This, dear readers, is purely a product of insomnia.
And a completely random question, generated by the aforementioned, about how an op turns Auggie from protector to the person Annie supposedly needs to be protected from. Key word being supposedly. Rest assured, he does not actually harm her.
Reviewing is much appreciated. You should try it sometimes.
It's salt in a wound to say, but I don't own it.
Also, it took me longer to come up with a God fosaken title for this than to actually write it.
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Auggie has never raised a hand against a woman, not once in his whole life. While he does not believe that they are fragile creatures needing to be coddled or sheltered, his parents still raised him around the phrase you never hit a girl. Because they had five boys, all of them unmistakably larger than Auggie, they said that a lot.
He remembers in the first grade Melissa Redd slapped him across the face for stealing a handful of her gummy worms. He wanted to hit her back. He threw a gummy worm down the back of her shirt instead.
In the ninth grade, his first girlfriend did the same when he broke up with her. Well, she also stomped her foot over his. He just gave her a skeptical look as she stormed away.
Not to say that he hasn't ever gotten in a fight (those aren't his shining moments for the most part)- he's just never outright hit a woman. So you can imagine his confusion when Annie starts telling him he needs to hit her.
"What?" He sends his best girl, you must be crazy look in her general direction.
"Auggie, if they come back in here and you don't play the part, we're both dead!" She hisses. "So hit me or get me shot. Take your pick," he realizes she's being serious and squints at her.
"You signed up to play the abusive arms dealing boyfriend, Aug. You can't back out now."
"I'm not going to hit you, Annie. I've-"
"Never hit a woman before and you're not starting now. I know. You've only said that about a dozen times. We'll leave this off the record, 'kay?"
"Annie," he starts, trying to reason with her. He doesn't talk fast enough.
"This isn't negotiable. You-"
The door of the room swings open and two very large men enter and make their way towards the makeshift desk Annie and Auggie are seated at. They sit on the other side of it, looking very no-nonsense.
Annie slips easily into her role of the airheaded girlfriend, looking about the room distractedly as Auggie talks to the men. She giggles a bit, reaching for something on the desk. She taps her fingernail on the wood, letting him know where it is.
Swallowing everything his father ever taught him about how you treat women, he reaches out and harshly slaps her hand away. The swish of her shirt tells him how quickly she retracts her hand and for a moment he wonders if he's actually hurt her.
A few minutes later, she starts to say something. He reaches over and slaps her lightly, using the angle of his hand to make it sound worse than it is, gruffly telling her to shut up.
The rest of the undercover meeting plays out similarly. Auggie pretends to be an arms dealer with a thing for beating on his girlfriend. Annie obviously plays the girlfriend, complete with makeup bruises light enough to look as if they've been covered by the very same.
Half an hour after the close call at the beginning of the meeting, Auggie shakes the mens' hands and turns to leave, pulling Annie up from her chair with a swift yank. They start the long walk to the door, Annie leading him out.
She strays slightly from her path and Auggie assumes she's going to examine something and then let out an airy giggle. He jerks her back to him as they walk out the door.
He hails a cab, waiting until they are safely within the tinted windows to drop his cover. "You okay?" he asks her.
"God, Auggie. I'm fine." She tells him, patting his knee.
"I was just-"
"Well, don't. You didn't hurt me, Aug." She plants both of her hands on his face, pulls his head towards her, and kisses his check.
"If you say so," he smiles, sitting back in his seat.
/│\
When she walks over to her desk, there's a cooler sitting on it. She looks at it skeptically, snatching to post-it off the handle. It reads Just in case. –Jai. Still confused, Annie slides the lid of the blue cooler down. She digs though the hollow space, only to find that underneath the icepacks on top is another three layers of the frozen liquid inside plastic bags.
The hell? Of course, Jai chose that moment to show up; walking up behind her and standing just a little too close for comfort.
"Just in case the mission got a little rough," Annie jumps in surprise, wheeling around to face him.
How dare he think Auggie would actually hurt her! "Uh, no. It was fine. Besides, you could cover me in all these."
"Just taking precautions. Glad to know it went well. I'll save you a seat at debriefing," just like that, he's gone. She's not complaining.
Why would he think-? How could he-? Why would he need to-? What an ass!
"What was that about?" Auggie is suddenly behind her (why do people keep doing that today?), palms flat on her desk as he looks at her quizzically.
"He got me a couple dozen icepacks."
"Why?" He draws out the word to illustrate how ridiculous that sounds.
"Because he's insane," she says matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Jai's retreating figure.
"Amen." They make their way to the conference room, where Annie pointedly ignores Jai and the empty seat next to him and sits next to Auggie at the other end of the table.
Joan enters just in time to interrupt the glare Jai is unrelentingly shooting across the table in Auggie's direction. She goes to start the debriefing, but stop short.
"Annie, are you okay? Part of your face is red." Jai's anger turns to triumph and Auggie's head snaps in her direction.
"I'm fine, Joan. Must be the heat." She dismisses, laying a hand on Auggie's arm.
When the meeting is over, Auggie follows the clicking of her heels to the ladies room, where she's examining her face in the mirror.
Locking and leaning on the door, Auggie crosses his arms over his chest. "I thought you said I didn't hurt you," he says as if she's a kid caught in a lie.
"If I have to tell you one more time that you didn't, I will hurt you." She says, running her hands under the water.
"Yes, well-"
"Well nothing. I'm fine. End of story."
"An-"
"Don't you go and Annie me. Damn it, Auggie. I'm fine." She picks up his hands and lays them on her face, allowing him to prove it to himself.
He runs his fingers along her cheekbones, around her eyes. He traces her hairline, tucking loose strands of soft hair behind her ears. He feels the little loops of her earrings before running his index fingers along the curves of her ears. His hands travel under her jaw and down her neck before running onto her arms, where he continues to test for scratches and bruising. With one hand, he finds the place on her right upper arm where he jerked her into place. He pokes and prods at it, waiting for her to flinch or pull away. She doesn't.
"Fine." He says, gladly admitting defeat. "But beer's on me tonight."
"No complaints here," she smiles and pushes him jokingly away from the door, which he follows her out of.