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.fic: Sons and Lovers - D/M PG 2.1
This was unexpected.
Title: Sons and Lovers
By: HF
Pairing: D/M (from Petra's POV this time)
Rating/Warnings: PG/PG13?
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Hank Steinberg. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Advertisements: Alas, you must do some reading before this fic will make much sense: Sons (which I'm belatedly incorporating into this weird little nameless AU), A Long Time Coming, Every Distance, and at least the first chapter of Blue River. Apologies for that. But, if you read all the way through the above fics, I solemnly guarantee that you will come out a stronger and better person for having done it and you will look five years younger.
Previous chapter: 01
Notes: I was fully prepared to leave "Sons and Lovers" where it was, but then I realized that I absolutely had to write something from Petra's perspective. This came to me during an unexpected drive down I-80 the other day, and the one good thing about I-80 is that most of the time it's boring enough to let me plot fic. And tonight being a night off between evenings filled with end-of-semester torment, I typed it up.
CHAPTER TWO
Her office hadn’t changed much over the years. Almost twenty-three years now since they’d moved in, Petra Fitzgerald thought, still with the same furniture, the same mysterious order to her books and file cabinets, her diplomas and a few pictures on the wall. More paper now, with a new computer every few years, and the view outside her window had changed from forest to someone else’s back yard, but still the same space, the same work.
And she was spending a Saturday in it, supposedly preparing for a conference in Mexico City. Instead, she was staring out the window at the Jordans’ playset, a yellow and red plastic monstrosity of a thing, not really seeing it at all, all her attention focused on the quiet sounds of Martin moving around the kitchen.
He – they, Martin and Danny – would be leaving for Florida soon, or should be if they didn’t want to miss their plane.
They. She smiled briefly and shook her head. So much change held in that small word.
She’d once thought that Martin chose not to talk about his relationships with her, afraid maybe that she would tell Victor despite her promise, but as the years had passed, she’d realized that there had been no one in Martin’s life.
That had hurt, that realization, and she knew Victor didn’t understand the pain of it, hadn’t heard it in her voice at breakfast earlier. I don’t want Martin to be alone. He doesn’t deserve it.
Danny’s voice joined Martin’s in the kitchen. Petra, straining guiltily to hear, could barely make out a command to hurry up because they were going to be late, and Martin's plea for more coffee. Laughter now, and assent, which was wise – Martin did not like being kept from his coffee.
Petra stood and set her laptop to the side of her desk, pushing aside a stack of articles. Too much work and too little time, work that never seemed to end and time that flew by too quickly for her to keep track of it. And so much was different now, though looking around her familiar, endlessly static office she found it difficult to think that last night everything had changed.
Not last night, Petra amended, but long before, and really... what had changed? Victor had told her about Danny after he’d returned from New York, first about what he had done for Martin and then confiding that Martin was “in a relationship” (Victor’s exact words) with him. She’d known for weeks now that they were coming, had the date for Martin and Danny’s visit entered in her PDA... And yet opening the door to see the two of them standing there had still startled her.
Danny Taylor wasn’t what she’d expected at all; her attempts to wrest some sort of description out of Victor had been met with an uncomprehending stare and a shrug before he’d informed her that Danny had dark hair, and that was all she had been able to extract from him, all she’d known about Danny until last night. And in the shock of that moment, opening the door and the relief of seeing Martin whole and safe – thinner than he’d been since she’d seen him last, and still worn-looking – she hadn’t made the connection between the man by Martin’s side and the one who had gone to see him that night years ago. Not until she’d been unbelting her robe and pulling the covers back, Victor already sound asleep next to her, did memory come, sudden and sharp, all unlooked-for.
She was sitting as still as possible in the hospital chair, knowing that trying to find a more comfortable position would be useless. The paperwork for Vienna was spread across her lap, pages and pages of columns and numbers that meant nothing, that meant less the longer she stared at them. The doctors had exiled her out here while they ran tests, how long ago she didn’t know – she’d long since lost track of time.
Quick, agitated footsteps broke through the fog of her distraction, and she looked up to see a young man walking swiftly down the hall, eyes wide and glassy under disheveled black hair, suit a rumpled mess and tie loose around his neck. A nurse stopped him, though the momentum of his stride forced him to double back; they exchanged words Petra couldn’t hear, though the man’s hands were gesturing agitatedly in futile explanation, and his voice raised, caught on Martin’s name.
“Is he here to see Martin?” Petra asked, the question loud in the echoing hallway.
The nurse nodded bewilderedly. The man turned sharply to look at her, and she saw the badge clipped to his jacket, a familiar accessory.
“He can go in, if the doctors are done,” Petra said, inclining her head in the direction of Martin’s room.
“I... thank you,” the young man said. As he moved closer, Petra saw that he wasn’t truly young, though so many people now seemed young to her, and worry and exhaustion made his eyes seem older than perhaps they were. Shadows under them, making the face – a handsome face, she noted idly – paler, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones.
“Are you a friend of Martin’s?” she asked.
“Yes.” A smile at that, sad and unexpected. She inclined her head in the direction of Martin’s room, and the agent muttered a thank you, low but fervent, and strode off.
She’d lain awake the better part of the night, tracing over that short conversation – Are you a friend? – Yes – and others that she’d had with Martin, after.
And Petra had to know, suddenly, confirm the suspicion that had chewed on her throughout the night. Before she could think more about it, she left her office and headed for the kitchen, Danny and Martin’s conversation becoming clearer as she moved closer.
“Fitz, you’ve had, like, a gallon of coffee. You’ll be bouncing off the bulkheads,” Danny was saying, voice too low and teasing for ordinary conversation.
“This is barely enough to get me started.” Said through laughter, and Petra had never heard her son sound like that, so open, affectionate and mock-exasperated, as though this were a complaint he’d heard many times but never tired of hearing.
“Speaking of getting started...”
“You know, you could make yourself useful and get the suitcases, if you’re in that much of a hurry.”
“Who said I was talking about leaving?” Much lower now, the teasing still there but different somehow, and Petra paused, half-hidden by the wall between living room and kitchen but able to see them, their backs to her, Danny standing far too close to Martin and all the time bending closer.
Martin’s mouth opened, whether in reply or protest Petra didn’t know and never would, because Danny was kissing him. His mouth on Martin’s, and Petra watched, helpless and frozen in her precarious hiding place, saw Danny’s fingers trace across Martin’s cheek – the intimacy of it made her breath catch –, one of Martin’s hands brushing over Danny’s sleeve.
She stared, trapped by the moment and the sudden, terrifying thought that her son... her son was kissing another man, and furious, she told herself it was stupid to be so surprised by this, utterly illogical.
Once she’d walked in on Maggie and one of her boyfriends while they’d been kissing – making out, rather, Petra supposed – on the couch in the den. She could still remember the sharp, unpleasant jolt, seeing her daughter’s flushed, startled face and swollen lips, her shirt unbuttoned and showing a flowered bra Petra didn’t even know Maggie owned. The boy... the boy she couldn’t remember, though Maggie had been dating him for a time; she’d had eyes only for her daughter, ears only for Maggie’s pleas and stammered explanations.
Was this the same thing, the first shock of seeing a child like this? She couldn’t say.
And now, much as she’d done then, she retreated in confusion to the safety of her office, barely remembering to stay quiet. One final whispered exchange – she couldn’t make it out – and Danny was heading for the stairs, step quick but firm on the tile. She waited until he was safely up the stairs, footsteps fainter now, and until she was certain her face gave away nothing of what she had seen, before walking as casually as she could manage back through the living room into the kitchen.
Martin was bent over his coffee cup, shoulders hunched as he rested his elbows on the countertop. He started the moment she stepped on the tiles and looked over his shoulder, face faintly red and eyes startled, almost guilty. Petra pretended not to see it.
“Martin.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“You and Danny should be leaving soon,” she observed.
“Yeah... Danny’s gone to get the suitcases.” Martin took a swallow of coffee, wincing at the heat. “He’ll be back down in a minute.”
“Did you see your father before he left?” Victor, predictably, had gone to the office. Had every Saturday since Martin had disappeared and then been found again.
Martin nodded and shifted uncomfortably, pulled over a bar stool and sat down. “We, uh... Yeah.” He was watching her, blue eyes keen despite his obvious embarrassment, and she knew that he knew she’d seen something – he was too perceptive to miss it, and she sighed, wishing not for the first time that her son wasn’t so intelligent. “You okay, Mom?”
No help for it; she needed to have an answer to her question, the one that had chased her through the night and now the first hours of the morning, and he was still off-balance. She was too, come to think of it, but she had an opening.
“Do you remember when I stayed with you and we talked?” Gentle emphasis on talked, and Martin’s gaze flickering away from her told her he knew what she meant, even as he nodded reluctantly. “You said you had broken up with Samantha...” Martin was watching her closely, his entire body tense, waiting for the rest of what she had to say. “Danny was the reason, wasn’t he?”
Her son shifted back, expression closing off, and his retreat would have been painful had Petra not been so used to it.
“Why would you...” he trailed off, looking away from her and into his coffee cup, stared into it with utter absorption. He would do that, sometimes – she remembered from his childhood, walking into his room while he was reading, and he would need a moment to realize she was there.
Petra shrugged and reached for the hand not holding the mug, felt Martin’s anxiety in the throb of his pulse against her fingers. She wished she could take him into her arms, apologize, let him know this was her difficulty and not his, that she loved him and already loved Danny a little, and if she weren’t who she was – if Martin wasn’t who he was – she would have done so.
“You never said why,” Petra told him after a moment, “though when you told me that you were... that you were gay, I supposed that was answer enough. But then I saw you and Danny together, and remembered that your father had said you’d been agents together in New York and I... I wondered, that’s all.” There was more to it, but she didn’t know if she could say so yet.
Martin’s face had lost its blush, though he still was not looking at her. He hadn’t tried to disengage his hand from hers, which was a relief, and she felt the tension ebbing slowly from him, saw it in the loosening of his shoulders. When he turned back to look at her, a slight smile graced his lips, almost as much a smile as he ever gave her.
“Yeah,” he admitted ruefully, glancing away briefly in the direction of the stairs and the soft thumps coming from the second floor. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
A shrug, offhand as though the reason were inconsequential, but Petra could see the pain in his eyes and didn’t press. Years he’d kept this to himself, she thought suddenly, and she ached for him.
The distant thumps were coming closer, accompanied by low, frustrated muttering as they came down the stairs. Even from two rooms away they could hear Danny’s relieved, annoyed sigh and the thud of suitcases on the landing by the front door. A moment later, Danny was walking into the kitchen, rolling his eyes irritably at Martin and telling him he had an attack suitcase, something corny and ridiculous that made Martin laugh.
Martin laughed, real and honest, like he hadn’t done since he was a boy, and Petra wondered if Danny knew how big a thing that was.
He did, she realized, seeing the warmth in those brown eyes, the gentleness at the edge of the teasing grin. Under the pretense of reassembling the newspaper Victor had left strewn over the kitchen table, she moved away to watch the two of them together, tried to identify what it was about them that said they meant something to each other.
So many things, small things she had to force herself to parse out. How Danny looked at Martin, proprietary almost, as though Petra, the rest of the room, the world were all unimportant. The pitch of his body, how he leaned in closer to Martin than he needed to, Martin not minding the intrusion at all. Martin not as reserved as he usually was, smile truer and warmer than she’d ever seen it, when Danny murmured something to him. Watching them, she felt, unaccountably, like a spy... like (and she smiled when she thought of it) a nosy mother.
“Don’t you have a plane to catch?” she asked, hiding a smile when Danny looked up sharply, as though startled to see her there.
“I need to finish my coffee,” Martin said.
“No excuses, now get going,” she said briskly, taking Martin’s cup and setting it in the sink, shepherding the pair of them in the direction of the door, “or you’ll miss your flight.”
“But my coffee...” Martin protested.
“You can get some at the airport,” Petra said. She maneuvered her way past Danny and opened the door, shivering a bit at the Virginia winter air, like icy water over her skin. “Now, you’ll come for dinner when you can, any time. Both of you.”
Martin nodded and acquiesced to a hug and kiss, his arms warm and strong around her – surprising still, and that was ridiculous, because he’d been grown-up for so long now, but she couldn’t get past the surprise of it – and then it was Danny’s turn. Hesitant, as though he wasn’t used to this (and she wasn’t either), and maybe he wasn’t. Victor had alluded to his childhood, and there’d been enough uncertainty in him, hidden by that bright smile and smooth voice but still there, to suggest this acceptance was new to him.
Petra released him, saw them out the door and to the car with a command to call when they arrived in Blue River Key, no matter the hour. She watched them fight over who got to drive, Danny offering to flip for it and Martin saying he knew D.C. better, had to laugh at that.
Despite the cold, she pulled her sweater close around her, remained in the open door until Martin won the debate by stealing the key ring out of Danny’s hand and the two of them climbed into the car and drove away.
-end. really.-
Okay, if anyone sees me around before next Thursday, slap me and send me back to work, yeah?
Title: Sons and Lovers
By: HF
Pairing: D/M (from Petra's POV this time)
Rating/Warnings: PG/PG13?
Disclaimers: Without a Trace belongs to CBS, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Hank Steinberg. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Advertisements: Alas, you must do some reading before this fic will make much sense: Sons (which I'm belatedly incorporating into this weird little nameless AU), A Long Time Coming, Every Distance, and at least the first chapter of Blue River. Apologies for that. But, if you read all the way through the above fics, I solemnly guarantee that you will come out a stronger and better person for having done it and you will look five years younger.
Previous chapter: 01
Notes: I was fully prepared to leave "Sons and Lovers" where it was, but then I realized that I absolutely had to write something from Petra's perspective. This came to me during an unexpected drive down I-80 the other day, and the one good thing about I-80 is that most of the time it's boring enough to let me plot fic. And tonight being a night off between evenings filled with end-of-semester torment, I typed it up.
CHAPTER TWO
Her office hadn’t changed much over the years. Almost twenty-three years now since they’d moved in, Petra Fitzgerald thought, still with the same furniture, the same mysterious order to her books and file cabinets, her diplomas and a few pictures on the wall. More paper now, with a new computer every few years, and the view outside her window had changed from forest to someone else’s back yard, but still the same space, the same work.
And she was spending a Saturday in it, supposedly preparing for a conference in Mexico City. Instead, she was staring out the window at the Jordans’ playset, a yellow and red plastic monstrosity of a thing, not really seeing it at all, all her attention focused on the quiet sounds of Martin moving around the kitchen.
He – they, Martin and Danny – would be leaving for Florida soon, or should be if they didn’t want to miss their plane.
They. She smiled briefly and shook her head. So much change held in that small word.
She’d once thought that Martin chose not to talk about his relationships with her, afraid maybe that she would tell Victor despite her promise, but as the years had passed, she’d realized that there had been no one in Martin’s life.
That had hurt, that realization, and she knew Victor didn’t understand the pain of it, hadn’t heard it in her voice at breakfast earlier. I don’t want Martin to be alone. He doesn’t deserve it.
Danny’s voice joined Martin’s in the kitchen. Petra, straining guiltily to hear, could barely make out a command to hurry up because they were going to be late, and Martin's plea for more coffee. Laughter now, and assent, which was wise – Martin did not like being kept from his coffee.
Petra stood and set her laptop to the side of her desk, pushing aside a stack of articles. Too much work and too little time, work that never seemed to end and time that flew by too quickly for her to keep track of it. And so much was different now, though looking around her familiar, endlessly static office she found it difficult to think that last night everything had changed.
Not last night, Petra amended, but long before, and really... what had changed? Victor had told her about Danny after he’d returned from New York, first about what he had done for Martin and then confiding that Martin was “in a relationship” (Victor’s exact words) with him. She’d known for weeks now that they were coming, had the date for Martin and Danny’s visit entered in her PDA... And yet opening the door to see the two of them standing there had still startled her.
Danny Taylor wasn’t what she’d expected at all; her attempts to wrest some sort of description out of Victor had been met with an uncomprehending stare and a shrug before he’d informed her that Danny had dark hair, and that was all she had been able to extract from him, all she’d known about Danny until last night. And in the shock of that moment, opening the door and the relief of seeing Martin whole and safe – thinner than he’d been since she’d seen him last, and still worn-looking – she hadn’t made the connection between the man by Martin’s side and the one who had gone to see him that night years ago. Not until she’d been unbelting her robe and pulling the covers back, Victor already sound asleep next to her, did memory come, sudden and sharp, all unlooked-for.
She was sitting as still as possible in the hospital chair, knowing that trying to find a more comfortable position would be useless. The paperwork for Vienna was spread across her lap, pages and pages of columns and numbers that meant nothing, that meant less the longer she stared at them. The doctors had exiled her out here while they ran tests, how long ago she didn’t know – she’d long since lost track of time.
Quick, agitated footsteps broke through the fog of her distraction, and she looked up to see a young man walking swiftly down the hall, eyes wide and glassy under disheveled black hair, suit a rumpled mess and tie loose around his neck. A nurse stopped him, though the momentum of his stride forced him to double back; they exchanged words Petra couldn’t hear, though the man’s hands were gesturing agitatedly in futile explanation, and his voice raised, caught on Martin’s name.
“Is he here to see Martin?” Petra asked, the question loud in the echoing hallway.
The nurse nodded bewilderedly. The man turned sharply to look at her, and she saw the badge clipped to his jacket, a familiar accessory.
“He can go in, if the doctors are done,” Petra said, inclining her head in the direction of Martin’s room.
“I... thank you,” the young man said. As he moved closer, Petra saw that he wasn’t truly young, though so many people now seemed young to her, and worry and exhaustion made his eyes seem older than perhaps they were. Shadows under them, making the face – a handsome face, she noted idly – paler, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones.
“Are you a friend of Martin’s?” she asked.
“Yes.” A smile at that, sad and unexpected. She inclined her head in the direction of Martin’s room, and the agent muttered a thank you, low but fervent, and strode off.
She’d lain awake the better part of the night, tracing over that short conversation – Are you a friend? – Yes – and others that she’d had with Martin, after.
And Petra had to know, suddenly, confirm the suspicion that had chewed on her throughout the night. Before she could think more about it, she left her office and headed for the kitchen, Danny and Martin’s conversation becoming clearer as she moved closer.
“Fitz, you’ve had, like, a gallon of coffee. You’ll be bouncing off the bulkheads,” Danny was saying, voice too low and teasing for ordinary conversation.
“This is barely enough to get me started.” Said through laughter, and Petra had never heard her son sound like that, so open, affectionate and mock-exasperated, as though this were a complaint he’d heard many times but never tired of hearing.
“Speaking of getting started...”
“You know, you could make yourself useful and get the suitcases, if you’re in that much of a hurry.”
“Who said I was talking about leaving?” Much lower now, the teasing still there but different somehow, and Petra paused, half-hidden by the wall between living room and kitchen but able to see them, their backs to her, Danny standing far too close to Martin and all the time bending closer.
Martin’s mouth opened, whether in reply or protest Petra didn’t know and never would, because Danny was kissing him. His mouth on Martin’s, and Petra watched, helpless and frozen in her precarious hiding place, saw Danny’s fingers trace across Martin’s cheek – the intimacy of it made her breath catch –, one of Martin’s hands brushing over Danny’s sleeve.
She stared, trapped by the moment and the sudden, terrifying thought that her son... her son was kissing another man, and furious, she told herself it was stupid to be so surprised by this, utterly illogical.
Once she’d walked in on Maggie and one of her boyfriends while they’d been kissing – making out, rather, Petra supposed – on the couch in the den. She could still remember the sharp, unpleasant jolt, seeing her daughter’s flushed, startled face and swollen lips, her shirt unbuttoned and showing a flowered bra Petra didn’t even know Maggie owned. The boy... the boy she couldn’t remember, though Maggie had been dating him for a time; she’d had eyes only for her daughter, ears only for Maggie’s pleas and stammered explanations.
Was this the same thing, the first shock of seeing a child like this? She couldn’t say.
And now, much as she’d done then, she retreated in confusion to the safety of her office, barely remembering to stay quiet. One final whispered exchange – she couldn’t make it out – and Danny was heading for the stairs, step quick but firm on the tile. She waited until he was safely up the stairs, footsteps fainter now, and until she was certain her face gave away nothing of what she had seen, before walking as casually as she could manage back through the living room into the kitchen.
Martin was bent over his coffee cup, shoulders hunched as he rested his elbows on the countertop. He started the moment she stepped on the tiles and looked over his shoulder, face faintly red and eyes startled, almost guilty. Petra pretended not to see it.
“Martin.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“You and Danny should be leaving soon,” she observed.
“Yeah... Danny’s gone to get the suitcases.” Martin took a swallow of coffee, wincing at the heat. “He’ll be back down in a minute.”
“Did you see your father before he left?” Victor, predictably, had gone to the office. Had every Saturday since Martin had disappeared and then been found again.
Martin nodded and shifted uncomfortably, pulled over a bar stool and sat down. “We, uh... Yeah.” He was watching her, blue eyes keen despite his obvious embarrassment, and she knew that he knew she’d seen something – he was too perceptive to miss it, and she sighed, wishing not for the first time that her son wasn’t so intelligent. “You okay, Mom?”
No help for it; she needed to have an answer to her question, the one that had chased her through the night and now the first hours of the morning, and he was still off-balance. She was too, come to think of it, but she had an opening.
“Do you remember when I stayed with you and we talked?” Gentle emphasis on talked, and Martin’s gaze flickering away from her told her he knew what she meant, even as he nodded reluctantly. “You said you had broken up with Samantha...” Martin was watching her closely, his entire body tense, waiting for the rest of what she had to say. “Danny was the reason, wasn’t he?”
Her son shifted back, expression closing off, and his retreat would have been painful had Petra not been so used to it.
“Why would you...” he trailed off, looking away from her and into his coffee cup, stared into it with utter absorption. He would do that, sometimes – she remembered from his childhood, walking into his room while he was reading, and he would need a moment to realize she was there.
Petra shrugged and reached for the hand not holding the mug, felt Martin’s anxiety in the throb of his pulse against her fingers. She wished she could take him into her arms, apologize, let him know this was her difficulty and not his, that she loved him and already loved Danny a little, and if she weren’t who she was – if Martin wasn’t who he was – she would have done so.
“You never said why,” Petra told him after a moment, “though when you told me that you were... that you were gay, I supposed that was answer enough. But then I saw you and Danny together, and remembered that your father had said you’d been agents together in New York and I... I wondered, that’s all.” There was more to it, but she didn’t know if she could say so yet.
Martin’s face had lost its blush, though he still was not looking at her. He hadn’t tried to disengage his hand from hers, which was a relief, and she felt the tension ebbing slowly from him, saw it in the loosening of his shoulders. When he turned back to look at her, a slight smile graced his lips, almost as much a smile as he ever gave her.
“Yeah,” he admitted ruefully, glancing away briefly in the direction of the stairs and the soft thumps coming from the second floor. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
A shrug, offhand as though the reason were inconsequential, but Petra could see the pain in his eyes and didn’t press. Years he’d kept this to himself, she thought suddenly, and she ached for him.
The distant thumps were coming closer, accompanied by low, frustrated muttering as they came down the stairs. Even from two rooms away they could hear Danny’s relieved, annoyed sigh and the thud of suitcases on the landing by the front door. A moment later, Danny was walking into the kitchen, rolling his eyes irritably at Martin and telling him he had an attack suitcase, something corny and ridiculous that made Martin laugh.
Martin laughed, real and honest, like he hadn’t done since he was a boy, and Petra wondered if Danny knew how big a thing that was.
He did, she realized, seeing the warmth in those brown eyes, the gentleness at the edge of the teasing grin. Under the pretense of reassembling the newspaper Victor had left strewn over the kitchen table, she moved away to watch the two of them together, tried to identify what it was about them that said they meant something to each other.
So many things, small things she had to force herself to parse out. How Danny looked at Martin, proprietary almost, as though Petra, the rest of the room, the world were all unimportant. The pitch of his body, how he leaned in closer to Martin than he needed to, Martin not minding the intrusion at all. Martin not as reserved as he usually was, smile truer and warmer than she’d ever seen it, when Danny murmured something to him. Watching them, she felt, unaccountably, like a spy... like (and she smiled when she thought of it) a nosy mother.
“Don’t you have a plane to catch?” she asked, hiding a smile when Danny looked up sharply, as though startled to see her there.
“I need to finish my coffee,” Martin said.
“No excuses, now get going,” she said briskly, taking Martin’s cup and setting it in the sink, shepherding the pair of them in the direction of the door, “or you’ll miss your flight.”
“But my coffee...” Martin protested.
“You can get some at the airport,” Petra said. She maneuvered her way past Danny and opened the door, shivering a bit at the Virginia winter air, like icy water over her skin. “Now, you’ll come for dinner when you can, any time. Both of you.”
Martin nodded and acquiesced to a hug and kiss, his arms warm and strong around her – surprising still, and that was ridiculous, because he’d been grown-up for so long now, but she couldn’t get past the surprise of it – and then it was Danny’s turn. Hesitant, as though he wasn’t used to this (and she wasn’t either), and maybe he wasn’t. Victor had alluded to his childhood, and there’d been enough uncertainty in him, hidden by that bright smile and smooth voice but still there, to suggest this acceptance was new to him.
Petra released him, saw them out the door and to the car with a command to call when they arrived in Blue River Key, no matter the hour. She watched them fight over who got to drive, Danny offering to flip for it and Martin saying he knew D.C. better, had to laugh at that.
Despite the cold, she pulled her sweater close around her, remained in the open door until Martin won the debate by stealing the key ring out of Danny’s hand and the two of them climbed into the car and drove away.
-end. really.-
Okay, if anyone sees me around before next Thursday, slap me and send me back to work, yeah?
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And poor Martin, keep his love for Danny hidden all those years. Well, at least they get to make up for it now.
Another great part in this great D/M universe!
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I know! When I realized that, of course Martin had to end things with Sam because he's desperately in love with Danny but as a prerequisite for ALTC to be written the way it was he couldn't have told Danny about it... *cries*
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Seriously, great tag from Petra's POV, you write Danny and Martin as few can, but this was as much Petra as D/M and you show her perfectly.
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I am coming with you... just let me grab my suitcase :D It's very rare that I fall in love with my own stuff, but I really do like this universe and want to live in it for the rest of my life, following Danny and Martin around and pestering them with questions.
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Oh god, that was so beautiful. Just... I'm crying right now, but they're happy tears because I love this view of them, seen from outside eyes, from someone who's so close to Martin and knows Martin so well (and yet not at all) and just... wow.
Wow.
I love your Petra. I love worry and the fear and the realization and her constant surprise that's like this internal debate that comes with slow dawning realization. I love that she *knows* Danny is something big and recognizes the affect he has on Martin. I love that she's torn between being happy but still so stuck on old school mentality that it's hard for her to accept. God, she's just so real.
And by default it makes Martin more real. His relationship with Danny more real.
Seriously, this is easily one of my favourite stories, it's just so... profound.
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Thank you! *wibbles happily* I just love how you put that... "Danny is something big," like this huge, continuous life-changing event in Martin's world. I suspect that Martin feels the same way *wibbles happily some more*
And by default it makes Martin more real. His relationship with Danny more real.
This is actually probably why I like slash fics written from the perspective of a third party... it's not just this hidden thing between two people, but it's out there, observable, people can react to it. And that makes the relationship a lot more real, like you say.
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Petra passes the "mom test," here. She seems kind of distant in moments like this:
and if she weren’t who she was – if Martin wasn’t who he was – she would have done so.
But at the same time, she's so sympathetic to Martin's loneliness, and even in the face of a shocking kiss between her son and another guy, she's mainly just glad Martin's found someone who loves him.
Also, she's not afraid to take away his coffee. She passes the mom test with flying colors.
Cool, cool story. Thanks for sharing it.
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Oh, I adore these, too. Elina's "Mal Vu, Mal Dit" is brilliant for that reason alone (never mind the lovely writing and characterization)... just that sort of revelation, and seeing two characters Together from some place outside them... I can't quite put my finger on why I like that so much.
Also, she's not afraid to take away his coffee. She passes the mom test with flying colors.
I figure she's gotten lots of practice with Victor *g*
And eee! I love your icon... I just want to mess his hair up *g*
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That's it exactly... *beam* So happy you liked this! *hug*
And I hope you're feeling better!
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Maybe I should drive more often :D
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Sammi
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She got to see them like she probably never would if they had known she was there.
I think that was my favorite part... I love moments like that, when two people are being watched but are unaware of it.
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I guess this is the main problem I wanted to articulate... that people can be okay with something conceptually or hypothetically, but they find it much harder dealing with reality.
Thanks for reading! Glad you liked this :)