Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I just PART-TAY with them!:)
Author's Note: This series is dedicated to the dare I was given. I was told I wouldn't do something like this because it's not my usual flavor, but alas, I took up the challenge. :) This series is primarily a 'what-if?' about what would happen if our POlivia stumbled on this website, and in turn, got maybe...a little bit addicted to reading about themselves. Yeah, I know that it's maybe been done before, but I'm not sure if it's ever been quite in this way.
Every chapter consists of our characters indulging in a different story. I think I'm really going to continue this for a while and explore the different genres of various fan-fictions and how *they* would perceive it. I've got two chapters completed and working on a third so I'll post-up the first two simultaneously.
Enjoy, kays? And again, reviews are like candy! I eat 'em up and they keep me going. :)
The Fiction of Us
Click. Click. snicker. chortle. The hell I would. small laugh. No shit Sherlock. She would not. Yeah, cause that's what he'd say. Another quiet laugh. Another loud click.
He's been at it for hours, this commentary, fully indulged in the bi-polar concentration he's directed at his laptop, his face, lit from the screen has been a slide-show of quick reaction, amusement, disgust, unease and intrigue, all playing across his features sporadically, taking on the different roles of a world-wide web fascination.
From behind her book, she's tried to ignore it, chalk it up to a different opinion toward world news, a discontent maybe of a political viewpoint, an inner eye-roll toward another tabloid factoid; all customary tunes of the internet browsing he busies himself with when their alone time is quiet like this, just comfortable, just together.
But she's finding now, that his computer-driven antics are turning to a rare form of pestilence, wearing her patience thin, not an easy feat as of late, since she's allowed herself to appreciate this kind of normalcy; evening domesticity, like dinner at her place every Sunday, a movie at his every Friday, a foot-rub, a shared toothbrush, and a place in her bed he's told her he'll never want to leave from.
But this, this is getting ridiculous. Never before has he sat there, on the comfy end of her couch, so responsively transfixed on what's on the other side of his Notebook; like a Web-addicted, type-key punching moth-monkey to an Intel-Processor flame.
It's really begun to stab at her annoyance, and less admittedly, her curiosity, her mental-exhaustion's secret I-want-in-on-the-what fuse, and when again, his face contorts, and he utters something, indelible, most probably sarcastic under his breath, it's cut quickly by the small curl of his mouth as his eyes scan something else, a new page, a new paragraph maybe, and it makes him say "yeah, okay," before it turns to an unconvinced chuckle.
"Mind if I ask what, exactly, you're doing over there?" she finally gives in, nudging him with her toe, digging it into one of the socked ankles lazily crossed over her foot; the legs he propped on top of hers when she claimed the coffee table as her stool this time.
He's not quick to answer, his eyes still glued to the monitor, his nose crinkling for a second, and when his brows knit it's a cross between entertainment, fascination, disgust, and when he speaks up, it's toward the computer first. "What the fuck? There's no way in hell..." then a click, click, click and he's with her.
"Believe it or not, I am-" Click. "reading our fan-fiction."
"Our what?"
"Our fan-fiction, you know, it's when our fan-base decides to literarily depict our lives in ways imagined and, at times, very, very far-reaching, and then publish them on a website solely dedicated to a billion and one different muses. And let me tell you, some of these...god, Liv, I mean, disturbing doesn't even come close. I have no interest, whatsoever, in Lincoln's 'little Lee'."
She thinks she understands, recollects a time once or twice when Astrid tried to educate her in the varying degrees of a venerating fan-base, but honestly, there's so much crammed in her mind all the time, there's just no vacancy sometimes for that kind of information.
Though with everything she is, she owes her love, her respect, to the ardent admirers she knows but can't see; the three point three million enthusiastic devotees who keep track of every up and down of their life, every turn, play it out and around with them inside their roller-coaster of a fate.
And suddenly, thoughtfully, she wonders if any of them has ever dreamed up the scenario where he'd burned himself on the ice-box his father turned into a heating core, or whacked his elbow hard on the doorway while hauling in her new kitchen table.
In her defense, she'd told him it wasn't made for "inflagrante delicto", as he'd so animatedly put it then.
She wonders if, per chance, all those writers think up things that really happen.
"And if they're not disturbing, then they're ridiculously OOC," he continues on, "to the point of polka-dot unicorns or, you know… zombies wearing striped togas."
Leave it to Peter to not have just said "unbelievable". This is one of those times again, when he's purposely over-exaggerating his reactively ornery mood.
Obviously, he's still trying to get over what he's read, wipe away the mental picture through over-the-top juvenile sardonicism.
And she's only a little envious that he, so impressively, never wears this kind of perturbation for more then seconds on the outside.
"OOC?"
She questions.
"Yeah, it's a denoting term, it means out of character."
Two clicks and then;
"Listen to this: Peter..." he points to himself, "..that's me." She rolls her eyes.
"...Peter walked in the door after working in the lab the whole night. The first thing he wanted was to see Olivia, her shiny green eyes welcoming him home. Hey, Schnookums, my muffin are you here? I just had to come home early, I couldn't wait to kiss you again. You won't believe how excited I am to do that. Olivia was in the kitchen when she heard his voice. She delighted in the endearment. She loves how he calls her a new thing everyday like his muffin, or pumpkin, or cookie..."
He stops, looks up at her, his face a strangle of mock pain, embarrassment maybe, and there's even a light hint of reprobation despite his forming smirk.
"And to think, I haven't even called you by a pastry name since last Tuesday. "
"No, actually, you made us stop for pastries last Tuesday, remember? Before work, because, what was it you said? "My over-active libido drives you to starvation". And didn't you follow it up later by saying it would have been funnier if you'd used the words 'makes me want to eat something'?"
In the self-satisfied way he is with himself, his eyes twinkle when she puts down her copy of the latest John Grisham. That deliciously flirty blue-gray is soaked in self-amusement when he points at his screen.
"This me says; "No. That doesn't sound like me at all.""
This makes her snort, laugh a little, as suddenly, she's finding herself way too immersed in this game. She narrows her eyes, playfully inquisitive.
"What else is on there?"
"Beware, honey bun," he says, that mock look over-glamorized, "it can get pithy in the land of make-believe and schmooze."
"God, you know, I don't know if you know this, but when you're being intentionally facetious, you have a tendency to not talk like a normal person."
"You're telling me, my Dutch apple pie, my sweet crumbling crust, I've never used the word "shnookums" in my life."
"I get it. You can stop calling me after desserts now, okay?"
"Why? Don't you love it? Doesn't it just delight you all over when I'm comparing you to baked goods? There's nothing I'd rather do all day, my yummy Dunham cupcake, then imagine you rolling naked in frosting."
"It thrills me to no end." she deadpans, trying hard not to let him see her stretching grin. "It also makes me want to get out my gun."
His shit-eating smirk is plastered all over his face when he peers at her above the thin monitor. This look is exciting, dangerous, back-to-earth normal Peter.
"Even if I tell you that I'd lick it off?"
Immediately, she feels her cheeks flush, a blush of visionary subconscious, all the damp ghost marks where he raws her skin with his tongue. In real life, he needs no incentive besides her taste…her yummy Dunham taste.
The clever bastard must have known she'd decipher the buried implication.
She clears her throat, ducks her head for a second like he also knew she would, and when he turns back to his task, she decides this would be easier if she wasn't across from him.
She's not missing out on this fun.
So it's when she's sufficiently snuggled into his side, that she leans into the computer's screen too, watches as he glides the cursor over a different hot-link.
"You sure you're up for this, Brownie-boo?"
"I swear to god, keep it up..." she warns, and it's when he chuckles to himself, pleased with her reaction, that he clicks on another story aptly titled, "The Aftermath of Three Little Words."
He's practically shredded the files in his hands by simply his grip, angry, again, that she's offering him nothing other then her quiet, the cold air of evasion she's given him ever since he said it, ever since his abrupt confession in the Hoover building hallway three days ago.
For Christ's sake, it's not like he told her he slept with her sister or that he doesn't like it that she always, always has to wear neutral colors.
This shouldn't be something she'd take so much goddamn offense to. What kind of normal person would be so upset about this?
"Jesus Liv, could you please tell me what I'm supposed to do to fix this? Because to be honest with you, I'm tired of walking around in a daze wondering if your three second mood-shift is going to hold me accountable forever for the way I feel about you. I don't want to do this, anymore. I don't want to have to walk on eggshells to keep you from hating me anymore then apparently, you already do."
"I don't hate you."
"Really? So the clenched glares and silence you give me, those are what? Looks of admiration? Not in my book."
She says nothing to this, only thins her lips white.
"You know, usually, when people are told how someone feels about them, they're a little more sympathetic, and a little less abrasive toward that affection. I get that maybe you're a little shocked, a little scared even, honestly, it's expected, but don't blame me because you don't know how to handle the fact that I'm in love with you.
"It's true, and it's there, and it's real and you're either going to have to accept it or learn to get over it. And I'm not waiting until you decide it's okay to wear red every once and a while for you to figure this out. It shouldn't take you that long."
He's clearly pissed, internally livid even, intentionally hitting her with a mix of insult and shame and as she tempers back her own ire, her own verbally offensive counter-attack, he's already starting to walk away.
"Let me know when you make up your mind about how you want this partnership to work."
End scene.
In the grand scheme of things this latest wasn't bad, the idea was original enough, and not hardly over-decorated, and she can tell by his silence, as he's skimming further down the page, that he's not as taken a-back by this posting as the before-one either.
And though, in the start, this was meant to be fictionally introspective, she's finding that another emotion has hit her; self-discernment.
For almost five months now, they've been past the proverbial point they've hit in this story, but still, she can't help feel a little small, ashamed even, that at one point in their relationship she was, at least, somewhat like this written version of herself. Scared, un-decisive, so emotionally fragile in the face of her love for him, that she'd doubly erected her steeled exterior to shield herself from it.
This one hadn't veered, so drastically, to the left of her character, her personality...her three second-mood shifts.
There was a point she feared that giving in would make her weak, susceptible. Not strengthen her, as it's so forcefully proven.
"Stop it." she hears him say, and when she's brought back to him, he's looking at her softly. He knows exactly where her mind went. "It's just a story, Liv. Please don't think about it so much."
And all she can do is nod, smile slightly, assure the freshly fragile arcs of his face that she's fine, hasn't pulled herself in so deep she hasn't figured out by now, how to pull herself out.
"I'm not." she lies, and by the look he's wearing he knows it, but lets it slide, grants her the personal determination she's taken to recently; the willful intent to let things go more easily.
To better it, she decides to play on a lighter, arguably fictitious side of the story.
"You don't think I'm normal when I'm mad?"
"Of course not." he answers, "You're my little sprinkled doughnut. There's nothing normal about that."
She laughs a little, then kisses his shoulder as he exits the page, veers to a new link and when he clicks on it;
"I've always liked you better in green anyway."
End Note: If any of you guys have any idea about a kind of fic they should read or anything, please leave me the suggestion. Ideas are always tasty to my muse.:)