InsaneJournal

Yuletide
Thank you, penknife, for my awesome Lord John Grey story!

And the ones I wrote:

"Hotter than Hell" for fuschia
Fandom: Rescue Me
Summary: The sad thing is, this thing with Mike isn't even the craziest thing Tommy's done this year.
Rating: NC17


There are things you don't do, even if you're Tommy Gavin. Things that, if you do them, you pretend you didn't, you pretend you were drunk, high, someone else, you bury the memories and salt the earth.

Catholics are good at guilt. Gavins are good at repression.

Tommy's dad has been dead for three weeks the night he lets Mike Siletti go down on him in the kitchen in the firehouse with the other guys asleep upstairs. And Tommy isn't even drunk when it happens, and he'd feel guilty about it except Jesus fucking Christ, it's the best blowjob he's ever had. He used to think Janet was good, back when they were both kids and he'd been with exactly three other women in his entire life, one of whom was so drunk she puked before he came.

He used to think Sheila was good, that greedy little mouth, sharp little teeth, the element of danger because you could never forget that Sheila was completely batfuck crazy.

But Mike is in another fucking category entirely. Mike might as well be from another fucking planet.

Tommy thinks of him like a big, dumb puppy, with those mopey brown eyes and that eager smile. Except Charlie, who's an actual dog, has the wisest, tiredest eyes of anyone he's ever seen. So mostly he thinks of Mike as a kid, a not very bright kid, good at fighting fires as long as you tell him exactly what you want him to do. He's a probie, and if he's in the house fifty years he'll still be a probie.

There's nothing sexy about Mike. He doesn't even have tits, for Christ's sake. So even though Tommy's gotten to the point where the gay thing, or the bi thing, or the what the fuck ever thing doesn't completely creep him out anymore, Tommy doesn't think of Mike as fuckable. He doesn't check Mike out in the showers, he doesn't drop shit and watch Mike pick it up, he doesn't joke about Mike's body to see if he'll blush.

Lately he's been getting this vibe from little Mikey, though. Like maybe Mike is the one doing the flirting. Like Tommy is the one getting his ass scoped out. It's a weird feeling, kind of sexy but mostly gross. Tommy doesn't like it, mostly because it makes him feel like he ought to apologize to every woman whose rack he's ever stared at across a crowded bar. Which, realistically, would take him the rest of his damn life.

So he avoids Mike, or at least avoids being alone with him, because hey, Tommy Gavin is no cocktease. But if he's honest with himself--and he tries pretty fucking hard not to be, most days--he's a little curious. He's done anal, so he knows how the logistics work, mostly, but he's not sure about where everyone's hands go, things like that. That probably any straight guy wonders about, at some point. So when Mikey finally corners him in the kitchen, Tommy isn't as alarmed as maybe he should be. He leans against the counter with his water bottle, and wishes he still fucking smoked so he'd have something to do. And he lets Mike zero in on him like he's looking for someone to save. And maybe Tommy wants to be saved.

Maybe he wants Mike's hips to brush against his, maybe he wants Mike to lean past him to reach something sitting on the edge of the sink. Maybe he's already half hard by the time Mike's hand grazes his dick through his jeans and both of them flinch. Mike does that crooked smile thing he does, one side of his mouth going up and the other going down, and Tommy smiles back at him like he's fucking begging for it, because he can't help himself.

He should be shocked, when Mikey's mouth is on his and Mikey's hand is on his package, but somehow he doesn't mind. He closes his eyes, even, and he doesn't pretend Mike is someone else. It isn't that different than it is with a woman, which is probably more of an indictment of the chicks Tommy's been with than it is of Mike; he'd have to be pretty rough, pretty nasty, to be worse than they are.

Mike's aggressive, but he's gentle, too, which is smart, because he's probably thinking Tommy's two seconds from panicking, even though actually he isn't. He's probably expecting Tommy to protest when his fingers stop massaging and start unzipping. He tastes like fire, not cigarette smoke but burning buildings, and he smells like Tommy's father, which is comforting for reasons Tommy doesn't intend to think about.

And he has his hands inside Tommy's fly, which is just hot.

Tommy's fingers are wrapped so tight around the edge of the counter he doesn't think he'll ever get them unbent. When Mikey drops to his knees he doesn't even breathe, because if he opens his mouth anything that comes out is going to be loud and embarrassing as shit, and the last thing he wants is Franco or Black Shawn coming in to see what the fuck is going on.

So when Mikey's soft, warm, wet mouth closes around his dick, finally, all Tommy does is sort of squeak. It's fucking miraculous, that mouth, and by this point in his life Tommy has a pretty good sampling to compare it to. And there's none of that crap with teeth being in the wrong place, or whining about Tommy's being too rough and Mike has to breathe, doesn't he. Mike just sucks him down, so far in Tommy suddenly develops a whole new respect for the kid.

It doesn't take very long, which is good, because Tommy doesn't want Mike getting any clever ideas about what to do with his fingers, or reciprocation, or anything like that. Tommy's curious, but he ain't that curious. So he comes, and it's fantastic, mind-blowing, might even be the best orgasm of his life. And Mike's still kneeling on the floor panting, and Tommy's still leaning against the counter panting, when the alarm goes. And Tommy's grateful, all over again, for fucking New York City, the city that burns.

There isn't time for him to anything more than zip up his fly and smile at Mike, and that, that makes this the sweetest blowjob of Tommy's fucking life.


"Hellfire," also for fuschia
Fandom: Rescue Me
Summary: There are things even Tommy won't do. (Sequel, sort of, to Hotter than Hell)
Rating: R


There are things you don't do, even if you're Tommy Gavin. Things that, if you do them, you pretend you didn't, you pretend you were drunk, high, someone else, you bury the memories and salt the earth.

Catholics are good at guilt. Gavins are good at self-destruction.

Tommy's dad has been dead for three weeks the night he breaks his first rule, which is, don't fuck other men. He's been dead for six the day Tommy almost breaks the second. Which is, don't fuck family.

As much as he loves Colleen, and he does love her, she makes him crazy. Just being in the same room with her makes him crazy, makes him do things and say things he doesn't mean.

This is one of them.

She's late, and she's drunk, or maybe high, and she's got on what's seriously the shortest skirt he's ever seen on a woman, and ordinarily Tommy wouldn't complain, but this is his little girl. He changed her diapers until she was two, and he doesn't need to see her ass now that she's nineteen.

It goes wrong pretty quickly after he says that.

He's fighting with her, about what she's doing to her body, to her life. About the fact that she's too damn smart to be making all of his mistakes and all of her mother's. The Gavin legacy: alcoholism and recklessness and that fucking Irish temper, three things he never wanted for his kids to inherit.

He wants somebody to get out alive. He wants to have saved someone.

He grabs her arm, which is a mistake; usually he doesn't touch her. Hasn't touched her, not really, not since Connor died and he realized his world had burned down around him. But he's furious, and terrified, thinking about Mags, Rosemary, Janet, Sheila, all the damage that the men in his family have done to the women. Because even worse than the possibility that Colleen might turn out like her father is the thought that she might turn out like her Aunt Maggie.

So he grabs her, and she turns on him, hammering his chest with her fists like a child. He gets hold of her wrists and pins her against the back of the couch, and he's standing looking down at her wondering what to do next, and she says, “Fuck me. Come on, Dad, you know you want to. You know I need you to.”

And even though he could swear it's never occurred to him before, even though the idea of it should disgust him, he wants to. The body pressing against his is a woman's, not a child's, and she's wearing so little clothing that he can feel every detail of it.

She's his daughter. He's never not given her something she asked for. This is like handing her a book of matches and watching her set herself on fire. He doesn't know which choice will destroy her, whether doing it or walking away is the worse choice.

He kisses her, but he doesn't put any passion into it. She's his daughter, and she's wearing strawberry flavored lip gloss, and she starts to cry while his mouth is still on hers.

He lets go of her wrists and puts his arms around her, and she leans against him and sobs into his chest. She feels so small against him, more delicate than Janet, more heartbroken than Janet ever was. Everything he's done, every wrong choice he's ever made, has played a part in bringing her here, in this moment. She's his daughter, his little girl, and he loves her.

“Colleen,” he says, and kisses the top of her head, and holds her, helpless, while she cries. He never wanted kids, not once he started fighting fires. Not once he saw what losing a child does to a person. But he never realized until now that having your kid die isn't the worst thing that could happen to you.

Watching your kid self-destruct is worse.

Eventually he carries her over to the couch and sits down with her on his lap. She's shivering, exhausted, pathetic: her makeup obliterated, her nose running, her hair tangled. He remembers when she was six, and broke her wrist; he remembers when she was twelve and a boy broke her heart for the first time. He remembers her propositioning him, and he knows he will remember it forever.

“Col,” he says, and now he's crying, too. “Christ, Col, I'm sorry.” Because there's no way he can make this better, and he doesn't even no where to start. If he could change everything, if he could make it so none of this happened: not only the past half hour, but all of it, Johnny and Connor and Jimmy, all the sons who died before their fathers: if he could do that for her, for them, he would.

If he could save her, if he could make her someone else's daughter, he would do it, even if it killed him.

He tells her, and she says, “Daddy. I know that.” And he thinks that maybe that means something. Maybe the fact that she trusted him enough to come to him means something. And he's grateful that he didn't kiss like he wanted her, that of all the things he's done, he hasn't done that. And if he wanted to, what's one more thing to hate himself for?

He saves the ones that can be saved, because that's his job. He buries the rest, and he tries not to feel guilty about his failures because in his line of work guilt gets people killed. If he can save Colleen, it won't changed the fact that he failed Connor, and it won't change the fact that he feels guilty about it.

It might be enough to keep Tommy alive.

So he pushes Colleen's hair back from her face, and he says, “Baby. We'll make this okay. I promise.” And when she smiles at him, sort of, he feels like the biggest liar ever born.



"The Place of the Skull," for miriam_heddy
Fandom: Dresden Files (tv)
Summary: Sometimes the sex is the easy part.
Rating: NC-17


Sometimes the hardest part of having sex is figuring out the logistics. I mean, if one of you is corporeal and one of you isn't-- that makes things a little challenging. By the time you've gone through a couple of dozen grimoires, translated ancient spells from Aramaic to Latin to English, tried a couple of promising rituals, and run through half your supply of candles and all of your cheetah hair-- well, at that point, it's hard to feel too sexy. Nothing kills a mood faster than arcane rites written in blood on human skin, or whatever it was my great-grandfather used that looks like blood and human skin.

And Bob...well, for someone who claims to want this as much (or, technically, a thousand times more, since he hasn't had sex in an unthinkably long time, and all that) Bob isn't as much help as he could be. I think he just doesn't want to get his hopes up. Well, maybe it isn't just his hopes he doesn't want to get up. Maybe it's-- maybe it's not as hard as I thought, actually, staying horny while I do research. In fact--.

I'm not even sure when it started. Make that, I'm not even sure when it started for me. Bob's made it pretty clear it started for him this last year, which is good. Because, I mean, I met him when I was eleven. But I wish I could remember when I stopped admiring the grace of his hands as he demonstrated some tricky bit of wand work, and started thinking about how the hands would feel on my body. Or how they would feel, period.

It would be bad enough if I just had a thing for a ghost. I mean, you might be thinking I go out of my way to make life harder for myself, and you might be right. Bob is four or five hundred years older than me-- he says a gentleman never tells -- and he's more less my best friend and my only family. Which makes me a special kind of stupid. I know that.

The thing is, I get laid a lot. For a guy without a college education or a regular income or a working cell phone, at least. This isn't just sex. This could be something else. I want this to be something else. And I never give up, but I'm starting to run out of hope of this happening. At least while I'm young enough to enjoy it.

That's when Bob says, “Do you know, I believe there is something else we can try.”

There's really nothing I can say to that except “And you didn't think to mention this earlier?”

I think Bob actually blushes, which may be a first. It's also adorable, although I'm not quite brave enough to mention that. “Okay,” I say instead. “Let's hear it.”

“It's a bit delicate, I'm afraid,” Bob says apologetically. “But I was thinking-- suppose we do it without touching. You know. Like telephone sex, only without the telephone?” In point of fact, I don't know. Phones tend not to work for very long around me. It's an energy thing. But it's worth a try, I guess. “How do we start?” I say.

“I think we'd better go upstairs to the bedroom,” Bob says, and right away I know he's given this a lot of thought. A lot. Which can only be good, right?

So I go up and lie down on my back on the bed, and try not to think of England. In fact, I try not to think of anything. It isn't actually that hard, because I'm terrified. I don't remember being this nervous my first time with a woman, or even my first time with a man. But this is different. This is Bob. This one matters.

“Close your eyes,” he says, and I do. It does make things easier.

“Good,” he says. “Now take off your shirt and unbutton your jeans.” There's something about his voice that usually makes me think of velvet. Tonight it's leather, smooth and strong and sharp as a whip. I don't dare disobey.

“Touch yourself,” he says. “Make sure I can see you. It isn't your hand, Harry, it's mine.”

My right hand pinches one of my nipples, hard. My left slides down to my cock. But Bob is right. They aren't my hands anymore. They don't even feel like my hands. They feel like Bob's, they feel the way his voice feels. My hand--his hand-- my hand slides me out of my boxers and I arch my hips and thrust into the warmth of it, already half hard.

“Yes,” Bob says. “I can see you like that.” His voice is as dry as ever, but I can tell even without opening my eyes that he's drifted closer, so close that if he could be touching me he would be. “Keep doing it.”

He doesn't have to tell me twice. In fact, he doesn't really have to tell me at all, because my hand is moving up and down my cock independent of my brain. This isn't going to take long. I lie back and stroke myself, and I'm glad he didn't tell me to use lube because even without it I'm not going to last long. I feel like I'm in a trance, like Bob's voice has hypnotized me, almost, so that all I can do is enjoy the ride.

And I am enjoying it. Really, really enjoying it. This is nothing like jerking off, having Bob telling me what to do, having Bob watching me. The only thing I'm sorry about is that I'm not going to be able to return the favor. I'd like to see Bob like this, Bob's face twisting, his hand flying up and down on his cock, his back bowed as he fucks someone who isn't there.

But if I never have that, if I never have anything else but this, if I never get to kiss Bob, never feel his weight against me, his dick inside me-- well, at least I've had this. And this is as close as two people can be.



"A Most Political Animal," for Fae
Fandom: Brothers and Sisters
Summary: Kevin and Robert reach detente.
Rating: PG-13


“Thank you again for what you did-tried to do,” the Senator says, as they're carrying Sarah's kids out to the car after one of the Walker three hour dinner parties. He smiles at Kevin likes he's auditioning for a part in a toothpaste commercial, all blinding white teeth, no sincerity.

And Kevin is tempted to blow him off again, because nothing's changed, but at the last second he sees Kitty's tiny, hopeful face grimacing up at him from under Robert's arm, and he says, “Put your money where your mouth is, McAllister. If you're so grateful, you could at least buy me a drink sometime.” Kitty smiles, and at least he's made someone's day. And he thinks McAllister will recognize it for what it is, a bluff that need never be called. They don't like each other. They both know that. They're busy men.

So he's forgotten all about it by the time he gets to the office on Monday. He's late, and he has meetings, hundreds of emails, an outbox that's on the verge of overflowing into the hall, senior partners to impress.

He's on a call with a client when his cell vibrates in his pocket. The caller i.d. reads R McA, for what's possibly the first time ever. He excuses himself politely to the client, but all he can think is Kitty. It's been two weeks since the last disaster. They're probably overdue for another one.

“Senator,” he says into the phone. “Is something wrong?”

McAllister sounds like Jason, only more so. It makes Kevin hot and cold at once, hearing him. He is not precisely sorry that things didn't work with Jason: he knows, all too well, that he was never going to be able to compete with Jason's God. And he was getting tired of trying to, tired of virtue, monogamy, going to bed alone. But that doesn't mean he hadn't loved Jason. That was the part the McAllisters didn't seem to understand. That didn't mean breaking up with Jason hadn't hurt.

“Kevin,” Robert says. “I had an unexpected cancellation. It looks like I won't be flying to Idaho tonight after all. I wonder if you'd like to get that drink?”

“I can't,” Kevin says reflexively. “I have plans.” He does, too. Drinks, with people from work. They'd ditch him, in a heartbeat, if they got a better offer. And he'd ditch them, to be fair. They're lawyers, after all.

“Kevin,” McAllister says. “I'm trying to make a peace offer, here. I'm a Republican. It doesn't come naturally to me.”

“You're stepping on all my best lines,” Kevin says. “If you really want to pacify me you should at least let me make the jokes.”

“Go ahead then,” Robert says. “Everyone else is laughing at me.” And there's finally, finally, a hint of petulance in that, a hint of whininess. A hint that Kevin's brother-in-law might actually be a bona fide human being.

“Somewhere expensive,” he says grudgingly. “I can be bought.” Just like the American people, he thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud. Kitty likes to pretend Robert is different, honorable, entirely without cynicism. Kevin has his doubts, but he's trying to be polite.

“I'll send a car,” Robert says, like he thinks Kevin will stand him up otherwise.

“Fine,” Kevin snaps, and hangs up on him. It feels wonderful. He almost calls Robert back, just so he can do it again, but he knows it won't be the same.

The car he sends is the McAllister standard, a Lincoln towncar. Buy American, Kevin thinks sourly as he climbs in. Even for a Monday, the day's dragged on forever. He wants to go home and curl up on the couch with Scotty and watch Top Model. He doesn't want to make nice with the Senator, doesn't want to call a truce, doesn't want to pretend to like Jason's brother or Kitty's husband.

The bar Robert's chosen is discreet, manly: dark leather, wood paneling, like an English gentleman's club. Kevin hates it, but then, in the mood he's in, he'd have hated anywhere Robert chose. He takes off his jacket before he sits down across from the Senator, rolls up his shirt-sleeves and loosens his tie.

Robert looks tired. The lines around his mouth and eyes shadow his face in the dim lighting. For once his shirt looks like he's been wearing it all day, and his tie is missing all together. There's a glass on the table in front him, half full of something amber and expensive looking.

“Bourbon?” Kevin guesses, curling his lip at it.

“Scotch,” Robert says, looking amused. And to the waitress, “Another one, please. What are you having?”

“Tanqueray and tonic,” Kevin says. “Double. Extra lime. And can I see a menu, please?”

“You're going to make me pay, aren't you,” Robert says, and there's a smile in his voice if there isn't one on his face. “Kevin, why don't you like me?”

“Christ, you are a politician, aren't you,” Kevin spits. “Can't stand not to be Mr. Popular?”

“I'm hardly Mr. Popular now,” Robert points out.

“Senator Popular, then,” Kevin says, when they both have their drinks. “Apart from your abysmal political views, you mean.”

“Views your sister shares,” McAllister says dryly.

Kevin could tell him that he tolerates Kitty's politics because he loves her, that the two of them have this shared history, this tragic and magical language from their sometimes lonely, sometimes lovely childhood between them. That politics are beside the point. “You're smug,” he says instead. “Overconfident. Patronizing, even. I don't trust you with my country anymore than I trust you with my sister.”

He should stop. The last thing he should do is keep talking. But Kevin's never walked away from a fight in his life. “When I look at you,” he says, “I see the son my father always wanted, the son none of us, Tommy and Justin and I, were able to be. When I look at you,” he says, “I see my father. You pretended to be a hero, just like he pretended to be an moral, upstanding family man, and you're every bit as much of a hypocrite. When Kitty told me about your little fuck-up in the Gulf, I was thrilled. You have no idea what a relief it was to find out that you were just as big of a fake as I'd always suspected.”

“I guess I deserved that,” Robert says slowly. “God knows, I haven't exactly been fair to you, Kevin. Jason-well, when I talked to Jason yesterday, he said he'd exaggerated. Was he right about that?”

“Yes,” Kevin says sullenly. He can hold a grudge for months, even for years, but once he's lost his temper he has a hard time staying righteous.

“I would never cheat on Kitty. I will never cheat on Kitty. I promise you that. Politics is mistress enough.” And when Kevin doesn't smile back at him, “I've been there, Kevin. I've been the victim. I would never do that to her. I'm nowhere near perfect, either. Your sister can attest to that. And I'm not your father. I can promise you that, too.”

“Can you promise me that if you get elected you'll let gays get married?” Kevin asks.

McAllister looks flustered, for what's practically the first time ever. “No,” he says.

“I still hate you, then,” Kevin says, and for once Robert gives him a smile that almost looks real.



"Nurture or Nature," for Jacqueline L. Hope
Fandom: 30 Rock
Summary: Genetics isn't everything.
Rating: PG-13


She answers the door in her pajamas, because it's Christmas and her parents aren't speaking to her and she's expecting it to be orange chicken and the delivery guy who already knows all of her worst secrets and doesn't speak English anyway.

Instead it's Jack. This shouldn't surprise her. It's always Jack. He's like a bad penny, like getting your period on your honeymoon, not that Liz would know anything about that. She wants to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and eat Chinese food and ice cream and go to bed alone because she isn't home enough to have a boyfriend or even a cat.

“Lemon,” he says, and comes reeling in. So he's drunk, too. So there's that. She should throw right back out, but he's her boss and he's drunk and it's Christmas. At least, that's what she tells herself. “My mother is driving me insane.”

“My mother hates me because I'm never going to have children,” Liz says. “Tell your mother thank you for that, by the way. I would have been perfectly happy not to have ever seen that side of any of my family.”

“Isn't it better to know the truth?” Jack demands, before he flops down on her couch with a groan. “Oh, Lemon. My mother and C.C. are the best of friends. Did you know my mother campaigned for Kennedy? They've bonded. They're driving me mad, Lemon, with their liberalness and their principles!”

“Which Kennedy?” Liz asks, even though she knows she shouldn't. “Do you want some coffee, Jack?”

“Is it Irish?” She hears him sigh, and television comes on “All of them, probably, Lemon. She claims to have named me for John Kennedy. She told me once that he was my real father. Thankfully I look exactly like a Donaghy.”

Liz is glad she's in the kitchen, checking to make sure the bottle of Bailey's in the cabinet expired in 2006 and not 2002, because when he says that she thinks of the Kennedy Jack most resembles. It isn't JFK, though. It's Teddy--but Jack was born in the 1950s, so the dates don't match up. She hopes.

“My parents are Republicans,” she yells, over the noise of the water running. All she has, drinks-wise, is red wine and half a bottle of Malibu. “ They don't believe in abortion! Is Jamaican okay?”

“Mother of God, no,” Jack says from behind her. “Give me that, Lemon. There's a man at the door with two bags of food and a carton of ice cream. Go and pay him off, and let me handle this.”

“Yeah,” Liz says. “No one mixes drinks like a Kennedy.” And she escapes back into the living room to give poor Zhang-Wei his money. He looks at her suspiciously, like he's wondering what the hell Jack and his $3000 suit are doing in her apartment, but he counts the cash she gives him and doesn't smile, just like always. “Goodbye,” she says to him. “Have a great Christmas!” and closes the door on his scowling face.

“You do have way with the lower classes,” Jack says, handing her a gigantic rum and Diet Coke.

“Mmm,” Liz says, taking a sip. “Not all of us grew up with servants, you know. Some of us had to mix our own drinks and shine our own shoes.”

“That's tragic,” Jack says, helping himself to her food. “Does Oprah know? Is there a support group?”

“Shut up,” Liz says, but she's smiling as she curls up on the couch next to him. “You've met my family. You know how I suffered.”

“I put myself through Princeton by waiting tables,” Jack says. “It wasn't always wine and roses.”

“I thought you went to Tufts,” Liz says, confused. “I thought you were a swan boat operator.”

Jack waves it off. “Those are details, Lemon,” he says. “Details are for the small-minded.”

“Right,” Liz says, and takes a sip of her drink to hide her smile.

“Besides, I don't have kids either,” Jack says. “The Donaghy name dies with me, Lemon.”

“I thought you had three brothers, or is that another small-minded detail?”

“Only two, and you've met them,” Jack says, like that should make everything immediately clear. “Eddie is gay, and I've always thought Patrick was a little off.”

“Well,” Liz says. She's going to be polite if it kills her.

“You should have my children,” Jack says suddenly, sitting up.

Liz spits rum and coke out on her pajama top. “What?” There's a manic, dangerous light in Jack's eyes. “Everyone wins,” he says. “You get a baby, the Donaghy name lives on, your mother gets a grandchild--.”

“What about your girlfriend?” Liz demands.

“Details, Lemon. Besides, C.C. is even older than you are.”

“Thank you for that.” Liz reaches for a napkin. “Jack, you're not serious about this, are you?”

“As a heart attack,” Jack says. “Besides, it would absolutely kill my mother.”

“You want me to have your baby as revenge?” Liz squeaks. “Jack--.”

“You make it sound so dirty,” he says, and leans over and kisses her. Liz is so surprised she opens her mouth, and he tastes like rum, but his mouth is gentle on hers and it takes her a moment to push him off.

“You are drunk,” she says. “Oh, you are going to be embarrassed about this in the morning, mister.”

Jack laughs and leans back. “Not as embarrassed as you,” he says, which is true and which she hates him for. “But I'll find someone else to pop out the next generation of Donaghys if you feel that way about it, Lemon. Too bad. I think our child could have been something special, don't you?”

Liz doesn't even have to think about it. “Insane,” she says. “You are seriously unbalanced.” She looks over at him, but he's passed out, his head pillowed on the arm of her couch. It's a Wonderful Life is playing on the television, and she turns it off as quickly as she can.

After she's put the food away she digs out a blanket to drape over Jack. He looks peaceful, even if his mouth is open and he's snoring softly. It would almost be worth it, she thinks, if it meant that her kid would be a Kennedy.

Almost.



"Endgame," for thistlerose
Fandom: Dorothy Dunnett - The Lymond Chronicles
Summary: Love is a victory in its own right.
Rating: R


He misses Lymond a great deal when he is in France, and Lymond is in Russia, when he is in Malta and Lymond is in Scotland. When he was very drunk, once, Marthe said to him that what he loved was the ideal, not the reality. Jerott did not hit her for it, but he had wanted to. Now that Marthe is dead and Jerott is in exile, he wants it to be true.

It is not, and never will be true. He loved Gabriel once, and now he loves Lymond; it is the way he is made and there is no room in him for anything else. The place Marthe had was Lymond's by right. He would feel guilty about that if he did not suspect it was the same for Marthe, that each of them loved, in the other, what they saw of Francis Crawford of Lymond.

In Malta he is neither a knight nor a priest, only a soldier. The Spanish king is building a fleet such as there has never been, to drive the Turks out of Tripoli and out of Christendom. They are not much interested in the souls of their commanders, so long as their right arms are strong. And Jerott is a better soldier than he ever was a knight.

He drinks a great deal, without Lymond to check him. It does not affect the work he is doing. And he has a native boy that is his lover as well as his servant. It is a sin, and worse than that it is an indulgence. His name is Francois, though he is not otherwise very like Lymond, being dark-skinned and dark-eyed and very quick to smile.

He is only another substitute for something Jerott will never have, but he is better than madness. He is pliant and eager under Jerott's hands: his mouth tastes of fruit and his skin of salt, and his hands are bare of the callouses of a swordsman.

There are many things Lymond taught Jerott, but kindness never was one of them. Still, he is kinder to Francois than he ever was to Marthe. If the name his lips shape in extremity is the wrong one, at least the sound of it is the same. And there is no love in it for either of them, and no pretense of love. Only diversion, only commerce. Only Jerott, hard between the boy's legs, uncaring finally of what hole it is he fills.

And then there is Djerba. Jerott is wounded; his men are decimated, the fleet destroyed. The Knights are called back to Malta to fortify, to wait for the war to come to them. Jerott is tired of waiting and tired of war. And there is no place for him among the virtuous and virginal Knights of St. John of Malta.

He goes home. His father is dead, and his brother is an old man, suddenly, and with no sons. There is no more peace in Scotland than there was on the edge of the Ottoman Empire: the country is split between two Gods, two faiths, and square in the middle of it stands Richard Crawford and his brother Crawford of Lymond. Jerott could ride to his aid. Lymond is rebuilding St. Mary's, and could surely find a place for his old captain. He could take his brother's seat in the new Reformation Parliament. He could live in Edinburgh or London, with another catamite for a pet. Instead he takes a wife, a woman young and fair and well-bred as a man could hope for, and utterly boring. He gets her with child at once; she bears him two strong sons in two years, and by then his brother is dead and he is laird. An heir, a spare, a son for the Church and one for the Army: it is Jerott the defrocked priest who holds the title.

He learns to farm, to run an estate, to be satisfied with books and music and the occasional trip to the city and tumble with a pretty, sharp-tongued boy or two. He does not call his wife by any name but her own, and he never speaks to her of the life or the wife he once had. He is not unhappy.

When, finally, Lymond writes to him, he burns the letters unopened. If he cannot have the reality for himself, he wants no part of the ideal. He thinks that Marthe would laugh to see him now, with cow shit on his boots and inkstains on his fingers, and he does not mind. There are worse things.