As I pop back from my mini-hiatus to write this story to its conclusion, I need to thank everyone who was so kind and so supportive the last few weeks. For this chapter, @balfeheughlywed truly saved me from myself. She told me what I needed to hear, and I value her input so much. @notevenjokingfic, as always, makes me a better writer every time she gives me feedback, and this installment is no exception.
Claire hadn’t realized just how much she had missed the weight of another body settling over her own.
The dead weight of an arm (sated and heavy) draped over her waist.
A nosy knee clearing bony pathway between her legs.
A rasping, stubbled chin and throat becoming a perfect cave in which her face could hibernate through the night.
She had missed the gentle movement of another body at rest.
A rising and falling chest madly attempting to regulate its breathing.
A slowing heartbeat melting towards rest after gluttonous serving of a partner.
A full-bodied sigh of completion that seemed to exist from head to toe as one-by-one, muscles went utterly slack.
She had asked him to follow her up the stairs, navigated herself to his bedroom, to make good on her request that he make love to her.
And he had.
With his mouth and his hands, his words and his cock.
And now, in the aftermath, she pulled back from Jamie’s throat just enough to share his pillow. It smelled vaguely woodsy, and like the hair at the nape of his neck (the scent committed to her memory when he’d rolled away from her for protection before making love to her). For what felt like an eternity, they just stared at each other, creating mental records of how long it took their heartbeats to slow and their respiration rates to regularize. They inspected freckles and laugh lines and the shallowed-out divots where frowns allied furrowed eyebrows.
Many thanks to @notevenjokingfic and @balfeheughlywed for putting together another incredible round of the One Quote One Shot challenge. I didn’t know if this was going to get written, but it did, and I am so grateful for the constant encouragement of NEJF and @smashing-teacups tonight to get it done. NEJF saved this and helped me make this sound like Loss!Jamie and Claire, and I’ve ended up quite liking the result. I hope you enjoy.
Loss Ficlet Negotiations November 2019 (One Quote One Shot, Book 2)
It’s funny, the things you can forget with the passage of time.
Things that are monumental, that change you and scar you. Things that somehow become the smeared residue of a time past before they disappear from memory entirely.
It’s funny how you can go on living as though they were never there.
I forgot the date one unseasonably warm Saturday morning in November. Jamie and I were embarking on an adventure of normaling so banal that my excitement was off the charts. The thrum of our completely boring day registered at such a pitch that I failed to recognize it was the 2nd of November.
Without any prompting from me, Jamie had reached for the decaf coffee that morning. Save his tired hand scrubbing a lazy trail across his stubble-gritty face, he made no protest at the prospect of consuming the decaffeinated black sheep of the coffee family. I raised a curious brow at him as I set mugs on the counter before turning to core the last of the berries I’d frozen at summer’s end.
“For the peanut, ye ken,” he explained, setting the pot to brew.
“The peanut?” I asked, lifting a brow and biting my lower lip as I did my damnedest not to look at him. Out of my peripheral vision, I caught him adjusting his glasses (a flash of what I had seen earlier in the week running through my mind – the ultrasound printout clipped to the pencil cup in his office as he took off his glasses to kiss me senseless). It was like I knew what he was going to say, but I wanted to hear it anyway.
“It could have gone a different way. Cordelia could have fought evil while pregnant, had visions while pregnant, worked through her feelings for Angel while pregnant.”
Or Whedon and the writers could have just IGNORED CHARISMA CARPENTER’S PREGNANCY ALTOGETHER. For fuck’s sake, Julia Louis-Dreyfus had TWO children during Seinfeld’s run, and while I know a hangout sitcom isn’t the same thing as an action drama, it wouldn’t have been impossible to write around it.
Political ecology studies the complex interaction between economics, politics, technology, social tradition and the biological environment. These terraced rice fields in Yunnan, China, evidence how the environment is shaped by and shapes economy and society. (Wikipedia)
As I pop back from my mini-hiatus to write this story to its conclusion, I need to thank everyone who was so kind and so supportive the last few weeks. For this chapter, @balfeheughlywed truly saved me from myself. She told me what I needed to hear, and I value her input so much. @notevenjokingfic, as always, makes me a better writer every time she gives me feedback, and this installment is no exception.
Claire hadn’t realized just how much she had missed the weight of another body settling over her own.
The dead weight of an arm (sated and heavy) draped over her waist.
A nosy knee clearing bony pathway between her legs.
A rasping, stubbled chin and throat becoming a perfect cave in which her face could hibernate through the night.
She had missed the gentle movement of another body at rest.
A rising and falling chest madly attempting to regulate its breathing.
A slowing heartbeat melting towards rest after gluttonous serving of a partner.
A full-bodied sigh of completion that seemed to exist from head to toe as one-by-one, muscles went utterly slack.
She had asked him to follow her up the stairs, navigated herself to his bedroom, to make good on her request that he make love to her.
And he had.
With his mouth and his hands, his words and his cock.
And now, in the aftermath, she pulled back from Jamie’s throat just enough to share his pillow. It smelled vaguely woodsy, and like the hair at the nape of his neck (the scent committed to her memory when he’d rolled away from her for protection before making love to her). For what felt like an eternity, they just stared at each other, creating mental records of how long it took their heartbeats to slow and their respiration rates to regularize. They inspected freckles and laugh lines and the shallowed-out divots where frowns allied furrowed eyebrows.
Many thanks to @notevenjokingfic and @balfeheughlywed for putting together another incredible round of the One Quote One Shot challenge. I didn’t know if this was going to get written, but it did, and I am so grateful for the constant encouragement of NEJF and @smashing-teacups tonight to get it done. NEJF saved this and helped me make this sound like Loss!Jamie and Claire, and I’ve ended up quite liking the result. I hope you enjoy.
Loss Ficlet Negotiations November 2019 (One Quote One Shot, Book 2)
It’s funny, the things you can forget with the passage of time.
Things that are monumental, that change you and scar you. Things that somehow become the smeared residue of a time past before they disappear from memory entirely.
It’s funny how you can go on living as though they were never there.
I forgot the date one unseasonably warm Saturday morning in November. Jamie and I were embarking on an adventure of normaling so banal that my excitement was off the charts. The thrum of our completely boring day registered at such a pitch that I failed to recognize it was the 2nd of November.
Without any prompting from me, Jamie had reached for the decaf coffee that morning. Save his tired hand scrubbing a lazy trail across his stubble-gritty face, he made no protest at the prospect of consuming the decaffeinated black sheep of the coffee family. I raised a curious brow at him as I set mugs on the counter before turning to core the last of the berries I’d frozen at summer’s end.
“For the peanut, ye ken,” he explained, setting the pot to brew.
“The peanut?” I asked, lifting a brow and biting my lower lip as I did my damnedest not to look at him. Out of my peripheral vision, I caught him adjusting his glasses (a flash of what I had seen earlier in the week running through my mind – the ultrasound printout clipped to the pencil cup in his office as he took off his glasses to kiss me senseless). It was like I knew what he was going to say, but I wanted to hear it anyway.
“It could have gone a different way. Cordelia could have fought evil while pregnant, had visions while pregnant, worked through her feelings for Angel while pregnant.”
Or Whedon and the writers could have just IGNORED CHARISMA CARPENTER’S PREGNANCY ALTOGETHER. For fuck’s sake, Julia Louis-Dreyfus had TWO children during Seinfeld’s run, and while I know a hangout sitcom isn’t the same thing as an action drama, it wouldn’t have been impossible to write around it.
Tori