Author's Note: The following is from my Facebook page not 5 minutes after the Season Finale ended: "You know what I hate? I hate when a season finale is awesome until the last 30 seconds. Curse you, In Plain Sight writers! CURSE YOU! Writing a fic in defiance and then going to bed. Good night. I love you all more than pistachios."
I almost threw my bowl of granola AND my OJ at the TV as soon as I saw that Mary decided in her infinite wisdom to run from Marshall's adorable and sledgehammer to the face obvious hint and to get tangled up with Faber! Godfuckin'dammit, I KNEW that she would do him! I just KNEW it! For all of her badassery brilliance, Mary can be a complete fucktard when it comes to men. If they make her preggers with that FBI D-Bag's spawn in season 4, I'm going to burn The Writers houses down Left Eye style!
This is a fic of defiance. This is a fic of protest. This is a fic of Common Goddamned Sense! I'm pissed and now everyone on here's going to know so I apologize in advance for any further psycho. This is a fic for the M&M girls (and boys? Are there men on FFN?) and I guarantee an update on Solace tomorrow. Kitten, my black ass! I'LL SHOW YOU KITTEN, JOHN MCNAMARA AND CO.! *snarls and pouts like a 5 year old*
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE. If you haven't seen it, you're going to be one unhappy camper with me.
Oh, and my format's changed from my ST: 2009 fic on so things actually look normal. *returns to snarling*
Disclaimer: "Honestly, it's not mine!"
She couldn't stop thinking about what Marshall Mann had said to her.
"You should be looking for someone…" That someone was obviously him. Even though her hair was (a glorious shade of) blonde, Mary Shannon was no dumbass. She had been able to ignore and avoid the Feelings before but now, now she couldn't.
And it scared the living fucking shit out of her! Why the hell did Marshall have to go and fall in love with her? More importantly, why the fucking hell did she have to go and fall in love with him back?
With a groan, she continued pacing the floor of her (too fucking) empty house and her eyes lit on the bottle of wine that Faber had brought her. It was the good stuff, the really good stuff, but it was from such a twisted source. The FBI D-Bag wanted her. Why? She didn't know but she did know that he would be the safe option, the option that would lead to hot sex for a while and then a break up. Faber was the familiar option.
Faber was the stupid option. Mary had met her stupidity quota this year and she wasn't looking to store it up like her vacation time….
"Maybe messy is what you need…" Even in her panicky confusion and dread, Mary was 110% sure that Faber wasn't the messy Marshall referred to. He referred to opening up, to having faith (there was that fucking word again!) in someone other than herself and her trusty sidearm known as Phil. He referred to growing the hell up and being with someone and fighting for it…really fighting for it. Not the passive aggressive bullshit of Raph but the kind of fighting that lead to year after year of companionship, of affection, and dare she say it, love!
Underneath her crunchy, rip your balls off with an Uma Thurman grin of sweet satisfaction (Mary loved Kill Bill like a dog loved a fire hydrant) exterior, Mary wanted everything that all women wanted. She wanted someone to hold her while she slept, to put up and love her BullShit (Marshall had too much decorum to use the full term but he could make the letters sound like the dirtiest sailor swear word ever), to help deal with the lunacy of life with a cocky grin and his own version of Phil, and someone to just be with comfortably and happily until she was back to shitting herself in a diaper.
Marshall fit that bill to a T, leading back to the goddamned Feelings. They had been there from the start but always ignored. Exceptions were made (the Lipstick smear, the Let the River Flow, the Shootings, the Toast…) but mainly they were strictly taboo. "You love me and against my better judgment and to my utter terror, I love you but we can't." was their theme song and they had strutted down the street to it for the last seven years.
Until now.
She had fallen into a manhole this year. Marshall was reaching for her, to yank her out of the gutter and into the light (she could just shoot Gabe for this new found poetic streak) but she was scared to grab on. At least she knew what the sewer was like. Mary knew the darkness and the self destructive like she knew the scars on her body. Faber would keep her company down there but for how long? How long would it be before the Kitten became Round 50 of "Mary sucks at Relationships"? How long would he last before becoming the next Raph? Being in the sewer would lead to nothing but more pain…
Yet, she was scared of the light. If she and Marshall got together (and he became her Cowboy to ride), that would be it. Like forever IT. She'd stick to him like crazy glue and when he eventually left, she would be broken, shattered, and up shit's creek without a paddle. No, she'd be in shit's ocean without a raft. She needed the asshole more than she needed ammo and Big Gulps combined. He had proven time and time again that he was there to stay but the fear refused to listen to logic. Everyone left, it said. It was just The Order of Things. Don't do it…don't get involved with him…
Yeah, it was high time to take The Order of Things and boot it into the desert for the buzzards. It was time to get it right, damn it!
She hated herself for not closing that distance between them at the office. He had offered himself to her like a sacrificial lamb (ooh, she was going to kill Gabe!) and she had dropped the Fight from Fight or Flight. She had used Stan to flee and they both knew it…
Well, there's noplace else to run, Shannon. You're at a fork in the road yet again and you've got two choices: Faber or Marshall? Decide. No more bullshit. It's time to cowgirl up, honey bunch. DECIDE! DECIDE, NOW!
Chucking her empty beer bottle across the living room, she did. Picking up the phone, she dialed a number and shook with nerves and other pent up emotions as he picked up.
"This is Marshall."
"Get your ass up, pack, and meet me at the airport! We're going on vacation together and you're going to like it, damn it! I'll clear it with Stan later and you better bring some fuckin' sunscreen, Cowboy because I am not going to hang around with a string bean lobster for the next 8 weeks!" she ordered stridently as she threw her suitcase onto her bed.
Silence and then, "Mare, are you sure you want…"
"You said that I needed messy, jackass and that's what I'm doing! I'm doing the scariest, messiest, and the most impulsive thing I've done in my life! Now, unless you want me to call Faber and screw us both out what we should've been doing from the start, then I suggest you shut the fuck up and do as I say!" she roared before hanging up and throwing the damn phone across the room with a satisfying smash.
Throwing all the essentials (and the skimpiest bikini she had) into the now full duffel bag, Mary stalked into the kitchen, powered by liberated adrenaline.
Scrawling a quick note and setting the alarm, Mary slammed the door to her house shut, put the note on the knocker (folded into a paper football with to Mom, Squish, and Peter on it) and got in her mustang.
Her pedal was to the medal and she looked at herself in the rearview. Instead of looking careworn and stressed, she looked determined, nervous, and excited all at once.
She wasn't going to have her regrets in a box 30 years from now.
For the first time in god knew how long, Mary Shannon was going to get hers.
She was getting out of the damned sewer and if life wanted to throw her back in there, then it would have to put up a damn good fight to the Death.
/
Marshall found her at the ticket counter and he was immediately entranced by the fire that was in her gaze. He thought that he would never see it again.
This was a Mary who had broken free, this was the Wildchild he remembered despising and lusting for as soon as he saw her.
This…this was the Mary he had fallen irreversibly in love with.
Silently, she dropped her duffel and pulled him by the collar into the most devastating kiss of his life. He dropped his own luggage and drew her close to him, twining his tongue hungrily with hers. He had no idea what had gotten into her but he was by no means complaining. And neither was she. She was on her tiptoes and her nails clutched him with bruising force as they kissed and kissed…
"Ma'am? Ma'am?" the perky attendant called tentatively.
"What?" Mary grumbled between pecks on his trembling lips.
"Your card and your tickets. Your flight leaves in 20 minutes."
She broke away enough to retrieve them and she grabbed him by the wrist, leading him towards the gate, his suitcase rolling with them at top speed.
"Mary, what's going on?" he asked dumbly as they came to a stop in the waiting area.
She sighed harshly and turned to face him with tearful fire.
"What's going on, buddy is that I'm sick of making the same dumbass mistakes over and over again. What's going on is that I'm listening to you for once and getting into something messy but totally worth it. Well, at least I hope it will be worth it and I didn't do this crazy, reckless, totally cliché thing for nothing…the point is that I'm taking our partnership to the next level and kidnapping you to a non hurricane or oil spill affected Caribbean island to relax and fuck you until neither one of us can breathe. I'm showing faith in something other than justice and a gun, okay?"
Okay? It was way past okay. After her obvious retreat from him earlier, he had gone home, berating himself for putting himself out there so blatantly. After all there was Faber or some other asshole that she'd go after just to stick with the familiar. All his little speech had done was push her into another man's arms. Or so he thought. Marshall should've known that she would surprise him.
She always did.
Releasing the suitcase again, he wrapped his arms around her and she actually hugged him back, her pulse racing like a jackrabbit's. He pressed a kiss to her jugular and ran his fingers through her glorious corn silk mane…
"For one thing, the oil spill's in the Gulf, not in the Caribbean."
"Smartass.", she groused.
"I'd rather be a smartass than a dumbass. And Mary…this may be crazy, reckless, and totally cliché but I'm totally with you. If you want us to be more, then we'll be more."
"I want us to be more." she said into his shirt. "Really badly."
"You and me both…Kitten." he replied with the ultimate shit eating smirk.
She groaned out a laugh and nudged him fondly as they sat down in the uncomfortable chairs, waiting to board the plane.
The next time Faber came sniffing around his girl, Marshall would bite his fucking head off and feed it to the buzzards.
Mary Shannon was very much taken. Taken by him!
/
"Hey, Stan. Um…well, I'm on vacation. Well, we're on vacation. I took Marshall with me. Well, actually, I called him and kidnapped him like a ranting romantic comedy heroine and told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted him to be my someone. Don't ask. It's some more of that let the river flow and around the mountain bullshit he likes so…ow! Asshole!"
"Don't call my life's philosophy BS, woman. It works!"
"…Anyway, we're gone but not forever so I hope you and Charlie don't burn the place to the ground while we're gone. Marshall needs someone to water his plants because he's a Nancy…"
"I'm your Nancy!"
"…fucking right, you are…and I need you to make sure that my family doesn't drive Peter over the brink. So…um, yeah. Bye. See you in 2 months."
"Bye, Stan!"
"Doofus!"
Chuckling, Stan McQueen saved the message to his archives and shook his head. It was about time those two got their heads on straight. He had noticed their connection from Year One and he had been watching them dance around it like they were on Dancing with the Stars for their entire partnership. He had never lost hope, even with Raph and now, it was all coming to fruition.
Thank God.
With a smirk, he accessed the archives and sent the message to two people. Eleanor would be happier than a pig in shit to know that their favorite idiots had finally decided to be idiots together.
As for Faber…well, maybe that meant he wouldn't be coming back to Albuquerque anytime soon.
Again, Thank…fucking…God.
Leaning back in his chair, he looked at their empty desks and awaited her call.
/
"…come back when you've taken your SATs, Jorge."
"It's Enrique and I'll do that."
Marshall came out of the bathroom in nothing but a fluffy white towel and licked his lips at the sight of her in the sunlight. She had on a scarlet red sundress that highlighted every luscious curve she had and she looked at him like a starving cat looked at a mouse.
"You know, there aren't any SATs in Mexico." he drawled.
Instead of replying, she came over to him and ran her fingers through his thoroughly messy hair, tangling and rumpling it further.
"You should leave it like this. It's sexy." she purred as she traced her tongue over the scratch marks on her shoulder.
Screw Kitten, she was Hellcat and Mistress and Woman, Don't You Dare Stop!
"It's messy." he protested as he slid the dress off, showing her sun kissed and love kissed body.
She yanked the towel off and laid them down in the wreckage of their bed.
"I like messy. Messy…is good." she moaned as he took a rosebud nipple into his mouth.
He slid gently inside her and he growled as she locked her glorious legs around his waist.
"Really good." he rumbled before fusing their lips back together.
Sex on the Beach or sex in a bed, it didn't matter.
As long as he was with her, he was content.