Author's Note: This is an idea that jumped into my head and refused to be ignored. Each chapter will consist of a little bedroom chatter between Red and Liz, and then a few short bedtime stories. Who doesn't love Red's stories? Some of them will be entirely fabricated by me, and others will build upon Red's canon anecdotes.
I'm giving this a T rating, but it might be a little closer to a tame M, at times. A lot of the banter is sexual in nature, but doesn't describe any sexual activities in detail.
In a lot of ways, this will probably read like a series of unconnected one-shot crack!Fics.
Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think! If you have any bedtime story requests, feel free to ask, and I'll try to make it happen.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and earn nothing.
-...-...-...-...-...-
Prologue
After working together for three years, dancing around each other, teasing and tempting, Raymond Reddington and Elizabeth Keen had finally given in to their desire for one another. Unfortunately, the better Liz came to know Red, the more she wanted to know, and he still had an untold number of secrets that he couldn't share.
One night, after making love, she accidentally stumbled upon an idea that gave her an opportunity to look into his past, on his own terms. Red, usually fearful of the banality of routine, happily jumped right into this one.
-...-...-...-...-...-
Chapter One
"I can't sleep," Liz whined.
Red kissed a line from her shoulder up to her ear and whispered, "You wanna go again?"
"Yes, but..." This was a little embarrassing - a problem that frankly, she'd never had before.
"But?"
"It's just that we've been... and you're so..." She sighed. "I'm more than a little sore. My ladybits are waving a white flag."
"Oh... Message received." He briefly met her eyes, licked his lips, and ducked beneath the covers.
"Red!" When her hand found its way to the back of his head, he was surprised to feel her pulling him up, rather than pushing him down.
"I apologize, sweetheart. You'll have to be a little more direct with me here, because I absolutely cannot get enough."
"I promise to work on that. It's just, with Tom, I nev-"
"Lizzie?" He interrupted, "Can we just officially state that I'm superior to him in all sexual endeavors, and then never bring it up again?"
"Hmm... I'm a little surprised that such an oversized ego would need to be stroked."
"Only in the shower, when I'm away on business," he deadpanned.
"Let's just try to sleep again."
Red pulled her into his arms and kissed the corner of her mouth. "As you wish. Goodnight."
Twenty minutes later, Liz was still wide awake. "Red?" She softly whispered, not wanting to wake him if he'd fallen asleep.
"Lizzie."
"Tell me a story."
"Ouch. My stories are so boring that they put you to sleep?"
"I love your stories. If I didn't love them, I wouldn't have asked. But your voice... it sort of makes me melt, and if I melt enough, I just might fall asleep."
"Good answer. Do you want an autobiographical story?"
"Yes."
"About what?"
"Tell me a story about... hmm... getting in trouble at school - whatever incidents spring to mind first."
He chuckled. "Oh, this could take all night."
"You say that every night."
-...-...-...-...-...-
In kindergarten, we had nap time for thirty minutes every day. As you know, I've never been very good at naps, or at sleep in general, unless I'm exceptionally exhausted. So for me, nap time was extraordinarily long and boring. I'd keep my eyes closed and try my damnedest to be still. It was a torturous battle for self control.
One day, however, I opened my eyes and found that, much to my delight, I wasn't being watched. The teacher faced away from the classroom, writing a list of vocabulary words on the chalk board. Now, I didn't actually do anything bad that day, but I did begin to ponder how to best exploit that minuscule moment of nap time freedom.
Allow me to insert a disclaimer here. My creativity was far from developed at that age, so my chosen act of rebellion wasn't particularly original.
I decided to free the class pet, a bird named Charlie. In my head, I imagined tiptoeing over, soundlessly opening the cage, and then returning to my cot to wait for all hell to break loose after the bird flew out.
As I'm sure you've already predicted, it didn't go that well. I did make it to the cage, but when I tried to open it, the metal latch cut through the silence with a horrible screech. My teacher whipped around and scowled so hard that the mere memory still makes me tremble in fear.
But the bird stayed in the cage.
Turns out that due to an old injury, he couldn't fly, anyway. For that little stunt, I had to stay inside and clean the classroom while everyone else went outside for recess. In that, I found yet another opportunity to entertain myself during nap time. I asked if I could clean up and put away the toys while everyone else napped every day. Imagine that - a little boy asking for permission to clean. That's how much I hated nap time. Of course, my teacher assumed that I had some kind of nefarious motive, so she denied my request.
-...-...-...-...-...-
Liz offered a sympathetic smile. "It sounds like you've always been a little misunderstood."
"Maybe," Red replied, gently combing his fingers through her hair.
"A bird is a ridiculous classroom pet, anyway, regardless of its inability to fly."
"It is, isn't it? Would you like to hear another?"
"Yes, please."
-...-...-...-...-...-
Like most military families, my household was very strict. For that reason, while I was at school, I got into a lot of the not-so-good things that other kids probably did at home. That includes smoking.
In fifth grade, I had a friend named Marnie Peterson. My best friend, really. Funny little bat-faced girl. I adored her!
She often complained about how her dad always smoked cigars, and I didn't really understand why it bothered her so much. She said that she just hated the smell. Naturally, I suggested that she steal one so that we could give it a try. I wanted to find out for myself.
Since she brought the cigar, I took care of the matches. During lunch time, we slipped out through the back door and ran down to the woods. I don't think we smoked even a quarter of it before we decided to just bury the rest and go back.
I almost got away with it. We made it back before anyone had even noticed that we were gone, but at some point - and I don't remember when or exactly how - our teacher smelled it on me. Not Marnie, though. Just me. I must have been standing downwind.
She sent me to the pricipal's office, and ohhh, I got grilled pretty hard. He wanted to know where I got it, where I smoked it, why I did it. On and on. I rocked shut, tight as a clam. He said he'd go light on my punishment if I answered his questions, but I refused to tell him anything.
Good idea? Bad idea? I don't know. He'd have to call my folks regardless, and their punishment was the only one that mattered to me. I don't even remember what the school did, but my dad took away my bike and my vinyl collection for a month.
-...-...-...-...-...-
"So, did you enjoy the cigar? Did trying it bring you any closer to understanding why Marnie hated them?"
"Not quite, and not at all. I found the smell appealing."
"Cigar smoke by itself isn't so great, but paired with the ineffable scent of man, ah... heaven. I wish you could see how sexy you look with a cigar."
"Should I smoke them around you more often? You must feel enormously conflicted about that - getting turned on by something that could kill me."
"Well gee, thanks. I wasn't thinking about it in those terms. There is something I've been dying to know, though... Do you sexy-smoke them on purpose? Are you trying to turn cigar-smoking into a sexual obscenity?"
Red smirked, waggling his eyebrows. "That depends. Which answer would you find more arousing?"
"Good question... I'm not sure, really."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Then neither am I."
"Not fair! You suck."
"Nuh uh. You do."
She smirked. "Not if you don't give me an answer."
Red dramatically put both hands over his heart. "Oh darling, that is a cruel joke. After experiencing the mind-blowing pleasure of your mouth, the idea that it'll never happen again... I just can't."
"So? Accidental sexual cigar gravitas or not?"
"Oh, fine. Mostly accidental. People tend to be a little more sexy when they're doing something they enjoy - something they want to savor. But I do, from time to time, find a little pleasure in exaggerating the motions. It satisfies my inner exhibitionist in a way that won't get me arrested."
"Gotcha."
"So... another?"
"Please and thank you."
-...-...-...-...-...-...-
This one is a little more tame, but I remember it well nonetheless because it earned me a lot of unexpected notoriety.
I began ninth grade in a brand-new, three-story highschool. The main stairwell had a wide-open layout. From the top of the stairs, on the third floor, you could look down and see all the people walking around the lobby on the first.
On day one, rather than immediately searching for our homeroom like everyone else, Carter Randall and I went up to the third floor to lean over the railing and try to see down the blouses of the girls walking through the lobby below. The novelty of being able to do so wore off in about eh... ten seconds, so Carter offered me five bucks to spit over the railing.
I figured that with the risk of getting caught rather high, five wasn't enough, so I persuaded him to double it. I tried to wait for the right time, when I had enough open space below not to hit anyone. Unfortunately, right after the spit left my lips, Maxine Avery came out of nowhere, sprinting right into the line of fire, unbeknownst to her.
She looked up in horror and screamed. At that point, if I'd only ducked or run away, I probably could have gotten away with it. Instead, I felt terrible, so I rushed down to apologize to her. Right then and there, less than ten minutes after walking through the door, I became known as the first person to get written up in the new highschool, for spitting on the most beautiful, popular girl there. To this day, I've never seen such an angry cheerleader.
But it's so funny... I'm standing there, apologizing, and she's just screaming at me, getting all flushed in the cheeks... and while this was happening, and everyone around us was staring, I fell in love with her a little.
Two months later, I became known as the guy who spit on the most popular girl in school, only to later convince her to be my date for the homecoming dance. In case you're wondering, yes, we were crowned king and queen.
-...-...-...-...-...-
"I feel like I say this a lot, but only you, Red. Only you could get away with something like that."
"Well, I did get in trouble."
"Yeah, but you know what I mean."
"And to think, forty years later, I was on the FBI's Most Wanted list, and managed to convince their most beautiful special agent to accompany me to a dance at the Syrian embassy."
Liz huffed a laugh. "Like I said, only you."