Disclaimer: The "Stephanie Plum" series is the property of Janet Evanovich. All of her characters are being used without her express permission, but also without any financial profit on my part. Please do not sue—I am a poor librarian and am still living at home with my parents.
A million thanks to Julie for beta reading and giving me her support while I wrote this fic. You rock!
WARNING: This fic is Cupcake, but not anti Ranger. It IS anti the Babe fics—and their fans—which portray Joe Morelli as a psychopath. If you're a Cupcake fan who's sick of seeing this version of Joe Morelli in various Babe fics, enjoy. If you're a Babe fan who has nothing against Morelli, you might like this. If you absolutely love Ranger and think that Joe Morelli is the devil incarnate, this fic is probably NOT for you. If you write anti Joe fics, this fic is DEFINITELY not for you. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Constructive feedback is always appreciated!
I knew something was wrong as soon as Connie and Lula stopped talking the instant I walked into Vinnie's bond office. It was a Friday morning, and I had brought in the last of the skips she'd given me last night. The final one had the biggest payoff, netting me a ten thousand dollar paycheck. Usually, Fridays weren't a big day for FTAs, so I expected to collect my check and head home for a long weekend. Probably, I'd go to the market on the way home to pick up some groceries. Maybe stop at the mall to get a cute outfit to celebrate the ten thousand dollar check. I'd seen some sexy nightgowns earlier that week, and it was becoming too warm to wear flannel pajamas to bed…
As though to clear any momentarily doubts I might have felt, they exchanged glances which clearly said "uh oh!" and deliberately avoided my gaze.
I plopped my purse on the couch and turned to Connie. The new office had been finished two weeks ago, and we were all getting used to the feel of it. It was nice to know we wouldn't have to move out of the building and onto another location, such as Mooner's bus, anytime in the near future.
"Hey," I greeted, flashing a smile at Connie and Lula, who did not return it. "Anything new come in?"
Another exchanged glance between the two of them. Lula began coughing loudly and, when I stared at her, abruptly stopped. That morning, she was dressed in blue spandex pants which barely covered her butt, and a matching shirt that barely held in her breasts. Her hair was dyed rocket red, and huge hoop earrings swung from her ears. And I do mean huge. The earrings were at least half the size of her head. Her hair was pulled back in a huge ponytail, which prevented the earrings from getting caught in her mass of hair.
"I got allergies," she explained. "It's the damn pollen. Can't breathe anywhere without sucking in a crap load of the stuff."
I nodded sympathetically, which Lula took as a sign she should continue.
"I've tried a whole bunch of cold medicines, but they either don't work or knock me out. I was telling Connie over here how I almost fell asleep at the wheel yesterday after trying out this new brand my doctor suggested. He said it was non drowsy, but do you think my body knew that when I nearly fell asleep at the wheel? I don't think so!"
"Wow, that sucks." I turned to Connie, but she was trying hard not to look at me. Her eyes were focused on the white walls, like she was looking for a nonexistent piece of dirt.
I didn't mean to be unsympathetic towards Lula's allergies, but I was pretty sure that she was going on and on about them to avoid talking about something else.
Like maybe why she and Connie had stopped talking and looked guilty the second I entered the building.
There was a silence, and Connie spoke, focusing her gaze only on Lula.
"I keep telling Lula that she's gotta just suck it up. Your body builds up a resistance to that kind of stuff if you don't try every medication on the market. Her response was to tell me to go screw myself."
Vinnie chose that moment to enter the room. Normally, I dislike the weasel, but maybe he'd draw some light on what Connie and Lula were avoiding telling me. Whatever it was, it had to be bad.
I was pretty sure I wasn't getting fired. I'd captured every skip on Connie's list before the deadline in the last six months. The office was new, and the problem with the plumbing had been fixed last week. I'd taken some time off half a year ago because of my marriage and honeymoon with Joe Morelli, but the actual honeymoon had been on the short side—just a week long. The real honeymoon was still going on, but I'd still been able to get my job done.
Funny how it had taken us nearly five years to decide to get married, but as soon as we did, it ended up feeling like the best decision I'd ever made. We'd been pseudo engaged for a couple of years, seeing each other exclusively (well, okay, I'd been with Ranger a few times during our fights, but that was another topic entirely), but neither of us willing to commit. Then, after Hawaii, it just seemed like the most natural step.
Vinnie gave me a look similar to the one Connie and Lula had exchanged moments earlier.
"What?" I practically exploded. "Do I have something in my teeth? Is my mascara running?"
Vinnie got really quiet, so I turned back to Connie and Lula.
"Look, Vinnie, if I'm getting fired, just say it."
"Why'd I fire you?" Vinnie asked, sitting down on the couch, looking genuinely perplexed.
"Well, there's something no one wants to tell me. Connie and Lula look like they've gotten caught eating birthday cake without me."
Okay, not the best analogy, but I wasn't good at thinking of stuff like that really fast.
A long pause. Then, Lula spoke.
"Steph, how are things with you and Officer Hottie?"
Her tone was kind of tentative, and I noticed that she didn't look at me when she asked the question. Well, no, she was looking at me, but not at my face. She was studying my arms—a short sleeved t-shirt covered part of them, but the warm weather meant I'd left most of them exposed—and my bare legs. I was wearing a jean skirt that reached to my knees. Not my traditional bounty hunter attire, but I'd seen it on sale last week and Joe Morelli loved it. I figured I could change into actual jeans if I had to capture any skips. Or just leave it like it was. The skirt was pretty full, so it wasn't like my movement was hampered. I wasn't in love with my legs, but I hardly considered them to be my worst assets.
Anyway, Lula started pacing around me, almost like she thought there was a hole in my clothes she was trying to spot. I noticed that she kept glancing at my bare arms and legs, but didn't think too much of it. I mean, what was there to see?
I raised an eyebrow. "Me and Joe? Things are fine between us."
"Just fine?" prodded Connie.
Okay, things were better than fine. Like I said, we were still on the honeymoon, emotionally anyway. The sex had never been better. We sometimes argued over small things, but this was nothing new. No full out fights since…well, actually, since after the whole Hawaii debacle. We'd reached a point in our relationship where we were both totally willing to commit to the other, me because I finally came to realize that my attraction to Ranger was just physical. Him because…honestly, without getting all braggy, I think Joe realized he wanted to marry me practically since we first started dating. There had been a fair amount of on and off, hot and cold, but once we sat down and discussed things in an open and honest way, I realized that we really wanted the same big things. Also, after capturing the Rug, I think Joe was pretty impressed and realized I was capable of doing a good job without a huge amount of outside help. He knew that I didn't have to quit my job in order to stay relatively safe.
Not that quitting being a bounty hunter had helped me much in the past. The job gave me the necessary skills I needed to survive in Trenton.
Even though things were great, I didn't feel the need to share the specifics with Connie and Lula. Mary Lou, sure, but that was because we'd been best friends for as long as I could remember. Lula considered me to be her best friend, and while I wouldn't want to doubt her sincerity, I wasn't going to burst her bubble by telling her that role had been filled long before I met her. Lula was great in her own way, and I certainly valued our friendship, but I couldn't tell her everything about my life, and wasn't that what a best friend was for?
Connie's role was more defined. We were coworkers, and friendly, but if I didn't tell Lula a whole lot about my life with Joe Morelli since we'd gotten married, then Lula was Mary Lou next to Connie. I didn't feel bad about this. Connie and I weren't close, and we probably wouldn't be close. We didn't confide in each other. There was just that understanding, like how you wouldn't complain to your boss about your problems in a traditional office setting. Not that Connie was my boss, but the logic still fit.
So, why the need to know about what was happening in my marriage? Did it go further than the desire to hear the dirty secrets of our sex life? I'd never shared them before with any of them, and I didn't plan to start sharing them now.
Something was definitely up.
"Things are great," I clarified.
"Everything is great?" Lula prodded.
And she wondered why I didn't tell her everything!
"Yes," I replied. "Everything is great."
"Huhn."
I turned to Vinnie. "Would someone please explain what the hell is going on?"
"It's like this, Stephanie." Vinnie got up from the chair and paced. "You know how you sold that woman the rights to your story three years ago?"
He was referring to Janet Evanovich. The author had contacted me four years into my bounty hunting gig, having heard about my many misadventures. Said that she wanted to create a series loosely based on my life. Told me that she'd pay me a flat out fee—a six figure number—and then I'd get 10% of all of the royalties she made from the books.
The six figure fee was enough to make me say yes, but the additional 10% sealed the deal. It meant that, if the books sold, I might never have to worry about making my apartment rental payments again. Of course, at the point Janet had made the offer, I was seriously considering giving up my apartment and moving in with Joe Morelli for good, but expenses were still expenses. At this point, I'd ended the lease on my apartment and the money Janet sent me was going straight into my bank account for emergencies (including spontaneous shopping trips) and the future.
It would take a whole book to describe exactly which parts of the books were genuine and which were…improvised…by Janet Evanovich. We had a loose contact, but I didn't have the right to approve or deny each and every book before her publishers made them available to the fans. The reason I agreed to this was because I didn't want to take the time to read 300+ pages of semi biographical material on my life every four months and take notes. I'd read some of Janet's previous books, and she was a good writer. If she exaggerated my misadventures, I knew it was in the name was fiction. Hell, half the people who read the books didn't realize that Stephanie Plum was a real person living…okay, not in Trenton or even in New Jersey, but in a town not unlike the one she described.
There were parts of the contract I knew some fans wouldn't like, but if I gave too many more details here, it would reveal key points to how the series ended, and then I'd be in huge trouble with Janet, the publishers, and the fans.
I had to admit that I hadn't counted on Janet Evanovich allowing readers to publish fanfiction about my life. I wouldn't say the topic never came up as something I could negotiate. More that Janet explained that the mark of a good series was fans who would want to write stories about it. Hence the term "fanfiction". The fans were prohibited from selling their stories to make money, since Janet owned the series. She told me that some authors found fanfiction to be a huge threat to their "empire" and forbade it. She urged me not to "make" her do this because she expected the number of writers to be small and, if she outright forbade fanfiction, the number of readers would probably shrink. Apparently, authors who forbade fanfiction were seen as only marginally better than Scrooge.
In addition to all of this, Janet felt that fanfiction would foster creativity, discussions about the series, and more popularity for the series as a whole. She told me that there was a lot of division between the Babe fans (who wanted me to end up with Ranger) and the Cupcake fans (who wanted me to end up with Joe), and fanfiction would provide a comfortable outlet for these fans.
Anyway, I'd never actually read any of the fanfics, but I knew that the people who read the books were divided into people who wanted me with Joe Morelli, and people who wanted me with Ranger. Janet Evanovich didn't provide me with details, and I didn't ask, but I suspected that more people, so possibly more writers, wanted me with Ranger than Joe.
Everyone in my life had some knowledge of the series, and some understanding that Janet Evanovich allowed fanfiction. I didn't think anyone in my life spent much time reading fanfiction on the websites. Sure, my mom and grandma read the books, but why read fiction about someone when you know what's really going on? Joe had told me, on numerous occasions, that I'd have to tie him to a chair and gag him before he'd read or listen to the series. Not because he thought it was terrible, but I think he was afraid of how Janet Evanovich wrote his character. Since he knew there was a division of the "Babes" versus the "Cupcakes", he figured that she wrote both males as typical romance novel male heroes.
Not, he insisted, that he'd ever actually read that sort of book before.
He probably didn't want to read about Ranger saving me from every mess I got myself into, or the inevitable sex scenes which had to follow.
"Yeah…what about it?"
I wondered if maybe I'd missed an email asking for the contract to be renegotiated. Maybe Janet Evanovich wanted to cut my fees. Or increase them. Naw, probably not the second. I've learned that people aren't that generous…
"Well, there are some things being said about you and your husband on the fan sites which aren't too flattering."
This was from Connie.
I rolled my eyes. "I know that more than half of the fans wanted me to end up with Ranger, but in the books, I didn't choose either yet."
I was just sleeping with both of them. Okay, mostly Joe, but Janet Evanovich managed to sneak in a few scenes in which Ranger and I were…intimate.
In real life, Ranger and I had gone all the way when Joe and I were on our "off" stages. I usually felt guilty afterwards, because I knew that Joe wasn't seeing anyone. That had been something we'd had to discuss a lot after getting engaged. As with describing how my real life differed from the books, to do this would take at least a hundred pages. I'll just say that Mary Lou, who's read all of the books and gives me the details about them, insists that Janet highly exaggerates whatever romance goes on between me and Ranger. There was never any real competition between him and Joe, just flirtation because he was hot. Besides, that part of my life was over as soon as I agreed to marry Joe.
I want to take the time to point out that a lot of the details in the books are exaggerated up to the point in which they no longer resemble my real life. My cars, for instance, do not blow up every week, or even every month. I think I've had a total of five cars since I started working in the bail bonds business. Sure, a few of them have exploded, and at least two were stolen. I recognize that this is well above average, even for bounty hunters. But I've had my current one for over a year. That should count for something, right?
Also, I'm thirty-three years old. Joe is thirty-five. Janet had this crazy idea to make none of the characters age, so even though I started out as twenty-eight when my adventures as a bounty hunter began, the five years that followed basically consist on a continuous loop. I've heard that it drives the fans crazy, but my mom and grandmother are thrilled to hear that Janet's figured out how to prevent aging.
Also, I have no idea where the character of Diesel came from, because I swear I've never met someone who can appear and disappear at will. Unless he wipes my memory after every encounter with me. I'm pretty sure his appearance in the series was a way to expand on the series. And introduce his character before Janet started the "Wicked" series.
"Steph, there's always been fanfiction, but it's really gotten out of hand in the past few years," Lula explained. "It's not just a question of which guy you should end up with in the series. There's actual hate for your cop hubby. People are writing him as a sociopath."
I rolled my eyes. "I know there are a couple of stories out there that present Joe as a jerk who turns me into a Burg housewife, but Janet's never implied that it went beyond that."
"That's because she hasn't read any of them!" Connie cut in. "Look, Steph, when the writers make Joe Morelli out to be a jerk, that's pretty lenient compared to how some of the other writers write his character."
I did another eyebrow raise. "So they make him out to be a jerk…"
Which I'd sort of already guessed at, because if you want me to end up with Ranger that badly, you're probably going to go out of your way to make Joe Morelli appear like a bad catch.
"They make him do more than yell at you," Lula replied quietly.
A light bulb went off in my head. "What, you're saying that a few people make him hit me?"
It had seemed, if not impossible, then at least highly unlikely. I admit it, I haven't read most of the books in "my" series, but from what I have seen, Joe always comes off as a decent guy. He rescues me from numerous life or death situations, demonstrates signs of genuine physical affection in every book, buys me my favorite food even when I'm not living with him, takes time off from work if I'm having a hard day, is always complimenting me and telling me how sexy I look, usually deals with my crazy life with considerably less complaints over the years, and we have great sex. Just thinking about the last part made me wish I was at home with Joe, instead of beating around the bush with my coworkers.
"Girl, he hits you on a good day!" Lula responded enthusiastically. "The number of times he's put you in a coma…"
"Not to mention how often he rapes you," Vinnie cut in. "I'm surprised you can stand to be near him."
I gave Vinnie a truly evil look, and it took him a minute to figure out what he'd said.
"I mean in the stories! God, not in real life…sheesh, Steph, if he tried something, you'd probably punch him in the nuts, like you do to those FTAs who get nasty."
This was a whole other thing, but I'd let it go for now. One fight at a time.
"Let me see these stories," I told Connie. "They can't be that bad."
It was Connie's turn to raise an eyebrow, except she wasn't able to raise one at a time, so they both shot up.
"They're really horrible, Stephanie. I mean, really graphic. Once you read them, they can't be unread…"
Another eye roll on my part. I turned to Lula. "Have you read them? Are they really that bad?"
Lula crossed herself, a habit she'd started doing early in the series and then stopped. Another inaccuracy. Lula kept this up whenever she was nervous. Not that she didn't, sometimes, do it sincerely.
"We're trying to avoid giving details because we don't want to mess up your mind too much. I ain't saying that Connie and I—"
"—And me!" Vinnie interrupted.
"Yeah, and the weasel." Lula shot Vinnie a withering glare, and he decided to make his exit. "Look, we haven't read all of them, but the ones we read were so bad I felt the need to say ten 'Hail Mary's' after each one. I was a ho, so these kinds of things really shouldn't scare me, but these writers take it to a whole 'nother level of creepiness."
"Is this everyone who wants me to end up with Ranger?"
I'd have to be more careful when I went out in public. The last thing I needed was a bunch of fans hearing about my marriage to Joe and attempting to kidnap me in order to protect me. Joe's never hit me, and I pretty much took this fact for granted, but it seemed like there were mobs of angry fans who thought that my day wasn't complete unless Joe beat me within an inch of my life…
"They're all Ranger fans, but the Ranger they describe is nothing like the Ranger you read about in the books," Connie informed me. "I don't got nothing against Ranger, Steph, but they paint him as this knight in shining armor ready to rescue you from the evil Morelli dragon."
"So it's just a few people with, um…" I trailed off. "Active imaginations," I finished.
Lula snorted. "Active, my ass. I think they were dropped on their head a few too many times as a baby. Looks like maybe they're still being dropped on their heads up to this day."
I sighed. "You better show me some of these fanfics…"
"Take my chair," Connie offered, standing up. "You're gonna need it."
Two hours later, I turned away from the tenth fanfic and closed out of the site. That fanfic had been one of the tamer ones. It featured various futures that could occur if I married Joe Morelli, and while rape, incest, abuse, and my eventual murder all seemed to occur in every chapter, at least the writer didn't include too many details. I guess, after awhile, there's only so many ways someone can describe the feeling of fear and hopelessness Joe Morelli apparently inspires in me.
Yet in at least half of these fics, I make the choice to stay with Joe Morelli because he's sexy and I have this idea in my head that if I become the perfect Burg housewife, he'll stop beating (and raping—can't forget that, as it seems to happen on a daily basis in these stories) me. Or at least, not beat me as much.
Ranger always comes to my rescue. If Morelli puts me in a coma, Ranger's the one who's there when I wake up. In one particularly excruciating story, I can hear Ranger sobbing at all hours of the day and night while I'm in my coma, and it's only his cries that make me realize that life's worth living.
Excuse me? If I'm so fucking depressed, then why the hell don't I just leave Morelli? It's not like he keeps me on a leash with a shock collar…
Then again, I stopped reading after ten fanfics. For all I know, he does that in the next story. Which I'm not going to read. At least, not yet. I need to go home and talk to Joe about this first. Not because I'm scared he'll beat me for reading stories that portray him in this light, but because I seriously want to go on a rampage and find all of these people who've demonized my husband, but I figure he'll be able to deal with my anger better then anyone else.
Except, maybe, Mary Lou. I love that girl to death, and I have to wonder if she's read any of these stories. I know that she's a huge fan of the books, even though she's annoyed that I've apparently ditched her for Lula. In real life, that's hardly the case. We get together at least once a week, and if there's one person I can be totally honest with about my sex life with Joe, it's her.
I stood up from the chair. My butt was starting to hurt, and my hands were starting to tense from the number of times I'd clenched them into fists.
"I'm out of here," I told Connie. "I can assure you that everything is good between me and Joe, but if I don't get my mind off of this crap, I might just shoot the next person who bugs me."
This was a fib, and we both knew it. I'm not quite as scared of my gun as Janet portrays me to be, but I don't carry it as much as I should. That morning, I hadn't even thought to bring it with me to the office. It was still sitting in the kitchen, neatly tucked in the cookie jar. The same one that I had when I'd kept it at my apartment.
Lula got up from the couch. "If you need help on the ass kicking, you be sure to call me."
"You got it."
Not that I expected to run into some crazy fans on my way home, but hey, it couldn't hurt to have Lula available as backup. If for no other reason than to scare the shit out of them.
I took several deep breaths and dialed Joe on his cell phone.
"Hey, Cupcake."
His voice sounded sexy, sweet, and concerned. Just hearing it calmed me down slightly. Only slightly, though. I was still really ticked off.
Not at him, though, I reminded myself.
One of the things I'd had to work on was focusing my anger. If I was angry about something, it wasn't right to yell at Joe. If I expected him to try and control his Italian temper, I could show him the same courtesy.
"Hey, honey."
Nicknames were something new for me. I was used to Joe calling me "cupcake", but he'd told me shortly after we got engaged that I could do the same, if I felt like it. I usually just called him "Joe", but I liked the idea of using pet names. "Honey" was my favorite because it wasn't too cutesy.
I could hear him smile.
"Love it when you call me that."
I smiled in spite of myself. "How's work?"
"The usual. Actually, it's been pretty light today. I was thinking of taking off early. Eddie and me were going to grab a drink..."
"Oh."
My voice must have sounded small, because Joe noticed the difference immediately.
"Everything okay? I can skip the drink if you want…"
I sighed. "I got some bad news. No one's dead or anything—" Yet. "—But I was hoping to talk to you about it."
"Is it the baby, Cupcake?"
I'd very recently found out that I was pregnant. Joe and I decided against telling anyone, even our family, until I was further along and knew everything was okay. The doctor had said there was no cause for concern, but you can't be too careful, and I didn't want my family to get their hopes up only to be crushed if something happened in the next month or so.
Funny, but any doubt I'd had after I'd said "yes" to Joe vanished the minute I found out I was pregnant with his kid. It just confirmed everything in my mind, made me realize that the decision to commit for life had been the right one.
"No, that's fine." I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me. "Look, I'll see you tonight."
"No way, Cupcake. Eddie and I can reschedule. Look, I have some paperwork to finish, but after that, I'm done for the day. I'll be home in an hour."
"Joe, it's really not a huge deal."
"Cupcake, I can tell that something's on your mind. Look, don't worry about dinner, okay? I can pick up a pizza or something."
I smiled, and all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings flowed through me.
"I love you, Joe."
He laughed. "Love you too."
An hour later to the minute, Joe stepped into our house. He removed his jacket and, upon seeing me, pulled me into a long bear hug.
I felt safe and comfortable in Joe's arms, and didn't want the hug to end. Sensing this, he guided me to the couch and pulled me onto his lap, his arms still wrapped around me. I nestled against him and let out a contented sigh. Joe leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the forehead.
"You okay?" he asked.
I shrugged, then shook my head, then started tearing up. Not full blown sobs by any stretch, but enough for him to see something was wrong.
Joe began to rub my back. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"
"Okay." My voice was higher and squeakier than I had expected, so I cleared my throat. "Remember how Janet Evanovich wanted to write the Stephanie Plum series?"
Joe nodded, tracing circles along my shoulders. I stopped talking for a minute, just to enjoy the feeling.
"Is that still going on?" he pressed, smiling at me.
"Hmm? Oh!" I laughed, realizing I'd spaced out. Not the first time that happened when I was in Joe's arms. "Yeah, she's still writing them." I took another breath. "Basically, she chose to allow fanfiction—you know what that is?"
Joe grinned. "Stories based on Janet's stories about you?"
"Basically." I smiled up at him. "I mean, we'd discussed it, and I'd said okay. You know I haven't really read most of the books, so of course I'm not going to read the fanfiction."
Joe took a minute to digest this. "I think it could be interesting. Probably, some of the stories would give us more…ideas…if you get what I mean."
I blushed. "I think we're doing pretty good without help."
Another kiss on the forehead, followed by a longer one on the mouth with a lot of tongue. "No argument there."
"Well, basically, a lot of people wanted me to end up with Ranger, so they have been writing these stories painting you in a horrible light."
Joe frowned. "Like I beat you up and stuff?"
"Yeah, and Ranger's the one who I turn to after you beat me senseless." I paused, waiting for a reaction at Ranger's name. Joe just looked amused.
"Guess those fans don't realize that you don't want Ranger to rescue you from me," he remarked sexily.
I tried to smile, but my heart wasn't in it. Joe pulled me into a hug, and it was a few minutes before I said anything else.
"I didn't even realize how bad they were until Connie and Lula started avoiding looking at me. I guess they're afraid that it wasn't all fiction."
"Stephanie." He broke off the hug and put both arms on my shoulders. "You know I'd never hurt you like that."
Exasperation rose up in me. "Of course I know that! But how do you think it feels to hear that your husband is a sociopath?"
Joe blinked in confusion. "I'm your husband, Steph."
I gave him a playful shove. "You know what I mean."
"Well, we could try tracking them all down and arresting them," Joe suggested, changing the back rub into a tickle session.
"Agg! Let me go!" I shrieked, trying to get out of his arms.
Within seconds, not only was Joe still tickling me, but he had me pinned down so I was lying directly beneath him on the couch.
He let me struggle for no more than a few seconds before stopping. He pulled me back into his arms, and I pouted.
"Cheater."
"Sorry." He was grinning, and I knew he wasn't the least bit sorry. Then again, I wasn't overly mad, so I guessed that we were even.
We cuddled for awhile, not saying anything, and then Joe broke the silence.
"How about if I take a look at them?"
I shuddered involuntarily. "You really don't want to. They're horrible. You can't unread them after you've read them."
He got up from the couch, carrying me in his arms. "I've seen pretty bad stuff, Steph. I think I can handle it."
Well, at least I'd warned him…
An hour later, Joe stared at me in the chair next to him. I was playing fetch with Bob, and he'd taken a break from his third story. I knew things were worse than he'd expected because his reactions made mine look mild. At one point, he threw up his arms and began swearing.
"I think I've read enough," he told me.
"How many did you read?"
I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear Joe say it.
"Three, but I skimmed through the last one."
"Any favorite parts?"
Joe chewed on his lip, considering the question. "I like the part with Ranger beating me up and pouring your blood on me while I slept."
I sniggered, recalling the scene. At the time, I felt like I was going to throw up after I'd read it, but now, it struck me as…funny. "Didn't he say something like, 'Now her blood will be on you always!'"
"'So that she will always remain a part of you, you sociopath toad!'" Joe finished.
"My little toady," I teased.
Joe's nose wrinkled. "Ugh. Not your best nickname."
I swatted at him playfully, gave another laugh as he easily avoided my arms, and then sighed. "Did you take a look at the feedback? Everyone loves this stuff."
"This 'shit' is more like it," Joe corrected me, moving a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
"It makes my physically sick to think that not only are these stories there for the whole world to see, and not only do they seem to grow in number each day, but they get almost completely positive reviews. There's an audience for this type of torture, and they're using our names in it. That's what really gets me," I admitted.
It was one thing to be called the bounty hunter from hell, or to be told I was crazy, or even that I shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. At least those comments were one liners, meant for my ears (and maybe a few others) only. These stories were written for the enjoyment of fans of the series…except I wondered how someone could consider themselves to be a fan of Stephanie Plum and write this crap.
Now probably would have been the time to give Joe a long speech about how much I loved him and how I knew he was the right man for me. How I knew he'd never hurt me and had always treated me with kindness and tenderness. How even when he got angry at me, it was usually because I'd done something stupid. But I'm not the best at making those kinds of speeches and, besides, one look at his face and I could tell he already got my real meaning.
"I love you too, Cupcake."
There was another pause, though not uncomfortable. Joe stroked my hair, and I cuddled into his chest.
"I'm not sure if it's the writers who are worse, or the readers."
"They're both enablers," Joe agreed. "The writers are posting this junk in order to get attention."
We were silent for awhile.
"It's not all of the Babe fans," Joe pointed out, watching my reaction. "Just the extreme ones who, for some reason, want me dead. They better watch out if they try anything…"
"Not as much as they want me raped, beaten, and psychologically abused," I countered. "You have to really hate someone to put them through that."
"Could be…"
"Now what?"
Joe closed his eyes. "We monitor them. We report anything that looks like it could possibly violate the website. Not that it would do a whole lot—there are probably other sites out there. I'd suggest posting nasty feedback, but that might just make them more devoted to their cause."
I considered this. "They're almost funny if you don't take them too seriously."
Joe watched my carefully. "You think we should read some of them on purpose? Like a date night?"
"Well, it wouldn't be the only thing we'd do." I batted my eyes at Joe in an overly seductive manner. "We could eat pizza at the same time."
"And birthday cake."
I nodded. "Birthday cake would almost make them seem okay."
Joe tussled my hair. "Birthday cake makes everything okay for you, Cupcake."
A week later, we were sitting in bed, eating cake and reading stories via my laptop. We'd decided to extend the reading sessions to go beyond just the "Joe abuses Stephanie" stories. After all, there were plenty of good Cupcake fics to choose from. Why not end them with a happy ending?
The best part, though, had to be finding the most ridiculous lines in the anti-Joe fics. It became a contest between us.
"Listen to this one, Joe." I fought the urge to vomit as I read what followed. "'I retreated to the kitchen, grateful that Joe Morelli forgave me for burning the pot roast and decided not to beat me for that. Later that night, however, he grabbed me roughly and dragged me to the bedroom. 'Joe, I'm too tired!' I complained, even though I knew I shouldn't. It didn't matter that I had spent the last twelve hours cleaning the house, which did not include cleaning up after Joey's multiple messes. It did not matter that I had cooked three separate meals from scratch in between taking Joseph and Josephine to school and sports practice. I knew that Joe had forgiven me for burning the pot roast, but he would still demand sex. Even if I was too tired. Even though I was pregnant with swollen feet and ready to collapse from exhaustion. "Shut up, Cupcake!" he snapped, taking a swing at my face. I closed my eyes as the blood began to flow. I was ready, though not prepared, for what would happen next.'"
Morelli gave a strangled laugh. "You're making that up. I'd never make you name all of our kids 'Joe'."
"Josephine's not a bad name…That was Jo's real name in Little Women," I recalled.
Joe pulled me into a hug, resulting on my smearing birthday cake on my nightgown. "Okay, we can name the kid Josephine if she's a girl."
We read in silence for awhile, and then I gave Joe a playful poke. "Look at this one!"
The first two pages were filled with a very graphic rape scene that would have warranted an X rating had it been a movie. It was like a train wreck. I couldn't look away, even though I knew I'd get nightmares if I continued reading it.
Morelli studied the page, his expression darkening by the moment. If this was one of those fanfics in which Morelli periodically beat me and raped me, I guess I would have started to feel scared. But I knew that his anger was towards the writer of the fanfic. I knew that, even if he had the opportunity to interrogate this author, he wouldn't even consider doing half of the things that the author had put me through.
"That's just chapter one," I commented wryly. I clicked on the next chapter. It was called "Coma". "Looks like you go too far…"
"Christ." Morelli took a seat next to me. "Might as well face it now…"
In the following chapter, I accidentally burn the pot roast for the second time that week (I wondered why the hell did I make pot roast so often? Was that Morelli's new favorite food?), so Morelli decides I need to be taught a lesson. After being handcuffed to the bed and raped repeatedly for two hours straight, he removes his belt and begins to hit me. At some point, I lose consciousness and pass out. Several days later, I wake up in the hospital, but it's unclear how I got there. I mean, if Morelli would really go to all that trouble beating and raping me, why would he convict himself by calling for an ambulance?
"Those kinds of details aren't important, Cupcake," he said, reading the chapter along with me. "Probably, I told the cops it was some skip you'd been after."
I shook my head. "In this fic, it says I offered to quit my job if you'd stop beating me. I guess Lula got suspicious when I came in all black and blue."
"I wonder if that was before or after we got married…"
"Before, obviously. Because, apparently, I'm such an idiot that I'd marry you even if you beat me as soon as we started dating."
Morelli snickered. "Guess that person hasn't noticed that I've never hit you."
"Shh, don't tell them. It will ruin their fun." I rolled my eyes and continued reading. "'Out of the darkness, I heard a familiar voice. It was filled with sexiness, kindness, and warmth. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and even though it was heavily bruised and probably dislocated, I did not feel any pain. The voice came next, and it was quiet and mournful. 'Babe.' My heart leapt."
Joe grimaced. "Keep going…"
"The chapter ends there. The writer hasn't updated since then."
Joe began to rub my shoulders. "Don't feel too bad, Cupcake. I'm sure they'll update soon. On second thought, maybe they had a change of heart. Check and see if they wrote any Cupcake stories on their author page."
I clicked on the author's profile, and saw ten more Babe fanfics, but none of them had been updated since this one.
"Darn. If there's one thing I hate, it's a story where I don't find out if I get to live after you've practically beaten me to death," I complained.
Joe sniggered. "We haven't checked the reviews in awhile…"
"Good idea!" I glanced at the reviews for the fic we'd just read. "This one got over a hundred. It's only five chapters long. And all of them say what an amazing job this author did, and how they always knew you were…oh, this one says you're the devil incarnate."
Morelli kept working at my back, and I could feel the anger and indignation of the past few hours melt away. "Does that make Ranger some kind of angel?"
"At the very least." I looked up at him. "Ready for the next one?"
I heard Morelli sigh. "One more. Then, I want to show you just how no good I am…"
He said the last part with an overdone southern accent, and it was a full minute before I could contain my giggles enough to focus on choosing a story.
"Let's read 'My Life'. That sounds pretty promising."
It was rated M, which meant there would probably be more rape (from Morelli) and passionate sex (from Ranger), but it seemed like all of the stories featured this. At the very least, Morelli was bad tempered with a tendency to wave his arms around like windmills at "my" smallest mistake. At the worst…well, the last fic had hinted on that. Even though there were ones out there still worse than that. The irony wasn't lost on me that the Stephanie Plum of these stories always accommodated to Morelli's every wish. She always quit her job before they got married, had lots of kids, and made homemade dinners every night. Despite this, the Joe Morelli of the writers' imaginations was incredibly irrational, blaming Stephanie for anything that went wrong during his day. In half of the stories, he ended up losing his job and turning to alcohol, which only made him more abusive. Didn't people understand that the Joe Morelli I loved had broken away from the Morelli mold?
Besides, Morelli men might hit their kids, but they never hit their wives. They hurt their wives by hitting their kids, by sleeping with other women, by getting killed because they lived so dangerously. They didn't need to hit their wives to keep them loyal…and besides, I was reasonably sure that the Morelli men who hit their kids mostly used physical discipline on the males. Not that this was something I felt like talking to Joe about right now. We'd already had that conversation, multiple times. Even discussed how we'd raise our kids, and that included discipline.
Anyway, by the end of the first chapter, which featured the traditional physical abuse and a subservient Stephanie, I felt like I'd been violated. Not by Joe Morelli, who was still rubbing my back and looking at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. But by the people who were determined to desecrate our relationship by painting him out as worse than Jack the Ripper. Didn't these people realize that the Burg might be traditional, that I might one day want to cook a meal for Joe Morelli, but that didn't mean he was going to use his belt on me if I uttered the slightest protest? That he loved me for who I was on that day, not because I could cook a good dinner?
My breathing was fast despite Morelli's efforts to calm me down, and he lifted me off the chair and into his arms as though I were a small child.
"Come on, Steph," he said gently. "Let's see if I can get you thinking about something a lot…nicer."
A half an hour later, I was nestled against Morelli, resting and catching my breath. The past thirty minutes had been amazing, and I felt extremely relaxed and incredibly sleepy. Morelli had his arms wrapped around my body, just where the baby was starting to grow, and my head was resting in the crook of his neck.
"Feeling any better?" he asked, removing one hand to play with my hair.
"Mmm," I managed to murmur through half closed eyes.
He gave me a peck on the forehead. "I love you, Steph."
My eyes opened, and I stared at him intently. "I love you too, Joe," I told him slowly, meaning every word.
I was too tired to spend much energy worrying about the flood of stories slandering Joe's character, but the next day, I came up with an idea.
"I think we should let them know that we know," I told Joe over frosted flakes. I had made the coffee that morning, but we were both eating cold cereal. Neither of us minded this fact.
"You mean like, write them a letter?"
"Sort of. You know how anyone can post to that site?"
Joe nodded through a mouthful of frosted flakes.
"I'll write something about what a happy marriage we have, and let them know where they can put their 'Joe abuses Stephanie' fics."
Joe snorted. "They're pretty determined. There's a large fan base."
"Yeah, and I'll probably get flamed."
"Flamed" was one of those fanfiction terms I had just learned. To be totally honest, I was proud of myself for learning the lingo.
"Probably." Joe took a sip of coffee. "Can I help?"
"You better!" I told him, taking a bite of cereal and grinning at him.
And he did.
The End