just call me obsessed...

fic: collisions

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:30:28 GMT

Title: Collisions
Pairings: JR/Erin; assorted others of different varieties...
Rating: Mature
Fandom: All My Children
Disclaimer: Dude, if they were mine... we wouldn't be watching this shit.
Arcs: Michael Cambias, Babygate, etc
Timeline: Early October 2003, and then through...
Notes: The biggest problem of this entire fic, of course, is the fact that Jon and Erin didn't even exist at this time - I know this, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone, refused to. Basic storyline revolves around the idea that instead of bringing home Babe in 2003, he brought home Erin - and the things that are changed because of it, in relation to other connections and story arcs, and there are quite a few changes. Some things happen, and some things don't - and the relationship between Ryan and his siblings is just one of the things that is drastically different, as is Erin, and, yes, Jon, when he comes into the picture... At times, actual dialogue will taken from the show, but you'll be able to pick it up pretty easily, I think...

Collision, adj. — a dynamic event consisting of the interaction between two or more bodies, usually of very brief duration, resulting in a change of momentum of at least one participating body.

One | Two | Three |

fic: stupid

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:26:33 GMT

Title: Stupid
Pairing: Ryan/Kendall, Zach/Kendall, Ryan/Di, Adam/Brooke, Bianca/Maggie; undertones of JR/Erin, Jon/Jamie; mentions of Jack/Erica, Tad/Dixie
Disclaimer: Dude, I wish I owned them!
Rating: Mature (disturbing imagery, dark emotional areas, mentions of child abuse and a good amount of sailor talk)

Notes: Timewise, this pretty much takes off about May 2007, in a timeline that went off in a new direction at the moment of the MGB explosion. Some things, however, were changed before the story itself, some of which are -- Josh is a product of stolen eggs, and not a fetus; Janet's breakdown wasn't from killing Trevor but from Trevor's sudden and all-too-natural death, sending her off her rocker; there was no Jonathon and Lily nonsense, 'cause it's sick and inexcusable, really; and a few others things, which will come out in due time...

Teaser: After the Mardi Gras Ball, the whole world goes off the axis...

1 - 3 | 4 -6 | 7 - 9 | 10 - 12 | 13 - 15 | 16 - 18 | 19 - 21 | 22 - 24 | 25 - 27 | 28 - 29 | 30 - 31 | 32 - 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 |

-

Other Works in the Stupidverse

Mad World (R; Jamie/Jonathon)
Sorta Fairytale (R; Adam/Brooke)
Tales From The Aisle (PG-13; JR/Erin, Jamie/Jonathon)

fic: mad world 2/2 (stupidverse)

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:33:11 GMT

Title: Mad World
Pairing: Jamie/Jonathon (slash)
Characters: Jonathon, Jamie; mentions of family members.
Rating: R (non-graphic but still rough mentions of child abuse)

Teaser: Jonathon and Jamie, and a handful of moments from their odd and growingly close relationship— the shooting, and Tad’s resulting coma; moving changes, and all of its oddities; a short and bitter glimpse into a Jonathon Christmas; trying to keep Jamie’s mind off of the anniversary of Tad’s shooting and consecutive coma… and the new things it accidentally brings about.

May 2007

“Aren’t we breaking a law right now?”

Jonathon flashed him a savage grin, wolf like, white teeth flashing in the dim moonlight and cocked one eyebrow. “We’ve both broken laws, James—kidnapping and drugging counts as breaking a law, right?” At Jamie’s rather dirty look, he grinned even more broadly, a bit of a smirk slipping into view. “You drugged that Buchanan nanny, right?”

“Shut up.”

“You started it.”

“Shut up!”

“God, you’re a chicken.” Jamie shifted a few times fearfully, looking around as if he expected Derek Frye to show up with his entire brigade of Keystone cops in the rear, and Jon smirked a bit more, leaning more weight against the crowbar carefully and finally having the pleasure of hearing the window slide open. “And I’m good at what I do.”

“You’re a smart ass.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Aw, there are lots worse things than being a smart ass, right, baby-napper?”

“What don’t you understand about ‘shut up’?”

“I’m a Lavery, James—orders don’t work on me.”

Jamie was hard-pressed to disagree or agree with that since, one, Jonathon cleanly admitted it often and fearlessly and, two, compared to his brother, he was the most loyal order-follower in the world. Finally, scowling, he settled for peering into the cracked window, barely making out the shapes of… something. “Is this some evil scheme or something, like, to abandon me lost and alone in the woods without any bread crumbs?”

“Bread crumbs?”

“Hansel and Gretel?”

Jonathon just stared back, confused, and he winced, shaking his head and looking back at the building he was peering into. “It’s just a fairy tale, my mom used to read it to me when I was sick.” Brushing off the slightly guilty tone in the younger man’s voice, refusing to let either of them dwell on less than pleasant things, Jon brushed his hands absently across his leather jacket, grinning at him again. “Your mother told you stories about bread crumbs?”

“Shut up.”

“Why don’t you shut up and get your ass in there.”

“I hate you.”

“The day you hate me is the day you stop wearing the Glasses of Smart!”

Jamie shot him his most lethal glare, receiving only a smug grin in response and, muttering darkly about how he really did need the glasses to help his vision, he pulled himself up and slowly through the window, trying his best to set both feet down with the noiseless grace that everybody—and everybody meant JR and Jonathon, if he was honest—seemed to possess.

It was a miserable failure.

Something caught on a nail and he jerked forward, crashing to the ground with a strangled yell of surprise, cracking his shoulder on something as he went down, landing in a sprawl of aching joints and twisted body parts. “James, really—” It was a scoff, slightly mocking but also worried and hands grabbed at his shoulders, apparently checking that he had both arms before Jonathon stepped back again and the window was slid shut, and then reopened as if Jon had thought better of it. “Only you could fall five feet like that.”

“I’m in pain, you know.”

“You’re always in pain.”

Sighing, groaning, Jamie slowly got to his feet, looking around as his eyes ever so slowly adjusted to the moonlight filtering in through the opened window, wrinkling his nose. When his father had fallen into the coma, and the odds of his recovery had shrunk to nearly nothing, Aidan had made the decision to move what was left of the private eye business to where he could start over again, and headed back to England.

Nobody seemed to realize he was missing, actually.

When Jonathon flicked on his flashlight, he let out a startled yelp, shielding his eyes as he fell back again. “Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” He got a laugh in answer, one of Jonathon’s rare and real laughs, untainted by his existence both before and after coming to Pine Valley. “I don’t hate you— I just feel no pity for you.” A pause, and then another laugh as a hand grabbed him, spinning him to watch where the light fell. “Besides, if I blind you, you really will need to wear those Glasses of Smart of yours.”

“What are we doing here anyway?” he muttered childishly, kicking at a few objects scattered on the floor, half-wishing he had refused to come in the first place. “We’re here to keep your mind off your dad.” Jamie shot the other man a look, baffled. “You brought me to my dad’s old office to get my mind off him?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes no sense.”

“When have you known me to make sense, James?”

He got no response and smirked slightly, tracing the light across covered furniture and a dusty floor. Somebody had come in at some point, but they hadn’t done any big damage that he could see. “What’s your first memory?” he asked curiously, only half-aware of the question as he drifted around, pausing to kick around a broken pencil.

“What do you mean?”

Picking up on the way the other male was still standing in his same spot, looking nervous, he rolled his eyes, wondering if Jamie was by any chance afraid of the dark. He’d finally outgrown that particular fear, and he unhappily thanked the cave-in from two years before on that—nightmares of paralyzing blackness changing into the crushing weight of rock, dust filling his lungs with sandpaper harshness.

“I mean, what’s the earliest thing you can remember?”

“You really want to know?”

There was a slightly nervous quality there and he grinned absently, kicking the pencil out of the light and into the shadows, following its skittering movements until he lost sight of it. “Come on, James, come on—share with me.” He got a dirty look in response as Jamie proceeded to snatch the flashlight away. “Stop making fun of Golden Girls, Jon.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a good show.”

“Yes, it is,” Jon agreed pleasantly, watching Jamie flick the light around the half-empty remains of the office, looking more relaxed now that he had the light. “That said, you are obsessed with them. You watch Lifetime all day long and when you work, you make me tape them. And let’s not forget your DVD collection.”

“Those are my mom’s.”

“God, you’re a bad liar.”

A few moments of silence before: “What did you ask again?”

“Memory, James—which one is your first?”

“Why do you want to know?” Jamie asked suspiciously and Jon rolled his eyes, not having to see his face to know that he had his now infamous expression on there, a stare that looked too much like every other look he had to ever be taken seriously. There was nothing even remotely frightening about Jamie Martin, a refreshing change from every other person that Jonathon had ever known. “Call me curious.”

“Uh huh.” He sounded highly doubtful, but he seemed looser finally, no longer looking around as if expecting something to leap out at him from the dark. Jonathon, personally, didn’t believe in those things—most of the monsters he had known through the years, including himself, spent most of their time blending in, and very few jumped out at you through the dark.

Most, he had also found, got worse when they drank—and again, he was included in that group.

“I think it was my mom.”

“You think?”

“I’m twenty-two, Jon—that’s twenty-two years of memories.”

Jonathon was quickly nearing his thirties; that was nearly thirty years of memories.

And so few good ones.

Biting the inside of his cheek at the sudden way his stomach twisted in his middle, Jon kicked at the floor again, more absently before replying. “So, your first memory isn’t your dad?” An absent shrug, Jamie now focused on his little exploration through the office, looking like a kid on a camping trip. “Nope, it’s my mom.”

“What is it?”

“I told you, it’s my mom.”

“No—” Suddenly feeling cornered and flustered, Jonathon stopped and then started again, setting his jaw slightly, aware of the slight pain where his teeth had set into his cheek hard enough to leave the faintest taste of blood. “No, I mean— what I meant was, what’s the memory?”

Jamie glanced at him, and then shrugged again, nothing raw connected to whatever he had chosen, something Jon desperately wished he could achieve. “We were just playing cards or something, until she would let me out to play with JR—” He paused, smoothing a hand across a dusty desk that had once held picture frames of Dixie, and glossy images and him and JR. “I had to wait an extra hour because she said it was too cold, and that I needed to wait until the sun came up completely.”

“It was winter?”

He glanced over his shoulder, found Jon sitting on the stairs that went to the second level of the building, and managed a small and embarrassed grin. “Yeah, and JR went out early with Dixie, but it was still too early for me—or, at least, that’s mom said.” He sighed, and headed to the staircase, wiping a hand across his face as he dropped down beside Jon, looking oddly uncomfortable. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Why did you bring me here, anyway?” he asked again, forgetting that he had already asked some time before.

“To make you feel better.”

“You brought me to my dad’s empty office to make me feel better about his coma?”

If Jon thought it was an odd plan, he didn’t show it, shrugging and sighing deeply, eyes on the shadows. “I just—” He stopped abruptly, voice odd, and Jamie looked closer, found that rare but heartbreaking look of quiet confusion on Jon’s face. “I just thought you should remember that your father loved you, even if he never wakes up again.”

“I know he loves me—”

“Do you?” Jamie jolted slightly, stunned at the force as Jon stood and began to push his knuckles against his forehead, and even as dim as it was, Jamie could see him shaking slightly. “I mean, do you know that he loved you, James?” Jamie opened his mouth but then stopped, realizing that no words would be enough at the moment. “Do you have any idea how lucky you were?”

And Jon stopped, just like that, eyes closing, looking defeated, frustrated and exhausted and Jamie swallowed, watching in uneasy silence as Jonathon dropped back onto the stair he had jumped up from, face buried in his hands. “Jon?” A muffled noise was his answer and he finally settled for laying a hand on Jon’s back, offering what comfort Jon would allow himself to take. “I’m beginning to,” he added when he could trust his voice and was grateful when Jon nodded, still not looking at him, now gazing once again at the shadows.

“What’s the matter?”

It was the second time he had asked, and he didn’t mean to disturb the quiet stillness they had settled into, but this time Jon looked at him, staring at him with faintly haunted eyes, twisting his hands in his lap. “I think—” He was quiet again, until Jamie was five heartbeats from shaking him, and then murmured more quietly, “Does your brain ever make things up? Things that aren’t real? Or— or things that you— things that you’re just making up?”

“I don’t—”

“Do you ever remember things that didn’t happen?”

“Jon—”

“I think my mind is going wrong again,” he whispered hoarsely and when he would have jumped up and fled, Jamie caught his arm quickly, half-dragged to his feet before he managed to dig in his heels, pulling them both to an abrupt and shaky stop, locking both arms around Jon’s and pulling him backwards, to where he could study him, take in the uneasy signs of whatever was brewing in Jonathon, what he had been picking up on but dismissing as senseless worry. “I won’t let you go crazy— it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not— no, I think—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He was aware of Jonathon’s breathing, shallow and frightened and it was terrifying, that a man capable of the things he was capable of, could be so terrified of anything or anyone, could still be so badly thrown off by the mere mention of people long dead and buried, and who had made sure that they would never leave their kids even in death. “Jon, it’s okay.”

“Erin wouldn’t lie to me—”

Jamie didn’t understand where the sudden panic was coming from, and he was grateful for it, setting his hands on Jon’s shoulders and holding him as loosely as he could without losing any grip at all. “It’s okay, Jonathon, I swear.” He hesitated, thinking about how stupid it was to say such things to someone like Jonathon Lavery, and not able to say anything else. “You need to calm down, seriously, okay?”

“Okay—”

And then there was that stillness again and he awkwardly kept his hold on the other man, afraid that if he let go, Jon really would fall, and that they would lose him, for good this time, that there would be nothing left to heal after it was all over. “Maybe we should go,” he finally sighed, and Jon nodded, turning away and heading to the window, looking somehow calmer as he climbed out of the empty office.

And Jamie followed, without hesitation.

May 2007

He wasn’t strong enough, and the sobbing broke him finally.

Standing for a few minutes in the doorway, he watches her, a bent shape on the bed, making deep noises as if she’s dying, like she always does when she drinks too much of the stuff, when she goes from mean to… something else. If he was smart, he’d leave, climb back upstairs before she knows he’s there, but he’s not strong enough—and eventually, he drifts in, nervous steps carrying him forward.

“Do you need anything?” he finally asks, and she twists, staring at him with bloodshot eyes and a pale face, pulling the bottle against her stomach. There’s no one else around and that alone makes his stomach twist into knots, make him feel ill as he works not to take a step back as she stares at him, still shaking.

“Come here,” she finally sighs raggedly, and if he wasn’t so desperate to have comfort, he would have fled right then, knowing what was coming, aware of it. But he moves forward, despite himself, and she catches his wrist, tugging him the last several steps. “Come here, and spend some time with me, Jonny…”

“Mom—”

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps, fingers tightening around his wrist, and he nods immediately, furiously, trying to get her hold to loosen, even knowing that it wouldn’t. “I’m not your fucking mommy, you got it?” A finger snaps into his face, and she’s forgotten the bottle, all of her attention on him, darkly lit eyes staring at him. “You and Pat, I swear to God, breathing down my neck every time I turn around.”

“I’m just worried about you—”

“Yeah, I bet…” Fingers locked tight, she tugs him closer, shifting onto one hip as she drags him down to the bed with her, sending him sprawling on the mattress as she locked her other arm around him, exhaling into his neck as she curled up around him. “You’re as bad as your sister… whine, whine, whine…”

“I don’t want— I can go get you something—” he blurted out, heart thudding painfully in his suddenly tight chest, but she tightened her hold, fingers digging into his skin, raising her head from his neck to stare down at him, worn face twisting slightly, pressing him back more into the bed. “Mom—”

“Stop calling me that.”

-

“I really think I should call Jo.”

“I’m fine.”

Jonathon didn’t look fine— pale, shaking, eyes wide and frightened, he didn’t look any better than he had looked when Jamie had finally managed to wake him up out of the nightmare he’d been drowning in when Jamie got home, hearing the hoarse screams through the door as he struggled to get the keys in the lock.

He’d finally been forced to drag Jon out of the bed thrashing and yelling and toss him in the tub, turning the cold water on full blast, not knowing what the hell else to do. Jon had nightmares before, loud things he got caught in, but he was disturbingly good at waking himself up before they got too bad.

This one was different.

“I think we should call Jo.”

“I’m fine,” Jonathon gritted out from his seat on the couch and Jamie squirmed, looking through the cabinets for something to make for him. But his ability to cook was sadly lacking—Jon’s trip to the emergency room after trying Jamie’s first attempt at meatloaf was evidence of that—and he finally was forced to grab a packet of tea and put on hot water, hoping that tea would fix things.

Mom always said it did.

Or had that been hot chocolate?

He didn’t know, but didn’t let himself fret about it, watching it steep with worried brown eyes that kept darting towards Jonathon, looking very young with his legs tucked up beneath him and a blanket wrapped around him, hair still wet from his rude awakening by cold shower. “You don’t look fine.”

“Go to bed, leave me alone… I want to be alone…”

“You like honey in your tea, right?”

“I want coffee.”

“I don’t think you need any caffeine right now—”

“I know what I need—”

“Unless it includes calling Jo, I really don’t give a fuck what you think you need,” Jamie snipped back heatedly, suddenly angry and not sure why. Ignoring the murderous look Jonathon shot him, he stirred in what he thought would be the right amount of honey and grabbed it, shoving the papers on the coffee table to the side to drop down on the edge, facing the couch as he held up the mug. “Drink it.”

“I don’t need it.”

“Mom always said something hot to drink would help things.”

“I don’t need anything from your mother—”

“Drink the fucking tea, Jon!”

The anger took them both by surprise, and Jon stared at him with wide eyes, mouth slightly open in shock as Jamie blanched and then blushed, not knowing where the yell had come from. Another moment of silence before fingers caught the handle, jerking the mug away and, with a dirty look, Jon tipped it back, swallowing the steaming liquid like a petulant child. “Better?” he finally snapped, slamming it back into Jamie’s hands.

“Yes.”

Jon gave him a glare, unfolding his legs and leaning forward, scowling as he rubbed his face with a trembling hand. “I’m feeling better now, you can go on to bed.” Jamie snorted, but Jon only nodded more furiously, starting to look vaguely desperate. “Really, I’m fine, better than fine, like… like, fine with a cherry on top, okay?”

“You’re still shaking.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re freaked out about something… what kind of nightmare was it?”

“Stop—”

“If I have to beat you over the head and drag you to hospital, I swear to God I will.”

Jonathon gave him a disgruntled look, that desperate glint in the back of his gaze becoming more overwhelming as he began to bite one thumbnail, and Jamie winced, grabbing Jonathon’s wrist and tugging it down quickly, irrationally hating the sight of the grown man biting his fingers like a child.

Knowing that it was bad when he started acting like this…

“Jon—”

“I thought— I hoped that I was making it up or… or something…”

“Making what up?”

Jon just shook his head and raised his hand to his mouth again, beginning to bite the skin and, with an explosive sigh, Jamie grabbed both hands, gripping them tightly, staring down at them unhappily, studying them intently, hard. They’re rough, rougher than his own, calloused and scarred, harsh as Jonathon was.

He dropped them suddenly, feeling burned, and not sure why.

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“It’s nothing,” Jamie muttered more courageously than he really felt, shifting on the table, leaning forward and then back, suddenly aware of how comfortable he felt in the current position, sitting in front of a three-time murderer with bad nails and rough hands that were trembling too hard. "I’m just worried.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Not well, as evidenced by your criminal record.”

“Don’t forget your record.”

“You’re trying to throw me off.”

“No, I’m trying to piss you off.”

“Same thing, and it isn’t going to work.”

“You don’t want to know—”

“If it’ll help you, I want to know.”

Jonathon gave a short brittle laugh, shaking his head. “Ryan said the same thing to me, once, and that was a lie…. I started to tell him things, just a few things, and he couldn’t handle it, didn’t want to listen.” He shifted, glanced at Jamie oddly. “I know when Erin says it, she means it… she listens, she makes herself listen.”

“Tell me, anything, I’ll do the same thing—”

“I don’t want you to know, I don’t—” His voice broke, and so did Jamie’s heart, an alarming flare of pain igniting in his chest as he let out a sudden hiss of breath, spine straightening. “I don’t want you to be like me and Erin, don’t you get it? I can’t be around another person like us, somebody who looks at me and sees what I— sees—”

“I’m trying to help—”

“I don’t want you to know—” And he stopped, abruptly, stock still and wide eyed, as if he could see his death on horizon and was grateful for it, trembling with the relief that it was finally coming, that his prayers had finally been answered, and it twisted whatever was left of Jamie’s heart, worn down with worry for the dead-eyed man in front of him, remembering the choking sensation as he wrestled with the lock, the shrieks inside hurting him more than they should have been able to. “Everything’s going to be fine…”

In hindsight, he had no idea, exactly, how it happened—one second they were staring at each other and Jonathon was looking… strange was the best word for it, and the only thing Jamie could think of was that he needed to stand up and break eye contact because he had no idea what was about to happen but he did at the same time and—

It was harder, he later decided as he stared dumbly at the soda machine in the hospital still dazed and dizzy from it and waiting for his mother to walk in, knowing what had happened, and it was better than anything he’d felt. It was rough, and he shuddered when hands clawed, caught at him, clinging to him with something he didn’t understand but savored anyway, and, okay, Jonathon needed to shave because he had enough stubble to cause a bit of pain there—

It all changed suddenly, but it didn’t, and his hands searched and finally found something to hold onto, the blanket Jon’s wrapped up in, and he gripped it with trembling hands, the pulse in his ears making his skull buzz with a terrified sort of wordless excitement. “James—” It was barely a word, not much more than a muffled groan into his mouth and he ignored it, feeling more frenzied with that excitement.

And then, with something that could only be described as a shriek, the body he was clinging to threw him backwards, knocking whatever breath he had left in his body out of his lungs and into oddly cold-feeling air as he toppled backward off the coffee table. By the time the haze eased and he could breath without shuddering, Jon was on his feet, half-shouting words he didn’t understand even as he fled the apartment, grabbing his jacket as he went, leaving Jamie to sprawl on the floor, not sure if he wanted to hide or follow.

The heat was still there, but not blinding anymore and he gulped in air, shaking, not even trying to get to his feet. He wasn’t shaking with horror—it’s something he knows with a scary certainty but he wasn’t calm, because his nerves were jumping and his heart was pounding and he wasn’t able to fill his lungs without tasting—

It sank in, finally, and he gaped at the empty spot where the other man had been moments before, the understanding slowly sinking into his skull and settling. He had just kissed Jonathon. Jonathon. Mentally unstable Jonathon. Emotionally damaged Jonathon. Jonathon the murderer, the guy who had hit Maggie, the guy who’d killed the guy who, at one time, would have been his step-father.

He had kissed—

“Oh, shit.”

May 2007

It was awkward, feeling awkward around Jonathon.

At some point in the last year, he had come to depend on the other man, damaged as he was, depend on him being there with his teasing and his amusement at the younger man’s expense. His visits to his father were getting rare, it was hard for him to force himself into that hospital room since he was sure his father would never leave.

If he hadn’t woken up by now…

“Where’s the butter?”

“On the bottom shelf.”

Jon shot him a sharp look, and grabbed it, slamming the fridge door shut and dropping the container to the counter, once again shifting into what Jamie now considered his ‘ignore Jamie Martin’ mode. Jamie firmly believed that he could walk over and throw a pan of boiling water in his face and Jon wouldn’t bat an eye at him.

That couldn’t be healthy, right?

Painful, too, when you were the one being ignored… not that he minded being ignored, or anything.

He shifted on the couch, turning his attention back to the cartoons playing in front of him, wishing something would crash through the wall and break the ever-increasing sense of wrongness filling the apartment. Spongebob wasn’t helping, which only left him feeling more flustered. After the shooting, after his father had slipped into the coma, he’d come to depend on the grating giggles and dorky jokes to keep his feet on the ground.

Needed humor to help keep his heart from drowning in what he wasn’t prepared for.

Jonathon had helped with the feet and ground predicament as well; seeing as how he apparently no longer existed for Jonathon, he only had Spongebob to fall back on. Spongebob, to his great frustration, was failing. Getting into an argument with Anita about whether or not Spongebob was gay—and for the life of him, he didn’t understand how the argument had started in the first place—also had failed to help his increasingly confused mood.

Feeling eyes on him, he glanced to the right and met a sudden ‘hand in the cookie jar’ look of horror on Jon’s face before he dropped his head again, jumping in surprise when the butter knife went flying out of his hand and skittering off the counter. “Got butter on the damn handle,” he muttered in Jamie’s vague direction, and yanked open the drawer to grab another one.

Weird, and wrong, and not what Jamie had expected to deal with.

There had been none of this with Babe, nothing that even came close to this level of… something, a confusing mix of worry and excitement and outright confusion that left him blinking at the wall and waiting for the answer to come to him in a blast of pure white light and Handel in the background.

Jon was weird, and confusing, and wrong in every sense.

Somehow, it didn’t help matters any for the confused Martin.

All it made him want to do was dig in his heels stubbornly and brace himself for whatever was coming, and the feeling didn’t come with the sense of righteousness that his relationship with Babe had brought, a powerful feeling that everything he was doing was right, because he was doing it for Babe, and that made it right.

That wasn’t here, and he was waiting for it to kick in, so he could figure out to deal with it.

Instead, he was terrified, fumbling and confused, knowing just how wrong it was, and not just in the ‘I wish I knew how to quit you’ kind of ever-increasingly cliché scene. Jonathon had hit Maggie, he’d hit her, he’d broken her down while Jamie was off running around with Babe and didn’t that say something about him, about just how worthy he was to speak to Maggie again?

Maggie, with her root beer floats and terribly hurt little heart, forever waiting for Bianca to realize she wasn’t Frankie, to take Miranda and herself far away and never return and take Maggie’s heart right along with her because Bianca had it, had in the palm of her hand, and didn’t realize it, even though she desperately wanted to.

Jon had killed Edmund, he’d gone all crazy and killed people, almost killed countless others.

And, he’d never felt closer to anyone in his life, outside of his family.

Jamie was waiting for the men in the white coats to come in and get him, take him away and fix whatever was off in his freaky brain because, clearly, he wasn’t thinking right. He was clearly thinking wrong, very wrong, as evidenced by that thing that had happened that he had yet to tell anyone about and Jon had yet to acknowledge.

Yes, that… thing that had happened.

“You know, I’m hungry, too—”

“You have legs, and you can pull a door open,” Jonathon snapped, smearing more butter than could possibly be needed across a piece of toast, and the red mark from where he had fallen asleep on the couch the night before was still across his cheek, despite the fact that he had hastily left the couch and his channel surfing when Jamie stumbled out of his room with his usual grace, smacking two doorframes before finally reaching the coffee waiting for him on the counter. “Make your own damn breakfast.”

“But I don’t want to die.”

A few days before, Jon would have smirked, made some particularly digging comments and taken pity on him—but then, a few days before, he wouldn’t have been using up all of the butter in an attempt to avoid eye contact with the younger man, and he wouldn’t have been dropping knives all over the place and blaming said butter.

Now, Jon gave a short shrug and added dryly, “You have friends in hospital places, you can get your stomach pumped real quick if need be.” This so stated, he once again shifted into his ‘ignore Jamie Martin at all costs’ mode, finally snapping the lid on the butter and dropping it quickly back into the fridge, slamming the door and snapping over his shoulder, “The butter goes in the door, James, not the bottom of the fridge.”

“Sorry.

“Yeah, I bet.”

Jamie wondered what, exactly, he was actually apologizing for.

fic: tales from the aisle (stupidverse)

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:18:18 GMT

Title: Tales From The Aisle
Rating:PG-13 (for slight dirty)
Characters: JR, Jamie, Jonathon, Erin; JR/Erin; undertones of Jamie/Jonathon
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine! Dammit!
Teaser: So, two Laverys and a Chandler and a Martin walk into a supermarket, right?
Notes: This is what happens when I decide to shove my favorite four characters into a vaguely romantic-comedy setting and see what happens… this is what happens. Also, this is fluff, with an extra fluffy center but, seeing as how things are going ugly for them before the get better in the Big Fic, I thought these four might need a break from the angst!Muse, hehee... Takes place the day before The Meatloaf Incident from 'Mad World'... Also, I hate this title, but it was the only thing that worked, yep...

Teaser: So, two Laverys and a Chandler and a Martin walk into a supermarket, right?

“My romantic life is none of your business.”

“Don’t you mean, your nonexistent romantic life is none of my business?” Jonathon asked lightly, tapping a finger absently against a shelf as he studied the two brands, working out the numbers before snatching the cheaper one off the shelf and dropping it into the cart. “I mean, there isn’t anything actually going on, right?”

Erin just gave him an ogle-eyed look of abject horror, apparently struck speechless at his questioning.

Not that he could blame her.

“I’m just curious,” he explained, tugging the cart out of her limp hands and spinning it towards him before setting off in the opposite direction, keeping his pace slow as he heard her kick into motion and rush after him, sputtering furiously.

“This is why I hate going shopping with you.”

“I have not the faintest clue what you’re talking about.”

“Just because you’re bored, doesn’t give you the right to come and hound me—”

“I am not bored, and I’m just trying to help my baby sister with her weekly errands—” Even before he could finish his sentence, Erin was giving him The Look, which he lightly brushed off with a cheeky grin, unbothered by it, shrugging. “Besides, I’m not worried about James’ little evil plans, whatever they are.”

“So now they’re evil plans?”

“All of the pretty boy’s plans are evil, more or less.”

Erin gave him a slant-eyed look of suspicion, one eyebrow arched, but he just grinned a bit more, snatching a bottle of syrup off the shelf as they passed and tossing it into the cart. “You don’t seem as worried as you’ve been the last week, calling me to express your concerns that he’s going to blow himself up or… or something.”

“Well, he’s got your boss helping him with the evil plans, so—”

“Wait, what?”

“Yep, heard them when they left this morning, and let me tell you, Jamie could never pull off being an evil genius. Chandler had to keep kicking him to shut him up before he said something.” Catching sight of her wide-eyed look of horror— “It was pretty funny, especially when Chandler grabbed him by the shirt and just dragged him out to his car.”

“But, but— but Mr. Chandler’s involved?”

“I’d say he’s the mastermind.”

-

“This was my plan! Stop trying to ruin it!”

JR snorted, reaching past the big man to poke the second package with one finger, jerking his chin down at it. “This one’s better, it’ll cook better, and you’re getting more for your buck.” Noticing the dirty look Jamie was shooting at him, he rolled his eyes and flashed a sideways glance at the pack Jamie was holding. “That stuff isn’t even fit to be sold.”

“But it’s cheaper.”

“Yes, because it’s worse.”

“You always say cheaper is better!”

“Jesus, you didn’t learn anything from either of our moms, did you?”

“You don’t even cook!”

“Yes, I do!”

“No, you have the Chandler staff to cook for you!”

JR, having long since had enough, snatched the package of meat from Jamie’s hands and dropped it back down into the case, shoving his own selection into his little brother’s hold. “Actually, I cook most of my food, since I’m picky, remember?” When Jamie tried to grab his own selection back, JR smacked his hand hard, smirking when Jamie popped his wounded fingers into his mouth, glaring back childishly.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Jamie muttered around his fingers, but JR just smirked a bit more. Spinning the bigger man, he shoved him in the direction of the cart, adding with a grin, “Don’t you remember that time the cook made me a pizza and they put the wrong cheese on it?”

“And yet, I came to you for help.”

“I could always call Jon—”

Jamie shot him a look before glancing down at the pack of meat that JR had selected, wrinkling his nose as he watched the lines of red shift slightly under the light. “It’s all bloody.” He looked up, a slightly green hint of color to his face. “Is it supposed to be that bloody?”

“Yes, Dr. Jamie, it’s supposed to be that bloody, it’s raw meat.”

“Yeah, but… that bloody?”

“I hope I never depend on you for surgery, I swear to God—”

“It’s just…” He hesitated, looking nauseous as the Chandler started pushing the cart, and finally started trailing along behind, one fist pressed against his stomach. “It’s just, I’m going to be eating that, you know? And, I didn’t realize it was going to be that bloody— Wait, I get to wear gloves when I make it, right?”

“Are you kidding, half the fun of making meatloaf is squishing it between your fingers while you’re making it!”

-

“So… what do you think the evil plans are about?”

“Don’t know, but James’ is going out of his way to keep my nose out of it.”

“Yeah, but, why?” Erin’s attention had shifted from annoyance to a horrified kind of curiosity and he couldn’t blame her, knowing she was probably envisioning the same thing he was— James possibly causing World War III and walking around the remains of Pine Valley, calling out for survivors while stuffing his face with Twinkies and frozen slushies.

It was, indeed, quite the visual.

“I don’t know, but I’m not worried anymore, I think Chandler can handle evil plans.”

Erin snorted slightly, but said nothing, brushing hair from her face as she stared without seeing through the shelves, brows furrowed in her own fretful thoughts. “Maybe… maybe… maybe it’s some kind of present or… or something? Maybe… a birthday…?” she suggested finally, but he shook his head, turning a corner. “Nope, already checked and there’s nothing.”

“Okay.”

“Exactly, I’m obsessed now, I have to know what the Hell they’re planning, you know?”

-

“It’s really hard to make meatloaf go wrong, right?”

“In my experience, it’s damn near impossible.” Leaving Jamie to watch the cart, JR scanned the shelves for several heartbeats before grabbing a bottle of ketchup, tossing it to the nervous looking young man standing a few feet away. “Simple, just squirt some on, it’ll make it taste good.”

“It’s ketchup.”

“There’s nothing that ketchup can’t make taste good.”

“Says the boy who used to eat it on his eggs?”

“Oh, shut up, Mr. ‘I eat pickles in my Chewy Chocolate Chunks every morning’.”

“That doesn’t count!” Jamie hissed, blushing furiously as he darted several glances around them, looking horrifically embarrassed. “I was just… going through a phase, or something… leave me alone!” he added more feverishly, grabbing the cart and taking off, streaking around one corner and yelling out in horror when he went crashing into a startled looking Lavery.

Maybe JR was right, maybe he should have let JR handle this.

-

JR did interesting things to her sense of direction.

Plus, they weren’t at the mansion or at the park or anywhere with Little Adam so she couldn’t use the little boy as a shield and if he noticed anything off about the way she watched him in an unprofessional manner, he’d fire her— Erin spun as soon as he went darting into her line of vision, finding herself staring at long lines of canned vegetables and grabbed one up quickly, pretending like she was reading it.

Things needed to stay professional, especially now that Jon was snickering in her direction.

Yes, clearly, he knew too much to be allowed to survive.

-

“I thought you said Jon was going to be busy with Erin today?”

“Um, he is,” Jamie muttered, having spun the cart quickly in an attempt to hide it behind his back, blanching when it only served to tear Jon’s attention away from his sister and towards it, one eyebrow shooting up with wicked interest. “See, look, Erin, right there, reading that can upside down!”

-

“Red!”

With a jerk, the can was hastily slammed back down to the shelf as the redhead snapped her head over, looking slightly electrocuted as she offered a massive grin in JR’s direction, blinking violently, hating that she had gotten so relaxed and was no longer relaxed because there was her boss, walking over and looking so very calm—

JR— Mr. Chandler was wearing jeans, damn it, it didn’t help matters—

It was unhealthy, the things he did to her in jeans—

“You look like you got electrocuted, Red.”

“Just… shopping,” she managed, taking a quick step back when he reached past her and grabbed the can she had been holding, blinking in surprise as he glanced over curiously. “I thought you hated peas. I mean, you’re always picking them off your plate.” Off her look, he grinned again, setting it back down. “You look like you’re working on an evil plot.”

“That would be you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jamie and you, you’re working on an evil plot so Jon used it as a reason to hound me—”

“No, that’s Jamie’s evil plot.”

“So, you admit there’s an evil plot?”

“With us, there’s always an evil plot.”

Erin wished, desperately, that she had the cart between them, but Jon had snatched it a second before, using it to block Jamie off before the younger man could flee, and the two men were now engaged in a desperate battle, shoulders crashing against each other and arms grappling madly as Jamie sought to protect whatever it was he had hidden in his own cart.

Little Adam would have worked, too; it was always easy to remember that he was her boss when she was holding the little boy, easy to remember the fact that she worked for him and while it may be okay to start a small and unsatisfying thing with the local PI, it would be much worse to start something with her boss.

Especially when she was so sure the end of it would break into little pieces if she tried to go for it.

Not that there was anything to start, of course.

“You look a bit freaked out.”

Erin gave a nervous little laugh, wincing when there came the sound of a body hitting a shelf of Spam and the resulting yelp of “Hey, don’t shove me into the fake meat, pretty boy!" rang through the aisle, with enough of a screech behind it to make both redhead and Chandler close their eyes and count to five for patience.

-

“That looks like meat—”

“No, it isn’t—”

“Oh, my God, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?!”

“I’m trying to do something nice—”

“What, poison me?”

“I can cook!”

“Yeah, and I’m Martha Stewart!”

“Are you kidding me?! You are!”

-

JR had had enough.

Erin wasn’t meeting his eyes, completely ignoring his attempts to share any kind of a glance, and the excitement he had felt when he had looked over and spotted her had quickly sputtered and died with a bitter hiss of disappointment. He couldn’t honestly be that unattractive, could he?

To judge by the vaguely horrified look she kept flicking at him, he must have been.

With a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, pride more wounded than he could possibly express in words, he strode over and grabbed both men, yanking them to their feet and snatching the meat away quickly, tossing it into the cart when he could. “And you two twerps call me immature, I swear to god—”

“He’s trying to kill me!”

“I’m trying to do something nice!”

“Oh, like when you nearly got me killed with that egg?!”

Jamie blanched in panic, and then winced when he noticed the way both Erin and JR had snapped their heads in his direction, eyebrows shooting up into their hairlines. “It’s none of your business,” he muttered immediately, cramming his hands into his pockets, but Jon just grinned, jerking his head at the wounded-looking young Martin. “I gave him one egg and told him to cook it, scrambled, and I even buttered the pan and heated it up for him.”

“It was on too high!”

“It wasn’t even on, not when I left the room,” he chuckled smugly, and when Jamie scowled and kicked one foot, Jon flashed a triumphant glance at his sister and her boss, arching his eyebrows right back at them. “I come back in and he’s got flames flying from the stove while he’s trying to work the fire extinguisher.”

“He can’t cook eggs?” Erin slowly murmured, eyes wide in a frightened kind of awe, and JR made a sudden noise, slapping a fist to his mouth and looking up at the ceiling, patently ignoring the wounded puppy glance his younger brother was casting in his direction. “I mean, Jon could cook eggs when he was… how old were you?”

“Four,” he chirped, and Jamie sulked even more, rolling his eyes closed when Jon added, “Of course, I think you can handle simple beef, right? I mean, I know how much you like cows…”

-

It was an odd group that came to Nina’s register— two men elbowing each other as they fought over a pack of meat, a stony-faced, nervous-looking little redhead who refused to look anyone in the eyes and a wounded looking man with a nice pair of jeans who snatched the meat from the other two men and tossed it onto the register as the redhead piled the rest of the contents of the two carts on there with the beef.

Nina had the sudden feeling that she was starring in some kind of romantic comedy, and wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do. Finally, realizing that she was the cashier, she quickly started moving, scanning each item absently as she tuned her ears into the tense conversation between the two people in front of her, shooting glances at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking.

Romantic comedy, or they were both psycho killers and were preying on each other without realizing it.

“I told you I can handle this.”

“They’re my groceries—”

“But it’s a new apartment and since you refuse to let me give you a gift—”

“That would be unprofessional,” the woman squeaked and Nina cocked an eyebrow to herself, wondering if the way the redhead had been watching his ass would also count as unprofessional. “But I should give you a gift,” he stated, and Nina grinned slightly, turning to hide it as she fiddled with the register to let them pretend they had privacy. “Because it’s your apartment, and you get a gift.”

“But it’s… wrong…”

The man, he looked vaguely familiar but Nina couldn’t place him, shot the redhead such a downright wounded glance that it took Nina everything she had not to run around from behind her station and wrap her arms around and sing him some kind of lullaby to make him feel better.

Clearly, this woman had no game, did she?

That, or she was seriously gay— No, couldn’t be gay, she was staring at his ass again—

“I’m trying to do something nice for you, okay?”

“But… I can handle it…”

“I swear, if I’m not the most evil person in this town—”

“You’re not evil!” she snapped immediately and Nina raised both eyebrows, sneaking a glance just as the redhead moved closer, setting a hand on his arm as he snapped his wallet open sullenly, looking even more wounded than he had before. “I just… I’m trying to pull off the whole independence thing and—”

“And what?” he asked intently, and Nina stopped pretending she wasn’t listening, leaning towards the couple, and clearly they would be a couple eventually, clearly, to listen more closely to this strange little soap opera happening just two feet away. “I’m not Babe,” the woman finally mumbled, shoulder slumped, “and I don’t want you thinking I’m like her, that I’m just…”

“Just what?” he coaxed, and Nina bit the inside of her cheek, impressed by how stealthily he was moving towards her, leaning closer, clearly trying to initiate something, clearly! “I just…” She paused, swallowed, and dropped her hand as if it burned, making Nina want to yank off her name tag and throw it at her in frustration. “I just don’t want you thinking you’re easy cash to me… or… or anything like that.”

“I don’t think that…”

How the redhead couldn’t realize what he was doing, Nina had no idea…

“You don’t?”

“No, I trust you.”

Nina twitched when the silence stretched between them, and then twitched again, this time in excitement when the redhead suddenly flushed, apparently realizing how close they were standing. “And I don’t want to betray that,” she finally managed, looking heated, and Nina certainly couldn’t blame her, the guy was undressing her with his eyes and from the looks of his look had just reached real skin—

“Would you two ring up the food already?! I’m sick of this place, come on!”

“James!” and the other man whacked him upside the head, looking horrified and gesturing furiously at the redhead with one hand as he continued to smack the other man around with a stuffed penguin, but it was no use. The redhead had grabbed her cart and taken off with a yell over her shoulder that she was wrong and he was right and she’d be at his car with his brother and hers.

Nina wanted to scream, but the guy looked no better, face stony as he passed her his card with a muttered and deeply dejected, “Here, do it, and be quick about it, would you?” She usually hated that mood, got it way too often, but damn if he didn’t look like the kid who had come downstairs on Christmas morning and seen a hundred presents just to find out none of them were his.

She obeyed, handling it quickly and watching as he shoved the bags into the second cart and started off, muttering quietly as the two men followed behind, the tall one still gesturing in irritation and Nina winced, knowing the other guy—hadn’t he stolen a kid a few years back, and didn’t the other kill someone?—would be sleeping on the couch tonight.

At least those two seemed to be happy together, though, which meant there was hope for the other two…

fic: sorta fairytale (brooke/adam)

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:58:38 GMT

Title: Sorta Fairytale
Rating: PG-13 (for badass Brooke)
Pairing: Brooke/Adam
Disclaimer: Um, nope, not mine!
Timeline: After the MGB, before Stupid itself.

Teaser: After the Mardi Gras ball, there was the tangled little thing known as Brooke and Adam’s reunion.

And I was talking to you
and I knew then it would be
a life long thing
but I didn't know that we
we could break a silver lining

and I, I don't
didn't think
we'd end up like
like this

- Tori Amos, ‘A Sorta Fairytale’

May 2006

Perhaps she should have taken the hiring of Erin Lavery as Little Adam’s nanny as a warning sign.

Standing awkwardly in the elevator, worn down by her latest visit to visit the father of her son, she wished sorely she had taken the stairs, since Adam always hated them so damn much. After a childhood of mining and searching the worst possible places for food, he had always muttered as he adjusted his already perfect tie and grinned at her, a man should be allowed to take the elevator, right?

“I didn’t think you’d hire her.”

“She has all the correct information.”

“A Chandler hiring a Lavery?”

“Your boy living with a Lavery?”

“My son’s living arrangements are none of your business,” she sighed, watching as the lights above the closed doors slowly ticked down, far too slow and far too fast for her at the same time. “And my son’s choice in nanny for my grandson are none of yours,” he responded lightly, a bit of clear amusement there.

“It is when I’m the one who suggested her to you.”

“Was that you?”

She looked over at him, torn between rolling her eyes and bursting into hysterical laughter; her emotional circuits, already strained over the last several hours were now flickering at the edges of her awareness, telling her outright to climb out of the elevator and get away from him, feeling herself being mentally drawn closer to him.

It didn’t help that he had finally ditched his hideous sweaters and gone back to his usual suits and ties; it also didn’t help that he had gone back to wearing his old cologne, a comforting mingling of something faintly dark and darkly rich, and it drew her, kicking and screaming, back to dinners in the garden after Laura had fallen asleep.

“You’re such a soft bastard.”

“There is such a thing as a ‘soft bastard,’ dear?”

She laughed slightly, shaking her head as she shrugged helplessly, hating how much smugness she could pick up so easily in his familiar voice. “Only with you, Adam—you’re the only soft bastard I‘ve ever met, trust me.” She paused, knowing he was grinning at her and finally looked at him, adding, “Your face could stick like that, you know.”

Adam just stared at her, intently, something flickering there that brought a rush of remembrance to her, nostalgia easing some of the ache in her heart and making her look away quickly, uneasy now with sudden emotion. The dinging continued, and she felt like someone, far above, was laughing at her.

By the time the elevator doors finally slid open, she was trembling slightly, and he was staring at her all the more intently, and she exhaled uneasily, rocking back and forth on her heels nervously, feeling like a teenager again in a darkened movie theater. She exploded out of the elevator with a bit too much force, and turned around hastily to find him grinning, ear to ear, as if he had just come to some decision about something very important.

“What?”

“Do you still like white wine?”

“Yes.”

Somehow, impossibly, his grin grew all the broader before he leaned forward and pressed the button quickly, the doors sliding shut as he disappeared from view. She stood there, nervousness warring with a sudden blinding excitement before, with a snort of laughter, she headed to her car, shaking her head at her own ridiculousness.

Brooke had nothing to worry about.

July, 2006

The pile-up had done its damage.

While most of the chaos resulting from it had died down in the last days, the families thrown into the mess following it were having difficulty dealing with everything. Personally, Brooke never wanted to spend another minute in a hospital but, here she was, slinking in before the sun came up with something to soothe everybody.

At least, now, they didn’t have to worry about Babe; she was still, thankfully, in jail, one less thing for the family to worry about.

When she got to the room, though, she found Adam playing with two of Little Adam’s stuffed toys, humming and sitting in the uncomfortable seat so that the little boy could watch from his place in Erin’s lap. The redhead didn’t even notice her entrance, deep in conversation with JR over Little Adam’s clothes for the ride—

“He can go home?”

Pausing in the way he bounced the animals around in his lap, Adam grinned slightly, cocking his eyebrows at her proudly. “He’s a Chandler, Brooke; a little ten car pile-up isn’t going to keep him down.” He went back to the play, and back to his humming for several seconds as she watched JR and Erin bicker about whether the boy should wear jeans or his shorts home.

“What is that?”

“What?”

“The tune.”

“What tune?”

He sighed, scowling slightly before humming again, a bit more loudly, bouncing the heads of the toys together in front of him thoughtfully, watching as she set her bag down and opened it, pulling out two Styrofoam cups and a handful of plastic spoons. “Well?” She handed Erin one and a spoon and smirked at her ex-husband.

“It’s the theme from Bonanza, Adam.”

“Well, damn it, how come I didn’t get—”

“Dad!”

“Mr. Chandler!”

“Darn,” he amended dryly, rolling his eyes as he dropped the toys to his lap and plucked the container from Brooke, opening it and then lifting his eyebrows in amusement. “Italian ice, dear?” She passed him a spoon, shrugging as lightly as she could. “I had the morning off, and I thought you guys might like something.”

Adam knew quite well she never had the morning off, to judge by the patented grin he was directing at her, and she quickly turned attention to the clothes-covered bed, watching in amusement as the little boy bounced in his nanny’s lap, feeding himself a fistful of the dessert with one now-bright blue hand.

“Mine,” the boy announced excitedly as JR gave up and dropped onto the bed with a sigh, burying himself accidentally in a mountain of small-sized outfits and shoes. The boy, apparently no longer aware of the mini-battle previously waged over his clothes, continued to feed himself in the most eager way possible, scooping up small handfuls and devouring them quickly.

How something so adorable could come from Babe, she had no clue.

She passed another to JR with an amused grin, lips twitching a bit more when he took it with a wounded look, not unlike a kicked puppy. He looked worn and beaten, and very much an exhausted parent at his wit’s end and she swallowed uneasily, looking away and focusing on everything other than Adam’s son and Adam.

This was feeling too much like home.

August, 2006

Peering at the computer screen over her glasses, Brooke drummed fingers against the desk she sat at, and she waited, absently, for words to come to her, to fill her head they way they always did. But they wouldn’t, something that had been happening more and more the last two weeks.

When her eyes flicked helplessly to the newspaper several feet away, she grimaced, pressing her fingers into her temples and sighing harshly in the silence that filled her home, that damn silence she’d never suffered in when she had kids who had cared about her enough to care. Grimacing again, abruptly, she gave herself a mental shake to get her head out of unhappier memories.

Damn ex-husbands.

Standing with another shake—this one physical—Brooke rubbed her face and dropped her glasses to the table, leaning back in her chair to glare childishly at the computer screen and the blinking that taunted her horribly, a rare thing for her to experience. Snatching up the newspaper, she smacked it against the desk a few times, growling, “This is all your fault.”

November, 2006

“Maybe you should go to the hospital?”

Brooke shrugged lightly, tossing her hair back from her face as she examined her bruised knuckles and swollen hand, studying it with an odd mixture of pride and awe, remembering how stunned she had been at how amazingly easy it had been to knock Erica out with one right hook.

“At least put this on it,” he sighed and she obeyed, letting him settle the ice pack on her hand, shifting it a few times before nodding in satisfaction and settling back in the seat opposite hers, grinning wickedly. “That was quite a surprise, Brooke; even for someone who’s known you as long as I have.”

“I was annoyed.”

“And now Erica’s unconscious.”

“You sound proud of that.”

He chuckled, flipping his tie thoughtfully around his neck as he watched her with that unerringly intense gaze. “I have to admit, it was a lovely sight,” he finally admitted as he leaned forward again to shift the ice on her hand and then studying one broken nail. “One minute she’s attacking you, and the next she’s flipping backwards over the dessert table, feet flying over her head and flashing her underwear to the world.”

“It was horrible underwear,” she snickered, and he had to agree, laughter bubbling up inside him quietly.

“Looked like something a Carey would have worn,” he whispered and she burst out laughing, only to clamp her uninjured hand hastily over her mouth, looking at him with wide guilty eyes. But it had done its magic, filled the wrecked dining room with her essence and he chuckled more quietly, cocking an eyebrow at her. “You didn’t ruin Thanksgiving, you know…” His fingertips alighted on her wrist, playing with the sleeve of her blazer. “Erica did that when she barged in, accusing you of slander.”

“Slander’s spoken; what I printed was libel.”

“Of course…”

“And it wasn’t libel… it was the truth; she was the one who tried to pay me off.”

“Nobody pays off Brooke English.”

“Damn straight.”

A few more moments adjusting the cold weight on her knuckles before she sighed and nodded, apparently finding it in the right position finally to ease her bruised hand. “Thank god I already finished the story; I can’t type like this, not for a few days.” She paused, and then flashed him a smile that brought to mind the scene from some hours before. “It was worth it, you know.”

“Damn straight.”

December, 2006

“You’re a smug bastard.”

“I thought I was a soft bastard.”

“And now you’re being a smart-ass.”

“Excuse me, do you two not know the meaning of adult language?”

They both looked over to Colby, decked out in a brilliant red sweater and black jeans, blonde hair held back with reindeer ears and wearing enough Christmas jewelry to make Brooke’s eyes water at the sheer brightness of it all. “Little A’s going to be down here any minute, you crazies!” She slammed a plate of cookies down on the coffee table in front of them, tossing her hair around sassily. “Stop swearing, KO?”

This so stated—or, more precisely, yelled—the youngest heir of Chandler, Little A notwithstanding, whirled and ran back into the kitchen, nearly stampeding past Erin and Winnie, carrying out several more plates of food. “What’s going on?” Brooke, elbowing Adam sharply into silence, gave a dry snort, holding up a small velvet box. “Adam says I’ll be married to him this time next year.”

“You haven’t actually opened it up yet, dear.”

“You’re telling me this isn’t an engagement ring?”

He smirked and said nothing, opting instead to pop a cookie into his mouth and chew thoughtfully, looking very proud of himself and leaving her feeling like the world was rocking dangerously under her. Glancing away from him, she found Winnie giggling as she darted back into the kitchen, and Erin staring at them both like she wanted to run and hide under a bed. “You two are engaged?”

“We will be—”

“We are not engaged, Erin,” she stated loudly, drowning him out as she suddenly wished that the boy would come downstairs already and save her from the humor glinting in Adam’s gaze. “Nor will we ever be engaged,” she added more forcefully, smacking his fingers away when he reached out to adjust one of her diamond earrings playfully. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends that share a bedroom?”

“Who’s sharing a bedroom?”

Oh, damn….

She turned, stared at Marian, looking as elegant as ever in her dark green dress and grinning, eyes flicking over the small group in front of her. “It’s none of your business,” Brooke muttered hastily, glancing at the stairs, awaiting the boy’s entrance with growing desperation. “Are you and Adam sleeping together?”

“Marian!”

“Quite often.”

“Adam!”

He grinned cheekily back at her, eating another cookie as he wandered away from her and to the tree in the corner, a massive thing of bright colors and shining ornaments. He looked down at the selection of gifts stacked beneath it, nodding to himself in satisfaction as she ground her teeth and tried not to throw the jewelry box at his head. “You told me you wanted to marry me and then gave me a jewelry box, Adam—what did you expect me to think?”

“Oh my, he proposed?!”

“Marian!”

“What?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“If you’re going to be family, it’s completely my business.”

Brooke forcefully turned away from Marian, glaring at her ex-husband heatedly. “Then what is it?” she demanded childishly, foot itching to stomp on the floor, an itch that only increased when he chuckled lightly, slipping hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “A gift, dear.”

“You’re a jack-ass—”

“Language,” Colby shrieked, throwing down one last plate of food before running upstairs to help get Little Adam up and about and rolling her eyes, Brooke counted to ten before speaking again, trying to stay calm. “I’m going to open it.” He gave a shrug, not worried and, casting a dirty look at Marian’s intensely excited gaze, she slunk out of the room and into the kitchen.

Casting one last glance over her shoulder, she finally flipped it open and tossed the folded up paper tucked in the lid to the counter at her side. She stared at the gift, and then proceeded to stare even more, open-mouthed, at the gift, understanding seeping into her brain as she counted and then did the calculations, blinking as she realized what the gift meant. And then she glanced at the door, scowling and smiling at the same time, hating that he knew how to make her heart feel like this.

Laura’s birthstone, and Jamie’s birthstone, and she sighed deeply, sliding a thumb across the golden band. Not an engagement ring, but a gift; exhaling noisily, she finally nodded in satisfaction and gratefulness. It was a perfect fit, of course, and she studied it intently, warmed by the colors and the lives they represented, even if one was lost and one wasn’t quite as loving to her as she’d like.

She glanced at the note, snorted, and grinned again.

“You’re a smug bastard.”

The note, in his elegant and amusingly jagged scrawl, laughed at her and she chuckled in answer, heading into the living room just as Little Adam came staggering down the stairs with JR and Colby, the blonde female leaving brother and nephew behind to dive beneath the tree with gusto, making up for lost time.

This felt like home.

And that wasn’t a bad thing, right?

Brooke—
You’ll receive the necklace with the other children’s stones after our marriage… by this time next year.