her chest. “If you like her then why don’t you ask her out?”

Ben sets his glass down on the counter. His relationship with Leslie sounds even worse out loud and he hasn’t actually really talked about it with anyone since Andy, so he feels his tongue sticking in his throat while he tries to figure out what to say. It’s like Crazy Ira and the Douche all over again, only maybe more intimidating. “April, I’d love to,” he finally says, his words all running together. “But Chris has rules about these things, and even if Leslie does like me--”

“She does,” April interrupts.

“Okay,” Ben says. He takes a deep breath, acts like his heart didn’t just fall out of his body. “But there are rules. And so we just, we don’t talk about it. We can’t.”

“Wow.” April pushes herself off the fridge and sets her dirty spoon down on the counter. “That’s, like, the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m friends with Oren.” She walks past him back toward her room and he grabs her spoon and sets it in the sink.

She’s just about to open the door when he pokes his head out of the kitchen and asks, “You were joking about the window, right?”

She doesn’t answer, just smiles sweetly and waves goodnight. It’s the April version of giving him the finger.

Awesome.

--

When Ben wakes up the next morning, April and Andy are already in the kitchen. She’s cracking eggs into a bowl of pancake mix while he tries to figure out exactly how many chocolate chips to add to “achieve maximum delicious.”

When he sees Ben, Andy points at him and asks, “Ben! How into chocolate are you? Like, on a scale of 1 to that fat kid from Willy Wonka.”

Ben smiles and thinks a second before saying, “I don’t know. Like, five?”

“Awesome. Then we’ll just add the whole bag!” He leans over and pours the chips into the batter. Ben sees April roll her eyes, but she’s smiling.

Ben pours a cup of coffee and sits down on one of the lawn chairs. They’ve gotten a couch and an entertainment center, but a table and chairs are next on the list. He half reads the paper, half watches them fuss over the batter. Andy pours it in graphic and inappropriate shapes and April make the shapes even dirtier and they laugh and high-five and when Andy smears batter on her cheek, she flicks the spatula at him. They’re making a mess and Ben should care more, but he doesn’t.

Dammit, he thinks. It is cute.

“Leslie eats breakfast at JJ’s on Saturdays,” April says. He hadn’t noticed, but she’s standing right in front of him. Andy’s trying to flip pancakes without a spatula, which basically means he’s going to hurt either himself or everyone, but April doesn’t seem all that concerned. “It’s, like, ten. She’s probably there right now.”

Ben looks back down at the paper. There are a few garage sales over by the high school and the Mayor’s dog might have a cold.

“I don’t normally get involved because … I don’t care,” April says, and Ben knows enough now to know that’s not even almost the truth, “but you should go accidentally run into her and accidentally be creepishly turned on by how into whipped cream she is.”

Ben keeps his eyes on the crossword puzzle while he weighs his options, tries to rationalize going against the possible repercussions, mentally makes a pros and cons list in the ten seconds he has before April throws a fork at him. It hits him in the arm and he looks up at her. “Either stop being a pussy or stay here and eat Andy’s pancake penises. Your choice.”

Even though he fundamentally disagrees with most of April and Andy’s life decisions, he can’t deny that they work. They balance each other out, in a way that shouldn’t make any sense but it does. It’s been a long time (17 years, actually) since Ben let himself make a rash decision, but he watches them at the stove and thinks maybe there’s something to be said for not looking before you leap. Ben smiles and pushes himself out of the chair. “Well, when you put it like that.”

He dresses quickly, throws on jeans and a baseball cap, hustles past Andy and April (“Oh my god,” she says, “you’re not wearing plaid”) and makes the short drive to JJ’s. Maybe Leslie will be there. Maybe they’ll split an extra order of home fries. Maybe afterward, they’ll go to one of the garage sales he read about and she can help pick out their dining room furniture.

Maybe moving in with April and Andy is going to work out just fine.

my trip to nyc, told in p&r gifs

allthingsholy — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:33:08 GMT

This past weekend I went to NYC with juniperlane and fujiidom and it was amazing. Seriously, seriously amazing.

Meg and I got into the city Friday afternoon and chilled until Maura got to the hotel (which was located right next to a delightful ~~little~~ place called "Hunk-O-Mania"). Then we packed up and walked to Craftbar, one of (Top Chef's) Tom Colicchio's restaurants in Manhattan. IT WAS AMAZING. Maura had steak, Meg had veal meatballs, I had fish and it was all amazing. We also had a few appetizers and an apple tart for dessert, and even though that shit was balls expensive, it was worth every penny. I'd really like to go to Craft, his main restaurant, the next time we're in NYC, but $$$$$$$, basically. STILL. Totally worth it.

After dinner we hit up the theater. We had Saturday tickets for both "The Normal Heart" (with Jim Parsons, Lee Pace, Ellen Barkin, & many others) and "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (with Daniel Radcliffe and John Laroquette). We wanted to do a dry run of the "Normal Heart" stage door, just to see who came out to sign things and who didn't, what the set-up was like, and as none of us had every really stage door'ed before, just get the general lay of the land. We hung around for a bit until people started filtering out. "The Normal Heart" has the same stage door as "That Championship Season," so we saw Jim Gaffigan, Keifer Sutherland, and Chris Noth all exit. They didn't stop to sign anything, just hopped in their cars and drove off. (One woman did yell "HOT POCKETS!" at Jim Gaffigan as he was getting in the car, which was pretty funny.) There were also a few people from "The Normal Heart" who came out (Wayne Wilcox (Marty from Gilmore Girls, Mark Harelik (Gablehauser from Big Bang Theory, and Luke MacFarlane (Scotty from Brothers & Sisters) and they mostly stopped to sign stuff for the people who were there. We were still waiting to see Jim Parsons (and Lee Pace).

Then the world ended.

Victor Garber walked by.

Internally I did this:

Externally I did this:

In case I haven't made it clear, Victor Garber is #1 on my All-Time Favorite Celebrity list. He's been there for years and shall never be retired. It was ... destiny. Meg and Maura were facing me and I was facing the street and Victor walked by LITERALLY right behind them. He put his hands on their shoulders and said, "Excuse me" and went to walk backstage. Now, I have a finely tuned Victor Garber radar, so I saw right away that it was him but Maura and Meg didn't see him until he was already 99% past us and by then it was too late to say anything. Meg said some version of, "That was Victor Garber! Why didn't you say anything, you cunt?!" but I just stood there speechless for literally five minutes. Everyone else either didn't see him or didn't know who he was, because they were all looking at me like I was crazy while I was freaking out.

Like twenty minutes later a bunch of actors all came out at the same time, but I only really noticed Victor, Jim, and Lee Pace. Victor took off right away as he wasn't really there to sign stuff but Jim came literally right at us. As we hadn't seen the show yet, we didn't have playbills or anything to sign, so he just kind of looked at us expectantly and we said, "Hi!" And then he just kind of moved past us. AWKWARD, but fine. We watched him sign stuff and then Lee Pace came over to us and we were like, "Nope, dude, nothing." Lee Pace signed for awhile and Jim signed until his handler or whoever told him he had to go, and then he took off down Eighth Avenue and we went to imbibe alcohol. It was a good day!

Saturday we got up and went to the NBC store to buy all the Parks and Rec gear they have. Meg got a Pawnee sweatshirt, I got a Harvest Festival t-shirt, a Mouse Rat magnet, and Pawnee today mug. (I'm totally smitten, I can't help it.) We also decided we were going to get Jim an FNL baseball cap, because he loves FNL and we love him, so we bought it and then dropped everything back at the hotel. (Gift = coolest or lamest thing ever? WHATEVER.) Then we packed it up and went to "The Normal Heart" matinée (where we met @sortaryan).

The show is about NYC in the 80's gay community, right when AIDS was first starting to show up. Ellen Barkin plays a doctor who's trying to track/fight the disease, and Joe Mantello plays the lead character (Ned Weeks) who's trying to get the word out. I won't go into too many details about the show beyond saying: it's heartbreaking, it's intense, it's amazing, and Joe Mantello was a fucking rock star. (Patrick Breen was also the A+++++est of A+++++s. The whole company was amazing.) Parsons plays a sassy gay man named Tommy Boatwright, who at one point introduces himself as, "Tommy Boatwright: Southern bitch." He's the more optimistic of the ensemble characters, playing comic relief most of the time, but he does get some serious work to do towards the end. He's very good in it, though Mantello, Barkin, and Breen steal the show more than anyone else. (Lee Pace has an especially moving scene too, and John Benjamin Hickey is sheer aces. FUCK IT, THEY'RE ALL INCREDIBLE. GO SEE IT IF YOU CAN. BRING TISSUES.) One of the best parts of the play was when JPSB, totally away from the action, gave Lee Pace THE BIGGEST ONCE-OVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Granted, Lee Pace looked fucking DELICIOUS (even with a pornstache), so seeing Jimmy Peace look him up and down and up again was hilarious. He also said fuck a few times, but the once-over was the best part of the funny parts.

(Spoiler alert: "Jim Parsons: Southern Bitch" (#JPSB) is the new "Jimmy Peace." Spread the word.)

After the show, we decided not to do the stage door because it was the matinée and we really wanted to go eat something, so we met up with the delightful ciachick711 and headed for dinner and drinks. Then Ryan went to a friend's while we went to "How to Succeed" and Lauren went to "Normal Heart," with promises we'd all meet up after for drinks again.

Now, "How to Succeed" is my least favorite musical of all time. We did it in high school and I hated it then and I hated it now and it's awful. That being said, DanRad actually did a good job (even though John Laroquette thoroughly stole the show.) The football dance number between DanRad and John was the highlight of the evening, by far. We ended up leaving the show at intermission because we were pretty over it (even though it was fine and everyone was doing a good job) so that we wouldn't miss the "Normal Heart" stage door and our chance to meet JPSB.

It took a lot longer for them to come out Saturday night, but it wasn't disappointing at all. "That Championship Season" actors took off right away again, but finally "The Normal Heart" cast started filtering out. Lee Pace was the first to show up, and when we saw him come out the stage door, he looked right at me and I made some version of this face:

So he came over to sign our programs and then, like, two others and took off. (The crowd Saturday night was noticeably smaller than Friday night.)

Then we spied Jim walking out. He stopped inside the door to chat a bit with Ellen Barkin, and then they finally stepped out. I didn't expect Ellen Barkin to really sign much, but she saw us and beelined over and we all went:

She was super nice and thanked us for waiting so long and then signed a few more. Joe Mantello came over we gushed at him because he really was so, so good, and then he signed for me, Maura and Lauren. Lauren mentioned "9 to 5" (which he directed) and he looked genuinely touched. He put his hand on his chest and said, "I like you. You're in my heart," and was just awesome.

Then Jim came over and we gave him the hat. He said he really did like FNL and then he signed our programs. We told him the show was awesome and he was great and then we asked if we could take a few pictures and he said no problem, so Meg, Maura, and I all posed and he was very nice and tall and adorable. When we were finished up, he was like, "This hat is really for me?" and we said of course, and he smiled and thanked us and signed the rest of the playbills for the people waiting. He was also very, very nice, which I totally expected.

After Jim stepped away, Meg noticed Joe Mantello hadn't signed her playbill, but he very graciously came back over and thanked us again for waiting so long. Maura told him he should win a Tony tomorrow and he just laughed and was fantastic and I really, really like him and he was incredible.

SO THAT WAS MY WEEKEND.

Inside my heart I'm alternating between doing these two things:
&

AND THEN HERE'S MY PICTURE WITH JP!

[fic] stranger things have happened (maybe not), bbt/fringe, 1600 words, pg

allthingsholy — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:28:02 GMT

Title: Stranger Things Have Happened (Maybe Not)
Pairing: Sheldon/Penny, Peter/Olivia
Fandom: BBT/Fringe
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1600
For: trippy41, who so generously donated for help_japan. She requested Sheldon/Penny or Peter/Olivia, and because I'm crazy, the got both. Set during a magical fantasy land where everyone on these shows was happy at the same time.
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for looking over it and laughing in the right spots.
Summary: There are cows. Well, one cow, but still. This is Harvard. She didn’t expect cows.

----

To say that Penny finds conference banquets dull is like saying that Lady Gaga’s a little bit odd, or that Raj is just kind of quiet. There aren’t actually words for how dull she finds them, or how tempted she is to keep knocking back glasses of free champagne until Sheldon has to carry her out over his shoulder. There are only so many times a person can listen to string theory and quantum mechanics and people kissing ass before the urge to strangle someone takes over.

Penny has reached that point. Penny reached that point like two months ago. She tries to comfort herself with the fact that at least this time they got to go somewhere interesting, even if she now seriously questions the sanity of coming to Boston in the middle of February. But the champagne’s fancy and the appetizers are good and none of the other scientists have ogled her too much. Sheldon even promised he’d dance with her later, and she’ll hold him to that if she’s got to forcibly drag him out onto the dance floor. So far, things are looking up.

Then the roof of the building disappears and everything kind of goes to shit.

--

Sheldon can’t stop talking. He keeps saying things like “spatial relativity” and “deferred momentum” and “unilateral consistency,” but he’s got his hand like a vice around her elbow and his voice is strained and anxious.

“Penny,” he says, “Penny, this is bad. This is impossible. This is.” He stops and looks around the room. There are walls that end halfway to where they’re meant to and there’s a strange sort of shimmer over everything. It’s hazy, like she can just see it from the corner of her eye, but Sheldon keeps pulling her focus back when his fingers dig harder into her skin. “Penny, I don’t know what this is.”

She’s trying to think of something reassuring to say (“Don’t worry, there’s an explanation, you can’t possibly know everything!” will probably not do the trick) when a man comes running past her, arms thrown wildly above his head.

“I knew it!” He stops and turns back to her, pumping his hands triumphantly. “I knew it! I knew the electrospectogram wasn’t wrong! I knew something was happening here!” She has no idea who he is (she’s pretty sure he wasn’t at the party) but he’s looking at her with these wild eyes and Penny shrinks back into Sheldon just a little. “I knew it!” he says again, stopping right in front of her.

“The screams were a big giveaway too though, right?” Penny turns and sees another guy, younger this time, come walking up. “Don’t mind him, he’s just easily excitable,” he says to her. “Were you two here when it happened?”

“Yes, we were, and I demand to know what’s going on.” Sheldon’s still got his hand tightly clamped onto her elbow, but he loosens it a little when he speaks. “What’s happening here?”

The younger man rolls his eyes and smiles slightly out the corner of his mouth. “We don’t have that kind of time and trust me, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I beg your pardon,” Sheldon says, and Penny cringes. The roof of the building might have just disappeared and things around them might be completely ridiculous, but Sheldon’s still Sheldon and there’s no way he’s going to let anyone insult his intelligence. She tries to pull him away, rein him in, but he carries on full speed. “I’ll have you know that I hold multiple post-graduate degrees in physics and am a well respected member of the scientific community. I’m Dr. Sheldon Cooper.” Penny doesn’t have even have to look to know that Sheldon’s got his indignant, “you should know who I am and defer to my better judgment” face on.

“Sheldon, why don’t we just let these people do whatever it is they came here to do?” She finally manages to drag him back a little bit, but then the crazy old guy comes up and grabs them both by the wrists.

“Dr. Sheldon Cooper!” he says. “I’m familiar with your work! You’ve been doing research on multiverse theory out of CalTech.”

Sheldon stands a little straighter and smoothes down the front of his jacket. “Ah. A fan.”

“No,” the older man says. “Your theories are all wrong. But I enjoy watching you come up with new ones. Terribly amusing.” Even though Penny’s stomach is still doing flips because the roof of the building just disappeared, she snorts out a laugh. Sheldon glares at her and then takes off after the old man.

“I guess you’re coming back to the lab with us. I’m Peter. Welcome to the mad house.”

Penny just shakes her head. “I’m already pretty familiar with the mad house.”

Peter laughs and starts walking in the same direction as Sheldon and the crazy old guy. “You have no idea.”

--

There are cows. Well, one cow, but still. This is Harvard. She didn’t expect cows.

To be fair, she didn’t expect any of this. She and Peter trek across the Quad and then down into the basement of some science building and when they finally throw open the door of the lab, Sheldon and the old guy are standing in front of a chalkboard and talking really fast.

“I suggest,” Peter says, shrugging out of his coat, “we all just stay out of their way.”

“Peter?” Penny turns her head at the voice and sees two women come walking out of an office in the back. One’s blonde, one’s black, and they’re both really pretty. Penny squints her eyes at the old guy and wonders how he surrounded himself with such attractive people. “Oh,” the blonde says, stopping up short. “What happened?”

“Olivia, that is Dr. Sheldon Cooper from Caltech”—Sheldon turns to give the blonde a quick once-over but doesn’t say anything, just turns back to the board and points at something written there—“and this is. Actually I don’t know who this is.”

“I’m Penny,” Penny says. She’s not sure if she should be shaking people’s hands or hiding in the corner, so she just stands there awkwardly and shifts her weight from foot to foot. If there isn’t going to be any more drinking, these shoes are going to have to go. “I’m Sheldon’s girlfriend, we’re here for a conference, it’s all usually really boring, but then the roof went whoosh, and what actually is going on?” By the time she’s finished talking, her voice is kind of high and panicky.

The blonde kind of squints her eyes and nods her head. “Ah. I’m Olivia, from the FBI. That’s Walter Bishop and Astrid Farnsworth and—”

“—And we’re already so sorry,” Astrid finishes. She gives Penny a sympathetic look and then heads toward Sheldon and the old guy.

“You’ll catch on,” Peter says. He walks over to Olivia and puts his hand on the small of her back, leans in close and whispers something in her ear. She nods a couple times and then looks up at him and smiles. Oh, Penny thinks. So that’s going on.

“Apparently, dear, there was a bit of a quantum mechanical mishap with the roof of Ainsley Hall.” Walter leaves Sheldon at the board and walks over to a desk. He grabs a handful of pretzels and turns back to Sheldon. “I figured now would be as good a time as any to educate your friend here. Seize the opportunity to learn more while you can!”

“I beg your pardon,” Sheldon interrupts, “but your equations here don’t make sense. Why would you—” And after that it’s a lot of science that Penny doesn’t even try to follow. She toes off her shoes and hoists herself up on one of the lab tables and kicks her feet back and forth and waits for someone to shout “Aha!” or “Eureka!” or “Tada!”

“Can I ask you a question?” When Penny looks up, Peter’s standing in front of her with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Olivia’s standing behind him but she keeps glancing back over shoulder at Sheldon and Walter. “The roof of Ainsley Hall disappeared. Why aren’t you more freaked out?”

“Oh.” Penny shrugs her shoulder. “Sheldon has, like, binders full of emergency preparedness plans. Schedules and maps for the zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion, stuff like that. I’ve read them. This seems actually less strange.”

“And he’s your boyfriend, you said?” Peter gives her the look she always gets from people who just meet her, the first time they see her with Sheldon. Olivia nudges him discreetly, but Penny just smiles.

“Yeah. We were friends for awhile and then started dating. I know, strange. But it works.”

“Penny!” When she looks over, Sheldon’s rushing toward her. He’s got that nervous excited look on his face, like he’s eaten too much sugar or just beaten a new Wii level or something. “Dr. Bishop and I are going to discuss the practical components of multiverse theory. I think I can be helpful here in determining what caused the upper floor of that building to disappear.” He leans forward and whispers in her ear, “I’d normally be more distrusting of someone who speaks so highly of marijuana, but no time to be picky.” He presses a quick kiss to her cheek and spins around. “Dr. Bishop, can you show me those figures again?”

“Certainly, my boy,” Walter says. He’s got a handful of Red Vines and a wide grin on his face. “We should make hot chocolate. I find it opens up my mind. And it’s quite tasty. Astal, fresh milk from Gene!”

Astrid rolls her eyes and grabs a pail from under the table next to Penny.

“Oh,” Penny says, jumping down. She tucks the end of her dress over her arm and takes the pail from Astrid. “Don’t worry,” she says, looking over her shoulder at Gene. “I’ve got this.”

[fic] within my heart is another heart, goren/eames, pg

allthingsholy — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:00:54 GMT

Title: Within My Heart is Another Heart
Pairing: Goren/Eames
Fandom: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1100
For: odyle, off her prompt at Write for Relief.
Notes: Thanks to galfridian for looking over it and being awesomely helpful. Title and excerpt from "Absence Makes the Heart" by Bob Hicok (found here).
Summary: “So you were Robert Goren’s partner?”

----

When Bobby apologizes, he does it silently, with his hands at her waist. There’s a gap there, the place she tucked her badge so surely for all those years, and he fills it with the length and breadth of his palm, slides it against her skin and waits.

There are years behind them, betrayal and forgiveness met with equal sadness, and Eames wraps her hand around his wrist and doesn’t speak when she tugs him closer.

--

“So you were Robert Goren’s partner?”

This is her third interview in as many weeks and even as she sat in the waiting room with her hands tucked tensely in her lap, this is the question that tightened her fingers and the muscles in her neck. This is the question that pulls her shoulders back and lifts her chin. This is the thing she was waiting for.

“Yes.” She manages to keep the bite from her voice, but she sees the same reaction anyway: eyes pulling shut, mouth curved knowingly, infuriatingly upwards, as if this man could possibly know any of the things she and Bobby have seen and fought and conquered. At the first interview, she defended herself, qualified and rationalized, apologized in not so many words for the time she’d spent beside him. Now she just sits, waits, and doesn’t apologize for a thing.

--

They watch the news at night like people who aren’t responsible for its content, and it sits lighter in her chest than it has in years. Bobby’s beside her on the couch, a novel on his knee while he listens to a report on electioneering in Midtown, and she tucks her feet against him and watches blue uniforms on her tv screen and keeps herself from feeling any regret.

--

“You should call Hill again,” Bobby says. Alex is towel-drying her hair, and she stops at the sight of Bobby in the doorway, his hands in his pockets as he shifts from foot to foot.

Alex chews on her words for a long minute before she speaks. “He’s not going to hire me,” she says. She does not say: because of you, but she’s sure Bobby hears it anyway. He lowers her eyes to the ground and it’s this sight of him, apologetic with no words of apology, that tighten her hands into fists.

“Call him anyway. We can’t--” Bobby is so many half-spoken sentences, so many half-formed thoughts these days. “You can’t keep still just because of me.”

“Bobby, don’t.”

“I’m not, just.” A droplet of water runs down her shoulder from her still-wet hair, just as Bobby lifts his gaze and finally meets her eyes. She’s not sure which makes the hair on her arms spike up, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he says, “I don’t want to be the only thing that keeps you here.”

She knows she could placate him, fill him up with empty words they would both see right through, but that got tired ten years ago and there’s no strength left for it now. “I’ll find something,” she says.

Bobby nods, just once, and turns away.

--

Nichols calls with a name, someone he knows who’s looking for a private consultant and she’s just perfect for the job. She can feel all his frenetic energy through the receiver and momentarily pities the woman he’s got as a partner now.

“Give him a call,” he says. “He knows about everything with you and Goren, but I told him you were a find.”

“Thanks.” She writes the number down and keeps it in her pocket for a week before she calls, but Zach was good for the tip: no one in the interview asks about Bobby at all, and she leaves with a firm handshake and a smile and a brand new job.

--

There are days now, days where she doesn’t strap on her gun and her game face and walk into 1PP, where she doesn’t spend all her time trying to keep the sky from coming down on Bobby’s head.

At her new job, she’s efficient and competent, like she always was, but it’s different now: she feels herself growing without Bobby around, sunlight hitting her face when she’s not standing in his shadow. When she walks into a room, people don’t wait for the giant of a man who’s always right behind her, they shut up and listen to what she has to say and she finds herself caught for a second, doing the waiting for them. She’s still oddly lonely when she walks down a hallway, stands in an elevator, fills out paperwork without her elbow brushing his.

The first month she works the new job, she doesn’t hear from Bobby at all.

--

When he shows up at her door at midnight, she feigns the smallest hint of surprise but it’s too old hat now to be anything but expected. He’s got his hands in his pockets, his head bowed low, and it’s so much like every other time he came to her for forgiveness. There’s a dog howling in the street and the sound cuts through Bobby’s silence like a knife. She crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the doorway and waits.

“How’s the new job?”

“It’s fine,” she says.

In the bottom drawer of the desk in her office is a copy of the letter she wrote requesting a new partner back when she was first assigned to Major Case; a clipping from the paper when Nicole Wallace was killed; and beneath those, a handwritten card he’d given her while she was in the hospital, his strong, slanted writing spelling out, “Get better. Please.” At the bottom there was a bit of a poem by some guy named Hicok, he’d written. She’d read the poem over and over before she realized what he was trying to say: “I’m sorry. That this happened to you. That I wasn’t there.” She can recite it from memory now, and she looks over Bobby’s shoulder and into the streetlight across the road. “Absence makes the heart,” she starts, and he interrupts with the next line, stepping into her just slightly.

“That’s it,” he finishes. “Absence makes the heart.” She unclenches her arms, lets them hang still at her sides, and Bobby takes another step into her and slides his hand along her hip, right where she used to wear her badge. “Can I come in?”

She can feel his lips turning up slightly as he moves them against her temple and she wraps her hand around his wrist and tugs him closer.

[fic] if you call, i'll still answer, haven, audrey/nathan, pg

allthingsholy — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:41:18 GMT

Title: If You Call, I’ll Still Answer
Pairing: Audrey Parker, Nathan Wuornos
Fandom: Haven
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1100
For: muir_wolf, who so generously donated for help_japan and requested something for Haven with any combination of Audrey/Nathan/Duke. This is. I don't know. I'll write you ot3 porn or something when this is all over, okay?
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for looking over it LIKE ALWAYS.
Summary: She's Special Agent Audrey Parker. Or something.

--

When Nathan Wuornos shows up at her front door at midnight, it’s hardly the most surprising part of her day. He walks in and doesn’t say anything for a second and she just knows he’s counting up the bottles on her coffee table and assessing how sloppy this situation could potentially get.

“Four,” she says, before he can say anything. “I’ve had four drinks.”

She watches him look around the room and then sit down gingerly on her couch, like he’s not quite sure a welcome’s been extended. “So not so drunk yet?”

She snorts out a laugh and goes to sit beside him. “I’m made of much sterner stuff than that, Detective Wuornos.”

“Why, I’d never doubt your tolerance, Agent Parker.”

Her eyes flash toward him, just for a second, and she sees him flinch and ball his hand into a fist. She doesn’t say anything. He relaxes after a second and leans forward and grabs a beer, twists it open and takes a drink. “You aren’t going to tell me I need to take it easy?” she asks.

Nathan shrugs his shoulders and leans back against the couch. “I’m not your mother. You’re a big girl.”

They’re quiet for a minute and she wants to ask him what he’s doing here, whether he came to check up on her or seek comfort of his own. Things have changed for both of them in impossibly huge ways the last few days, so either option’s likely.

“Mia,” she says suddenly. “Or Cadence.” She narrows her eyes and looks over at Nathan. “I figure I’ll need a new name,” she says, “since Audrey Parker’s already taken.” She tries to sound flippant but she knows he’s not buying it. He just looks at her while he takes a long drink from his beer, his eyes focused on her. She feels it in the pit of her stomach and the tips of her fingers, pushing right up against her buzz. She tries to push the thought away, so instead she asks, “Do I look like a Candy to you?”

He cocks his head and narrows his eyes and stays quiet for a few long seconds. “What?” she finally asks.

“Nothing,” Nathan answers, “I’m picturing you as a stripper.”

She grins despite herself. “Nathan Wuornos, having a sense of humor. Give me a second to call the Teagues.”

Nathan grins into his beer and leans forward, puts his elbows on his knees. She wants to reach over and wrap her hand around his wrist. She wonders when he first figured out he could feel her, how long he’s known and not said anything.

“So you can feel me, huh?” It’s not what she meant to say and the words hang in the air between them, heavy and awkward. They haven’t talked about it since he told her, haven’t had much of a chance since the real Audrey Parker showed up this afternoon and everything came apart at the seams.

She sees him falter for a second, can see all the possible answers running through his head, but in the end all he does is nod a little and say, “Yep.”

She picks at the label on her bottle, the condensation making the paper sticky and soft. They’ve been partners for months and sometimes she feels like she knows all the most important things about him, and sometimes she feels like she knows nothing at all. She clears her throat and sits a little straighter in her seat. “When you found out,” she starts, and she feels him lean into her just a little, feels herself following suit, her shoulders rounded toward him across the couch.

Audrey tucks her hair behind her ear and starts again. “When you found out, did it shake you? Did it just make you feel like everything was different?” She looks down at her hands, at the little bits of label stuck under the ends of her nails. “Not necessarily bad, just. Different. Like all the things you were most sure of weren’t there anymore?”

Nathan leans back and clenches his jaw. She knows he’s the last person to ever talk about his feelings and getting him to show emotion can be like pulling teeth, but she also knows he’ll do this for her, open up like this, if he knows she really needs it.

“Yes, everything was different. But in a good way.” He looks up suddenly and she jerks back.

“Listen,” he says, setting his beer down on the coffee table, “we’ve seen some crazy things since the Troubles started. We’ve seen people walking around this town for years after they died. We’ve seen people kill with their shadows and their thoughts, and you never blinked an eye.” She knows the truth of what she’s saying as much as she knows what he’s going to ask her next, and she drops her gaze to the floor as he asks, “Why does this have you so shaken? Why this?”

“At least when all those things were going crazy around here, I knew who I was,” she answers. Her voice is barely more than a whisper and she leans forward and sets her beer down. “Now I’m not Audrey Parker. I’m Lucy, or someone else, and it just scares me.” She looks at Nathan and shrugs her shoulders. “It just does.”

Nathan shakes his head. “No matter what this woman says, you’re still Audrey Parker. You’re still the same person you were yesterday and the day before, no matter what your name is or where you came from. You’re a great agent and a damn good partner and this shouldn’t make you doubt who you are.”

It’s startlingly genuine, coming from him, and she feels her face soften, her eyes and mouth lifting up at the corners. “Now I’ll have to tell the whole town you’re just a giant teddy bear.”

He reaches forward to grab his beer off the table and she can see the corner of his mouth curving up into a smile. “If you do that, I’ll have to start calling you Gertrude.”

She laughs and reaches forward for her beer. Things in this town are crazy and only bound to get crazier, and tomorrow’s another day that’s sure to shake her foundations again. But when she looks at Nathan, he looks sure of things, or sure of her at least. And maybe that’s not enough to get her through the long haul, but for now, it’ll do.

[fic] never you mind the exit signs, flo/mayhem, pg-13, 2800 words

allthingsholy — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:24:43 GMT

Title: Never You Mind the Exit Signs
Pairing: Flo (Progressive)/Mayhem (Allstate)
Fandom: TV Commercials
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2800
For: ishie, off her prompt at Write for Relief. (Go, peruse, write something awesome, send money to a good cause.)
Notes: Thanks to juniperlane for looking over it and reassuring me I haven't totally lost my mind, thanks to Ish having such an awesome prompt and bringing the love for MY FAVORITE CRACKSHIP. Title from "Freeway of Love" by Aretha Franklin.
Summary: This guy moved in a few months ago, took the apartment right below Flo’s place, and he’s been driving her nuts ever since.

----

Flo keeps an apartment just outside the city, a nice one bedroom with enough natural light in the living room that she doesn’t have to turn on a lamp until well past dusk. She’s got a collection of antique fountain pens she keeps on a shelf above her nightstand and all the dishes in her dining room match. She’s got different headbands for each day of the week (all the same color, of course, a uniform’s a uniform and she doesn’t break the rules) and she checks the batteries in her smoke detector every month like clockwork.

She’s up every day at 6:30 and into the office by 8. (Her smile, God gave her. Her hairstyle, that takes effort.) The showroom’s her playground and she loves her job—correction: she really loves her job, especially on days like today when the rates are low and the customers plentiful. She organizes her pens (Roy G. Biv, black Sharpies on each end) one last time as Jerry sweeps the aisle between Auto and Pet and Janice turns off the overhead lights. Flo smiles. It’s a good day.

--

The asshole who lives below her rear-ends her in the parking lot of their building. Flo’s great day—not so great now, actually.

--

This guy moved in a few months ago, took the apartment right below Flo’s place, and he’s been driving her nuts ever since. He plays loud music in the middle of the night and when she complains (to him, to the super, to the random people in the produce section at the grocery store) nothing ever changes and she’s left with rattling dishes at four in the morning. On a Tuesday.

Her mother taught her to kill them with kindness, so she does. At first she brings him plates of fresh-baked cookies and tries to strike up conversation with him at the mailboxes. “I figure if he knows me, he won’t be so rude.” That’s what she tells Janice, at least, while they help the new guy recalculate a deductible.

Here’s the truth, though: guy downstairs? He’s kind of attractive. Not, like, Dick Van Dyke attractive, but—dangerous attractive. Six feet of pure trouble, her mother would probably say, and Flo would probably agree. Especially right now, when the trouble’s overshadowing the attractive by miles and Flo feels her blood start to boil.

It’s not that it’s her first accident. As much as she promotes the company’s good driver discount, she doesn’t ever qualify for it herself, but in three of the last four accidents she’s been in, she’s left the scene with new Progressive policy holders. She really is that good.

This is different. This is something else entirely, and she knows before she even unbuckles her seatbelt that everything’s going to go wrong.

When she gets out of the car, the guy’s sitting behind the driver’s seat of his truck, a lazy smile on his face. She clenches her jaw and turns to survey the damage. Busted tail-light, dented fender. The latch on her trunk looks bent out of shape. His grill’s scratched up, but she’s seen his truck parked down here and it’s hard to tell fresh damage from what was there before. She’s doing math in her head—she memorizes auto part supply lists at her desk sometimes, when things are slow—when she hears the door of the truck open and then slam shut.

When she was little, her father used to sit her down on his knee when he saw her getting all worked up. He made her take three deep breaths before she said anything. “Let the steam disperse, baby girl,” he’d say, bouncing her up and down in his lap.

“Well, shit.” Flo straightens at the voice, but doesn’t say anything as she fills her lungs. “You came out of nowhere.” And exhale.

“This is an awful lot of damage.” Breathe in. “Hope it doesn’t cost too much.” And out. “Because I don’t have insurance.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Flo wheels around on her heel. It’s not often that she swears—not publicly, at least. Her cat, Mr. Sniffleton (may he rest), used to bear the brunt of her profane streak. She tones it down usually but sometimes, a well placed four-letter word is more than warranted.

The guy’s got a cocky grin on his face, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Ooo, check the mouth on Ms. Manners.” Mentally, Flo takes it back, all of it, anything she’s ever thought about this guy being attractive. He’s not attractive. He’s skeezy and gross. He walks around all the time with messy hair and wrinkled suits and now here he is, standing on the broken shards of his headlight, looking like the cat that ate the canary.

Flo takes a second to compose herself enough to say, “What do you mean you don’t have insurance? It’s against the law not to have insurance. It’s against all forms of common sense not to have insurance.”

The guy scratches his chin and shrugs his shoulders. “I almost got one of those ‘name your own price’ policies, but they seemed worthless anyway.”

“Worthless? I don’t—Is that a potshot at me?”

“Yes.”

Flo clenches her jaw. She shoves her hand into her purse, fumbling around for her cell phone. “What’s your name?”

“Mayhem.”

Flo narrows her eyes and pauses with her finger just over the 9 button. “Mayhem?”

Mayhem smiles, cocky and infuriating. “That’s right, sweetheart.”

By the time the cops show up, Mayhem’s sitting on his tailgate whistling cheerfully to himself as Flo leans against her passenger door and fumes.

--

She gets the accident all settled, thanks in no small part to her considerable prowess when it comes to dealing with insurance agents and memorizing the ins and outs of her policy. When she passes Mayhem in the stairwell or at the mailboxes now, she doesn’t smile and make nice anymore, just averts her eyes and walks on. She can feel him watching her now though, his eyes on her across the parking lot or the courtyard of their building.

It brings a blush to her cheeks, no matter how hard she tries to fight it.

--

Flo’s mother says she has horrible taste in men. Flo says it’s none of her mother’s business, thank you very much, and that guy in college set her car on fire by accident. Brian being kind of a nutjob was kismet, actually, since she fell in love with the Progressive agent that came to the scene. Their eyes met over the smoking remains of her ’96 Camry and though that agent might be long gone (having stolen her microwave, coffee table, and Pez dispenser collection), her love for Progressive is still going strong.

But really, who steals Pez dispensers?

--

It’s two in the morning on a Friday night when she hears someone banging on her front door. She’s got her sleep mask on and the covers tucked up under her chin and whoever’s trying to get her attention has been there for a pretty long time by the time she finally throws on a robe and opens the door.

It’s Mayhem. Of course it is. “I need to wait in your apartment.”

“No.” She goes to shut the door but he holds out his hand, pushing it open.

“I lost my keys and the super will be here in half an hour to let me in.” He smiles, an infuriatingly charming grin that makes Flo want to slam the door on his fingers.

“You called in the middle of the night? He’s got kids.”

“Yeah,” Mayhem shrugs. “So? Listen, let me in, it’s freezing out here.”

Flo shakes her head. “I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.” Mayhem points at her. He’s got broken glass in the folds of his shirtsleeves and scratches on the side of his face. “I see you, always checking on that old lady who lives in 2B, helping Mr. Denture Cream from the first floor carry his groceries inside. You care about people.”

Flo crosses her arms over her chest. “So? And why are you watching me? Don’t do that.”

“Your hair’s like an eye-magnet, can’t help it.” He smiles then, this little lift of his lips that almost looks genuine. Flo doesn’t say anything, just pushes the door open and stands aside so he can come in. She points at the couch and waits, for an insult or a thank you, either one. Neither comes.

Before Mayhem can say anything, Flo flips on the TV. They sit in silence for five minutes, watching reruns of CSI on Spike. Mayhem fidgets and picks at the scratches on his neck. Finally, Flo pushes herself off the chair and heads for the bathroom, comes back with the first aid kit her niece got her. She sits down on the couch next to Mayhem and sets the kit on the coffee table, gets out the Neosporin and band-aids.

“Here,” she says, handing him an alcohol pad. Mayhem just grunts and keeps his eyes on the TV. “You’re going to get infected.”

“I thought you didn’t care,” he says.

Flo extends the alcohol pad again. “Apparently I can’t help it.”

He winces when he wipes the cuts down (“Wuss,” she mutters) and flinches even harder when she hands him the neon pink band-aid (“It’s all I’ve got,” she says with a smile). When he’s bandaged and cleaned up, she puts the kit away and sits back against the cushions, watches Catherine and Gil argue over a fresh dead body.

“I’m not one of those women,” she tells him.

He turns to her, surprised. “One of what women?”

She picks at the throw pillow next to her. “One of those women who fall for assholes and men who are mean to them. I’m not like that, and I don’t find your bullshit endearing, or charming, or adorable.” She pulls her arms in, crossing them over her chest. What she’s saying isn’t exactly true: she does fall for those men, those broken, needy men, she can’t help it. It’s the same reason she helps couples get their premiums down, the same reason she does her best to help every customer save as much as they can. She wants to help people, it’s true, but there’s something about Mayhem that feels harder, more dangerous, and her voice is oddly sad when she whispers, “I’m not going to fix you.”

It’s the first time she’s seen him lose the smile and the insufferable cockiness in his shoulders. He clenches his jaw and then turns back to the TV and waits silently for the super to show up.

--

Things Flo needs more of in her life:
- Sleep. She’s gotten really into the late-night CSI marathons on Spike now, and when she does finally go to bed, she has dreams about magotty bodies and severed hands.
- Thai food. The place down the road closed and chicken panang doesn’t grow on trees.
- Sunlight. It’s been icy and cold for a week now. Summer’s always been her favorite season (the accident rate goes way up in the wintertime) and this weather is unacceptable.
- Glee. Don’t judge.

Things Flo definitely does not need more of in her life:
- Mayhem, physically or metaphorically.

So that’s that then.

--

She sees less of Mayhem around the building now. She doesn’t meet him in the stairwells or at the mailboxes. She finally runs into him in the parking lot one day, sees him walking in behind Mrs. Nelson and her son. They’re heading right for an ice patch and Flo’s about to say something considerate, like “Watch your step” or “Mind the ice,” but she sees Mayhem reach his hand out. He looks like he’s going to push Tim onto the ice but then he stops, hand out-stretched. He sort of jerks his fingers back, closes his hand into a fist, and just keeps walking. He doesn’t look at her when they pass.

--

The next time she sees Mayhem it’s from the courtyard and she watches him trying to open his front door. He’s carrying a sack of groceries awkwardly, one arm in a sling and the other fumbling with his keys. She debates for a second going straight to the fourth floor, leaving him to his own devices, but in the end she takes a deep breath and heads for his apartment.

“Do you need help?” When Mayhem sees that it’s her, he jerks up and drops his keys.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters. He stares straight ahead at his door and doesn’t say anything when she walks over. She picks up his keys and he moves aside just a little and lets her unlock the door. Flo’s hands shake for no reason.

“What happened?” she asks. There’s a bruise on his temple and when he shifts the grocery bag off his bandaged arm, he winces.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, pushing the door open. “Thanks.” It’s curt and biting, the way he says it, and if Flo were any less resilient she’d probably pull the door closed and let him be.

“What happened?” she asks again instead. She doesn’t come into his apartment but she doesn’t leave either. She stands in the doorway, turning his keychain in her hands. His apartment is sparsely furnished but tidier than she thought it would be. There’s a stack of old pizza boxes on the kitchen counter and a potted cactus on a shelf over the TV.

Mayhem sets the bag on the counter with a thud. “I got into a car accident,” he says.

She stops herself from asking if he’s finally gotten insurance, just like she’s stopped herself from sliding a Progressive pamphlet under his door every day since that night in her apartment. It would give him ideas, probably, or send the wrong message about how she feels about him, which is totally indifferent and uninterested. Or something. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t really look at her while he unpacks the grocery bag. “Got t-boned by some guy on his cell phone and while usually that would delight me, I didn’t see it coming and I don’t like accidents I don’t have time to prepare for.”

“Are you—”

“I’m not the only cause of mayhem out there.” He says it brashly, boldly, like it’s been something he’s wanted to say for a long time, and it’s only slightly undercut by the box of Cookie Crisp in his hand. “Plenty of people get in plenty of accidents without my help. Where’s your accident forgiveness for me, huh?”

Flo doesn’t know what to say. Mayhem keeps looking at her with these wide eyes and she feels her chest get all tight. “It takes three years, actually.”

Mayhem cocks his head. “What?”

“Progressive’s accident forgiveness. It takes three years.” Flo takes a few steps into the apartment, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Mayhem goes back to his groceries, pulls out frozen dinners and canned soup. She wonders, not for the first time, how he got the way he is, how his insides got so twisted up and why it makes her feel the way it does. “I don’t have three years,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

Flo walks into his kitchen, leans up against the counter and taps her nails against the granite. “You really didn’t mean to get in that accident?” she asks.

Mayhem pushes his hand flat against the counter. “No,” he says. “Some chick I know told me I needed fixing and would have to see to it myself, so I’ve been trying to behave.”

“Don’t call me a chick.”

“Okay.”

She feels the corners of her mouth turn up against her will. Maybe it doesn’t make her weak, wanting to fix him, wanting to help him fix himself. Maybe it makes her strong. Maybe it doesn’t matter. When she meets his eyes, he’s got that stupid charming grin on his face. She doesn’t hate it quite so much now.

--

Mayhem shows up at the Progressive showroom one day. Janice gives her this knowing look but Flo chooses to ignore it and goes out to meet him in the Auto aisle instead. “Time to get some insurance, I guess,” he says. “I was thinking Allstate, but you seem far too convincing to pass up.”

“You seem like a liability only kind of guy,” she says.

Mayhem smiles. The bruise along his temple is almost faded. Her hand itches to reach up and fit just so against his cheek, but she knows from workplace PDAs and keeps her hands in the pockets of her apron instead.

Mayhem rocks back on his heels and winks.“Liability? Me?” His eyes go soft at the corners and he steps into her just slightly. “Never. I’m a full coverage kind of guy.”

Flo smiles. “Is that right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good to know,” she says. She slides a hand into Mayhem’s and leads him across the floor. They ride the carousel all afternoon.

----

WRITE FOR RELIEF FANDOM CHARITY FUNDRAISER

allthingsholy — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:21:29 GMT

With all the fandom auctions going on to aid Japan in their earthquake relief efforts, there's a multitude of new fanworks bound to be produced, and a boatload of donations piling in. AND THAT'S AWESOME. There are all sorts of authors and artists offering their services for charity, and we give them two thumbs up and a big HELLS YEAH for that. Here, we're doing something a little different.

The idea's simple. Just comment with a list of fics you've always wanted from fandoms that get less attention, or ships and pairings that don't get as much love. If someone can write 1k words about any of your fandoms/pairings, you donate $5 to the charity of their choice. Then you get your fic.

That's it.

$5 = 1k words of your dream fic.

GROUND RULES

Request limit: FOUR FICS. When you fill another prompt (confirmation received, story posted), you can request another. As long as you keep filling, you can keep requesting. If no one is filling your original prompts after 3 days, PM myself or juniperlane and we'll work something out.
Fill limit: NONE. However, please be realistic. Since confirmation comes before the fill, please don't over-extend yourself. Only sign up for as many prompts as you can reasonably fill. If that's 10, that's awesome. If that's 1, THAT'S STILL AWESOME. Also, you do not have to submit requests to sign up to fill prompts.
Donation limit: NONE. Baseline donation is $5/1k words. If you can donate more, that's awesome, but you're absolutely under no obligation to do so. A higher donation does not mean you get more fic, though if your writer wants to write more, they're obviously welcome to do so.
FILL DEADLINE: APRIL 10, 2011 We're running on the same schedule as help_japan, so the auction will close on March 26th, with all fills to be finished and posted no later than 2 weeks after that, 04/10/11. If there are extenuating circumstances, talk to your prompter and work something out. If you flake out after the donation's been made, dogs will chase after you in the streets. (See ETA4 below for further deadline details.)
Approved charities: We're going to completely bogart help_japan's list (found here), but if the person filling your prompt has a specific request, please work it out with them.
This is my personal journal, and while I love you all and don't want to squash your squee, please keep the threads clear and specific to bidding. I reserve the right to delete lonely or misplaced comments. If you think a prompt is awesome, feel free to let that person know via their personal journal.
If you have any other questions, ask here.

Lastly: it's impossible for us to completely enforce the rules here. Once a donation's made, we can't crawl through the tubes and slap a writer who doesn't fill their prompt. So please: don't be dicks. Claim what you can write, fill what you claim, and have fun and raise a bunch of money for people who need it.

ETA1: Pending donation confirmations, the tally right now stands at $890. Please remember to confirm donations here or at the confirmation thread and THANKS SO MUCH FOR PARTICIPATING. Great job, guys!

BANNER CODE FOR PIMPING:

ETA2: I've set up a WFR Donation Confirmation Page where writers/artists can let us know when they've received confirmation from their prompter. Or please comment in your claims thread and let us know when you've received donation confirmation. There will be another post closer to the fill deadline where prompters can notify us if claims have not been filled as of April 10.

ETA3: Be sure to check out the WRF Finished Works Archive to see all the awesome fanworks people have been producing!
Writers/Artists, don't forget to link to your works once they're finished so we can add to the list!

ETA4: End date for this fundraiser is 3/26. Because bidding at help_japan will continue until 3/31, threads will be kept open at the discretion of the prompters. If you're interested in filling a prompt, contact the prompter to see if they're still interested in donating for your work.

ETA5: Because ishie is a BAMF, she put together a list of all unclaimed prompts, organized by fandom. Check it out at her journal.

PROMPT CODE:
Use the code below for each of your prompts. All prompts in one comment, please, with the requested fandoms in the title of your comment:

WRITE FOR RELIEF IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED. Posting deadline was April 10, so prompters, if you haven't gotten your fills, please check this post for further details/assistance.

LINKS
help_japan | Paradox UNICEF Donation Page | WFR Donation Confirmation Page | WRF Finished Works Archive