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aldersprigAfter Problem-Solving, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rix_scaedu's commissioned continuation.
Fuchsia had never expected things with Pepper to improve overnight. It was a good thing, too, because they were doing anything but.
They were - kind of - getting better. He'd pulled back some of the worst of the orders, enough to let her help him when the nightmares were bad. He still wouldn't talk to her about it, and he still wouldn't talk about it with her - but he was visiting Mendosa regularly, three times a week. Every visit left him exhausted, drooping, quiet, withdrawn. But, for a short time afterwards – later that day, and for part of the next day – he’d be improved, relaxed, acting like what Fuchsia thought was probably his real self.
Weeks went by that way, tiny steps of progress, with her marking every smile, every night without a nightmare, every time he could joke with her or his friends without flipping out. The time he let her fix his tie for him was a major victory; the time he threw out dinner a minor setback. They were getting somewhere.
They were getting somewhere... at a glacial speed. Fuchsia was not normally a patient person - anything but. She'd talked friends through problems now and then before - rough spot with parents, trouble with a boyfriend or girlfriend. She'd never lasted this long. She'd never tried so many lines of attack on a problem.
Then again, she'd never been this stuck before, either.
She was beginning to lose what patience she had with the process. Pepper was her Keeper; he’d tricked her into it fair and square and he was supposed to be Keeping her. She wasn’t cut out to be the taking-care-of-someone sort, and if she was going to try, she didn’t want it to be from the bottom, with all the yelling and tantrums and random silence orders.
Fuchsia really hated the silence orders.
She didn’t know what to do, though; getting frustrated with him just made him worse. He’d either yell at her and send her into the bathroom, or he’d curl up in a little ball and whimper. He didn’t really seem to have any sense of it’s-okay-to-argue, none at all.
“Didn’t you argue with your parents?” she tried over dinner. Dinner, sometimes was safer. Burgundy and Wix were there to act as buffers, at least.
“Not really? I mean, I fought with my dad a little now and then, but…” he shook his head. “Dad always won. I haven’t been back home since I came here.”
“Get into arguments with your friends?”
“Well, yeah, I guess, but generally they just said I was stupid and told me to shut up.”
“You need better friends.”
“He has better friends. Now.” Wix didn’t look exactly happy. “Jayline, though…”
“Wix, shut up.”
“Pepper, chill. She needs to understand.”
“No, she…”
“Yeah, I do. Sorry.” She tacked on the apology hurriedly; she didn’t want to get shut up again. “I know you don’t like thinking about or it anything, but I live with you. And, you know, you Own me and stuff.”
“I don’t want you to understand. I don’t want to think about it. I just want it to be over.”
“I know.” She used the very level voice she used when she really, really wanted to shout. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to think about it and I’m a bad Kept for pushing you and I get that.” That was a shout. Damnit. She dropped down to almost-a-whisper. “A lot. Trust me. But you’re thinking about it, even if you don’t mean to be. And I live with you, and, like I said. You Own me. So it kinda has an effect on me. Like a lot.” She glared at him because damnit, she was not going to wince away, no matter how much she was being a lousy bad Kept who didn’t listen.
“You don’t listen, do you?” See? Bad Kept.
“Look, if you wanted a delicate flower you should have Kept Anchovy or whatever her name is. You grabbed me.”
“Probably because you reminded him of Jayline,” Burgundy opined. Fuchsia glared at her. Pepper, on the other hand, looked down at his napkin like he was the bad Own-ee. Oh, shit.
“She reminds me of you, too, Burr.” He muttered it, but they all heard him anyway. “Okay, Foo. You’re right.”
“I am?” There had to be a trap. The way he was looking… maybe being right was the trap. She didn’t like making him unhappy.
“Look… um. I’ll bring you with me to Mendosa’s tonight, okay?”
“Okay?” She was pretty sure that was the right answer. “You’re sure?”
“Like you said… it affects you. And maybe then we can be done with this.”
She was pretty sure it wasn’t that easy, but she nodded anyway. “All right. After all… you’re the boss.”
~
“Well.”
“Well.”
Fuchsia and Pepper squirmed uncomfortably on the bed, neither of them quite looking at the other, neither of them quite touching. There was such a thing as over-sharing. Fuchsia wished that was her problem.
“You’re going to tell me not to break her face into a thousand pieces, aren’t you?” Jayline was huge, some sort of blue jay change, and mean-looking. She was beginning to learn that, at least in her Keeper’s former Keeper’s case, looks weren’t at all deceiving.
“I am. Do not pick a fight with Jayline. Don’t hit her unless she starts things, and if you can politely avoid her, don’t talk to her at all.”
She frowned. She’d asked for that one, but she didn’t have to like it. “Okay. But I want to go on record as saying I really want to.”
Pepper slumped. “I wish you didn’t. I mean… It wasn’t her fault I was a useless pussy moron.”
She glared at him. “Nobody gets to say that sort of shit about my Keeper. Nobody. And that includes you, Keeper-man.”
“Foo, look at me!”
Normally, she was more than happy to do just that. He was amazingly cute, after all. But he was still frowning. She frowned back at him.
“I’m a tiny useless little fairy, Foo. I’m a useless piece of shit. I can’t lift... anything. Jayline can pick me up with one hand.”
Her looking-at-him turned easily into glaring-at-him. She was probably too good at glaring. “So I’m a tiny useless fairy?” She was two inches shorter than him, with even smaller wings, after all.
“I didn’t say that! He stood up, turning his back on her. “You’re using my words against me.”
She really was, but she was running out of other things to try. “Generally, you act like you think I’m cute and stuff.”
“You are! You’re… you’re tiny, yeah, but you’re pretty and smart and…”
“And so are you.”
He glared at her. “It’s not the same!”
“Why? Because you’re a guy and I’m a girl?”
“Because I wasn’t what Jayline wanted!” He shouted it, loud enough that Fuchsia leaned back away from him. “I was stupid and tiny and she didn’t want someone like me!”
“Well then, she should have freed you and tracked down a big stupid beast.”
Pepper deflated. “She threatened to, all the time.”
“But did she ever do it?”
“No.” He slumped. “And I didn’t want her to. Being Kept can do that. You’ll see, when I let you go.”
“Hrrmph.” She risked hugging him. “Look, can we agree that Jayline was a poisonous nasty jerk of a bully?”
“I… yeah. I mean, I guess?”
“Okay. And I like you, right?”
“You have to.”
“No. I really don’t. Did you like Jayline?”
“I… no.” He slumped into her hug. “I wanted her to like me.”
“I want you to like me, too.” It caught in her throat to say it, but she said it anyway. “And I don’t think you can right now.”
He peered up at her. “What do you mean? I like you.”
“Pepper, you don’t even like yourself. You don’t like anything I do that reminds me of Jayline… and some days, that’s breathing. You can’t stand talking about the last year of your life, or anything that relates to it. And that includes sex and making dinner and having a Kept. And, you know, breathing. So how can you like me?”
He squirmed. “You’re saying I’m a lousy Keeper.”
“No.” Well, yes. “Look, I’m saying you have to stop beating yourself up because your Keeper… liked to beat you up.”
“So I don’t beat you up.” He sat back down on the bed, closer to her. Almost touching. “That’s fair.”
She didn’t, at the moment, have an order against touching him. So she hugged him, as tightly as she could. “That too. Come on, I like you. I don’t like you hating yourself.”
He slumped into her arms. “You really like me?”
Fuchsia decided it was time to be direct. “I like you. And I’ll like you a lot better when you get over this Jayline bitch.”
“Hunh.” He snaked an arm around her waist, under her wings. “Okay, then.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was fairly certain it was a victory. Feeling incredibly daring, and incredibly stupid that it felt brave, she gave her Keeper a kiss.
rix_scaedu's commissioned continuation.Fuchsia had never expected things with Pepper to improve overnight. It was a good thing, too, because they were doing anything but.
They were - kind of - getting better. He'd pulled back some of the worst of the orders, enough to let her help him when the nightmares were bad. He still wouldn't talk to her about it, and he still wouldn't talk about it with her - but he was visiting Mendosa regularly, three times a week. Every visit left him exhausted, drooping, quiet, withdrawn. But, for a short time afterwards – later that day, and for part of the next day – he’d be improved, relaxed, acting like what Fuchsia thought was probably his real self.
Weeks went by that way, tiny steps of progress, with her marking every smile, every night without a nightmare, every time he could joke with her or his friends without flipping out. The time he let her fix his tie for him was a major victory; the time he threw out dinner a minor setback. They were getting somewhere.
They were getting somewhere... at a glacial speed. Fuchsia was not normally a patient person - anything but. She'd talked friends through problems now and then before - rough spot with parents, trouble with a boyfriend or girlfriend. She'd never lasted this long. She'd never tried so many lines of attack on a problem.
Then again, she'd never been this stuck before, either.
She was beginning to lose what patience she had with the process. Pepper was her Keeper; he’d tricked her into it fair and square and he was supposed to be Keeping her. She wasn’t cut out to be the taking-care-of-someone sort, and if she was going to try, she didn’t want it to be from the bottom, with all the yelling and tantrums and random silence orders.
Fuchsia really hated the silence orders.
She didn’t know what to do, though; getting frustrated with him just made him worse. He’d either yell at her and send her into the bathroom, or he’d curl up in a little ball and whimper. He didn’t really seem to have any sense of it’s-okay-to-argue, none at all.
“Didn’t you argue with your parents?” she tried over dinner. Dinner, sometimes was safer. Burgundy and Wix were there to act as buffers, at least.
“Not really? I mean, I fought with my dad a little now and then, but…” he shook his head. “Dad always won. I haven’t been back home since I came here.”
“Get into arguments with your friends?”
“Well, yeah, I guess, but generally they just said I was stupid and told me to shut up.”
“You need better friends.”
“He has better friends. Now.” Wix didn’t look exactly happy. “Jayline, though…”
“Wix, shut up.”
“Pepper, chill. She needs to understand.”
“No, she…”
“Yeah, I do. Sorry.” She tacked on the apology hurriedly; she didn’t want to get shut up again. “I know you don’t like thinking about or it anything, but I live with you. And, you know, you Own me and stuff.”
“I don’t want you to understand. I don’t want to think about it. I just want it to be over.”
“I know.” She used the very level voice she used when she really, really wanted to shout. “Look, I get it. You don’t want to think about it and I’m a bad Kept for pushing you and I get that.” That was a shout. Damnit. She dropped down to almost-a-whisper. “A lot. Trust me. But you’re thinking about it, even if you don’t mean to be. And I live with you, and, like I said. You Own me. So it kinda has an effect on me. Like a lot.” She glared at him because damnit, she was not going to wince away, no matter how much she was being a lousy bad Kept who didn’t listen.
“You don’t listen, do you?” See? Bad Kept.
“Look, if you wanted a delicate flower you should have Kept Anchovy or whatever her name is. You grabbed me.”
“Probably because you reminded him of Jayline,” Burgundy opined. Fuchsia glared at her. Pepper, on the other hand, looked down at his napkin like he was the bad Own-ee. Oh, shit.
“She reminds me of you, too, Burr.” He muttered it, but they all heard him anyway. “Okay, Foo. You’re right.”
“I am?” There had to be a trap. The way he was looking… maybe being right was the trap. She didn’t like making him unhappy.
“Look… um. I’ll bring you with me to Mendosa’s tonight, okay?”
“Okay?” She was pretty sure that was the right answer. “You’re sure?”
“Like you said… it affects you. And maybe then we can be done with this.”
She was pretty sure it wasn’t that easy, but she nodded anyway. “All right. After all… you’re the boss.”
~
“Well.”
“Well.”
Fuchsia and Pepper squirmed uncomfortably on the bed, neither of them quite looking at the other, neither of them quite touching. There was such a thing as over-sharing. Fuchsia wished that was her problem.
“You’re going to tell me not to break her face into a thousand pieces, aren’t you?” Jayline was huge, some sort of blue jay change, and mean-looking. She was beginning to learn that, at least in her Keeper’s former Keeper’s case, looks weren’t at all deceiving.
“I am. Do not pick a fight with Jayline. Don’t hit her unless she starts things, and if you can politely avoid her, don’t talk to her at all.”
She frowned. She’d asked for that one, but she didn’t have to like it. “Okay. But I want to go on record as saying I really want to.”
Pepper slumped. “I wish you didn’t. I mean… It wasn’t her fault I was a useless pussy moron.”
She glared at him. “Nobody gets to say that sort of shit about my Keeper. Nobody. And that includes you, Keeper-man.”
“Foo, look at me!”
Normally, she was more than happy to do just that. He was amazingly cute, after all. But he was still frowning. She frowned back at him.
“I’m a tiny useless little fairy, Foo. I’m a useless piece of shit. I can’t lift... anything. Jayline can pick me up with one hand.”
Her looking-at-him turned easily into glaring-at-him. She was probably too good at glaring. “So I’m a tiny useless fairy?” She was two inches shorter than him, with even smaller wings, after all.
“I didn’t say that! He stood up, turning his back on her. “You’re using my words against me.”
She really was, but she was running out of other things to try. “Generally, you act like you think I’m cute and stuff.”
“You are! You’re… you’re tiny, yeah, but you’re pretty and smart and…”
“And so are you.”
He glared at her. “It’s not the same!”
“Why? Because you’re a guy and I’m a girl?”
“Because I wasn’t what Jayline wanted!” He shouted it, loud enough that Fuchsia leaned back away from him. “I was stupid and tiny and she didn’t want someone like me!”
“Well then, she should have freed you and tracked down a big stupid beast.”
Pepper deflated. “She threatened to, all the time.”
“But did she ever do it?”
“No.” He slumped. “And I didn’t want her to. Being Kept can do that. You’ll see, when I let you go.”
“Hrrmph.” She risked hugging him. “Look, can we agree that Jayline was a poisonous nasty jerk of a bully?”
“I… yeah. I mean, I guess?”
“Okay. And I like you, right?”
“You have to.”
“No. I really don’t. Did you like Jayline?”
“I… no.” He slumped into her hug. “I wanted her to like me.”
“I want you to like me, too.” It caught in her throat to say it, but she said it anyway. “And I don’t think you can right now.”
He peered up at her. “What do you mean? I like you.”
“Pepper, you don’t even like yourself. You don’t like anything I do that reminds me of Jayline… and some days, that’s breathing. You can’t stand talking about the last year of your life, or anything that relates to it. And that includes sex and making dinner and having a Kept. And, you know, breathing. So how can you like me?”
He squirmed. “You’re saying I’m a lousy Keeper.”
“No.” Well, yes. “Look, I’m saying you have to stop beating yourself up because your Keeper… liked to beat you up.”
“So I don’t beat you up.” He sat back down on the bed, closer to her. Almost touching. “That’s fair.”
She didn’t, at the moment, have an order against touching him. So she hugged him, as tightly as she could. “That too. Come on, I like you. I don’t like you hating yourself.”
He slumped into her arms. “You really like me?”
Fuchsia decided it was time to be direct. “I like you. And I’ll like you a lot better when you get over this Jayline bitch.”
“Hunh.” He snaked an arm around her waist, under her wings. “Okay, then.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was fairly certain it was a victory. Feeling incredibly daring, and incredibly stupid that it felt brave, she gave her Keeper a kiss.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 12:35 am (UTC)Love Fuchsia in general, in fact. And her protectiveness despite being a Kept.
Augh, poor Pepper. Thinking he's bad for the ways Jayline didn't like him :(
Aww, yay, go Fuchsia!
typo: "didn’t say that! He"
"She didn’t, at the moment, have an order against touching him." Well, obviously, since she'd already hugged him once in the scene!
no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 04:44 pm (UTC)