fic: the drug that works (weeds)
qldfloodauction: phrenitis donated for nancy/andy and an agreement.
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: Copenhagen. If he wasn't living it, he thinks, he'd be smoking it.
RATING: R
CLASSIFICATIONS: Nancy/Andy
SPOILERS: post-season 6
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd. Sorry. Danish and French translations in mouseover.
WORDS: 4,018
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; March 2011.
* * * * *
The Drug That Works by anr
* * * * *
In Copenhagen, he and Silas exchange Warren's money for dinars, first, then shillings, rupees, euros, yens, and, finally, kroners. They trade off the airport's currency booths, losing about ten percent here and there in commission fees, but whatever -- off-the-radar-paper-trail-misdirections, okay? This is his kung fu.
He buys three seats on next plane to Amsterdam, cargo class, and tasks Shane with finding some college kids in the terminal who won't question why they're being sold a legit ticket under a fake name for a fraction of the cost of a proper ticket and all. (He gets why Si wants the life, yeah, but damn -- so. stupid. today's youth is truly idiotic.)
He's lost an indecent amount once all the converting and bullshitting is done but it's not so bad as, say, having no stolen money, so.
So.
Shouldering his duffel, he grabs Nance's bag, grabs Stevie's too, and kicks Shane in the butt when he lags. "Let's go, Copenhagenians."
He walks out of the airport with a nephew on each side and it's not the way it's supposed to be, yeah, but it is what it'll be, and, okay, he can do this, right?
Yeah.
*
He tells the guys all about Plan C, proving it to them with an article in the online Times -- Nancy Botwin, arrested by the FBI at Michigan International, has confessed to the murder of Pilar Zuzua -- and while that's nowhere near enough good news for Si and Shane to crack a smile, it is a pearler of an excuse for getting shit-faced, celebration-style, for their first two days and nights in Copen-fuck-yes-hagen.
Andy prints out the article photo of Nancy surrendering with Stevie strapped to her chest, and slips it into his wallet between a condom and a glow-in-the-dark cock-ring, and thinks, yeah, yeah, okay.
He can totally do this.
*
He finds them a two bedroom furnished apartment on craigslist that isn't too outrageously priced and is close enough for the boys to school and work; keeps the master room for himself and gives Silas the other one.
"Fucking what?" asks Shane, narrowing his eyes. "How is that even --"
"Go three without skinning, pureeing or electroding anything living -- dead or alive -- and you'll get a closed door. Til then, my lidt skrummel, you're on the futon." Heading into the kitchen, he tries to come up with a grocery list that has more than Dorritos, M&M's and Dr Pepper on it.
Shane throws his bag across the room where it lands on said futon with awesome -- and, likely, unintentional -- accuracy. "Three days," he says. "That's the most stupid test ev--"
Andy adds cucumbers to his mental list -- remembers that Nancy's not with them -- and takes them off again. To Shane, he corrects, "years. Three years."
Silas starts to laugh -- and keeps laughing, idiot -- until Shane king hits him, breaking his nose.
"Bandaids," says Andy, finger ticking the air. "Definitely bandaids." He frowns. "Hey, do you think they sell Pepsi Max here?"
*
Silas enrols in the Københavns Universitet, sleeps with the girl he'd picked up at the baggage claim, dates a barista down the street from where they're living, and gets a part-time gig tending actual non-druggy flowerbeds at a local park. He's fucking normal like normal's about to go off to war and get ass-blown by an Iranian landmine but, whatever, okay? Andy's in no place to judge someone else's kinks.
He lets Shane test out -- or, okay, bribe some kid into testing out for him -- and get a not-even-close-to-being-legal job manning a register in a shop that sells, amongst other such cockbusters, Andy's own line of toe-porn. Nance'd hate it -- hell, Andy kinda secretly does too, free rentals aside -- but the kid's a sociopath. As if he's gonna say no to Bundy Junior every day.
Andy treads the line, finds a balance that somehow works, and thinks, I love you, Nancy, sometimes, like that means something new still.
*
He gets a job tutoring English and only sleeps with brunettes who can prove with two separate pieces of legit ID that they're over twenty-five (he's not taking any chances here -- this is his dream, okay? not his fucking dream), speak with an American accent that twangs a little Southern when really pissed off, have a stretch-mark that looks like a little cock with wings just above the right hip and a road-sign tattoo on their ass cheek.
(Strangely enough, he's yet to find anyone who meets the full superfecta. Go figure.)
"It'll fall off if you're not careful," Si tells him over a bowl of Hjem-IS one night. "S'not healthy to deny yourself."
Andy adds bananas to the week's grocery list. "Copenhagen," he says, "is all about standards."
*
He gets in contact with Isabelle because, come on, if he's going to risk talking to anyone back home, it's gonna be the girl who once stole Celia's literal shit. Plus, Dean and Doug'd probably send the entire American law enforcement buddy-squad an engraved invitation to his new life just by answering the fucking phone with a, hey -- how's it hanging? so, yeah, no.
(He does miss Doug though, kinda, sorta, like, maybe when he's smoking a good score from one of Si's college buds and the haze is just perfect for some Doug-speak and brownies and red liquorice, but it may be just the California-nut brownies he misses, so. Hard to tell.)
Isabelle gives him updates on Nance's trial (recessed again), on Stevie's foster parents (who are complete douches, okay? they're dressing his kid in fucking snowflakes for fuck's sake), on Esteban's re-election campaign and custody suit (and why Shane couldn't have malleted Senor Dick instead of Pilar, he'll never understand), and Andy doesn't want to know how she knows so much because, fuck, the girl's a regular wikipedia and that's scary shit to think about when he's getting baked on Uni-weed, or teaching some blonde nymphet the synonyms for cunnilingus and frottage, or both.
And, okay, so maybe after each report, he checks that Nancy and Stevie's things are still neatly folded in his dresser but that's just because, you know, Copenhagen, yeah? It's the dream.
He's gotta sleep sooner or later, right?
*
Silas gets B's or credits or whatever it is kid's get when they're doing well at akademiske verden instead of all night keggers and shit.
Shane gets promoted to Second Assistant Night Manager (the fuck are they smoking in that shop? seriously) and it's not even a joke.
Andy remembers to go grocery shopping each week, to pay the rent from their post office stash, to show up for his tutoring, and sometimes, when he's really high and his right hand is aching, to clean the bathroom.
Six months in and they're the fucking Waltons of Dane-land; if he wasn't living it, he thinks, he'd be smoking it.
*
Isabelle tells him that she needs fifty-thousand US yesterday and Andy considers telling her to take up a career in lesbian porn (like any other self-unrespecting teenager with body image issues does after a bad run of really bad decisions) but things have been going well for a really long time now -- and she has been doing him a real information solid since he ex-pat'd out -- and, well, he's overdue for a fuck-up, okay?
He wires her everything they have left, gets a completely unlegitimate loan from a guy who knows a guy for the rest and sends her that too, and doesn't tell Silas and Shane that their spendings are gone. Or that his tutoring salary, such as it is, will now be going to pornstache-Bob-from-across-the-bridge for the next fifty years (or until he decides he doesn't want his liver anymore, either or). Or why he's suddenly gassing up the moped he bought after they arrived, buying a map he can't read, and seducing his way through the Østerbro neighbourhoods on the weekends to pick up some extra toy-boy cash.
When they finally notice the rug burns on his knees, Silas congratulates him on finally taking care of himself again, and Shane wonders why the apartment no longer smells like microwave bananas.
Family, Andy thinks. Whatever.
*
Andy never says it, not even when he's smashed out of his fucking gourd and can't understand why the afternoon soap he's gotten addicted to is in another language, but if he'd had a choice, had any chance at all, he'd have done anything -- anything -- to have had Plan A work out.
And it's not because he loves her (hell, that's a given non-anything now, twenty-odd years in the making and permanent like oxygen and weed and shit) or because he thinks she would have done any better (she wouldn't have, she'd have been up to her ears in drugs and murder and arson before even collecting her shit from the airport baggage claim) but because this is the dream, his dream, and everything he has is hers and he knows it.
Everything.
*
He's giving Vibeke (or maybe it's Gjerta? he's never been that great at telling sisters apart) a foot massage when his cell phone vibrates with a text from one of Isabelle's contact numbers -- airport arrivals, 11pm cet, DONOTBELATE!! -- and after a few minutes of asking Vibeke-or-Gjerta if she knows what 'belate' means in English, his upper brain kicks in and he finishes her off with a few quick scratches and heads for the door.
He calls Silas on his way to the airport, tells him to prepare for a Plan D (E?), just in case, and gets there in time to buy a baseball cap, a coffee, and see Tara-fucking-God-nut-Lindman walk out of the arrivals gate with his kid in her arms.
"He needs a change," she says, dumping Stevie into his arms, a diaper bag on his foot, and somehow liberating his coffee all without missing a beat. "Paper's in the bag."
Andy -- who is absolutely, definitely, one-hundred-and-thirty-nine-percent not crying, not even a little, fuck-you-very-much -- watches her flick her hair over her shoulder, adjust the cross around her neck, then turn and walk away towards the departures gate without so much as a goodbye or wave or what-the-fuck-ever.
Stevie slaps him in the face, the way only mini-humans can, and Andy wipes his not-actually-wet eyes on his sleeve.
Pornstache-Bob can have his liver gift-wrapped.
*
Shane's not home but Silas is, bag all packed and the cookie jar busted all over the kitchen bench.
"False alarm, false alarm," says Andy, shouldering his way inside. "You can put the dope dollars back."
Silas drops his bag with a thud and stares at Stevie. "Fuck."
"Colloquial," says Andy, "but fair, context-wise. Your baby brother has followed us across the oceans, far and wide. Oh frabjous day, callooh callay."
"Where's Mom?"
Plopping Stevie onto Shane's futon, Andy unslings the diaper bag from over his shoulder and starts rifling for the promised papers. "Behind bars, last I heard still. Kid flew in with a 'sitter -- or kidnapper, hmm, not too sure on that one -- and, shit."
Silas, now crouched on the floor in the corner, head in his hands, looks up. "What?"
"Sigmund? Sigmund?" Lowering the passport and birth certificate, Andy stares with an honest-to-God mix of sympathy and revulsion at his son -- a quick check on the docs again and, yes, still his son, thank Mary Jane -- and shakes his head. "Oh, you poor, poor, looking-at-a-future-hung-by-your-wedgie-on-the-teeter-totter kid. As if you weren't already Freud-fucked enough being in this family."
Silas starts banging his head against the wall.
*
After Silas has stopped concussing himself, and they've toked a joint or two, he sends him out for a crib and diapers and baby food and, shit, a rattle or whatever. They set up everything in his room then munch out on the bed while they watch his kid fall asleep between some sweet-ass Star Wars cot-sheets. His son's here, he thinks, over and over, Nancy's son, his son, their son (Esteban who now?) -- totally here here here.
Silas rolls onto his back and tosses Cheetos into the air, catching them on his tongue. "'m moving out, An."
He's not surprised, not really, but. "Now? Don't you want to wait? It may be a never will -- she's a shoo-in for Bertha stripes and rope-soap for the next quarter to life."
"We both know the US penitentiary system doesn't come with earthquake insurance. Sooner I get to high ground, the better my chances at surviving the next big one."
It's a fair call, and one Andy's wished he was brave enough to follow through on several times before himself. "Stay within cell range, yeah?"
Si chomps a handful of cheese curls. "Yeah."
Sig -- Siggy? Mundy? oh sweet Jesus -- snuffles in his sleep, and Andy's heart totally turns to sap but, whatever, okay? He's got a good number of inches on his dick, he's man enough for it.
Silas looks at him curiously. "How'd the hell you get him home on the moped anyway?"
Andy shrugs. "May have Gumby'd a few laws, I don't really remember." He slides off the bed and scratches his stomach. "Hey, we got any more smoke?"
*
Shane's eyes light up when he sees Sig and Andy's quick to douse him with a bottle of Carlsberg. "My offspring," he says, handing him a towel after. "When Silas gets man-preggers by a Mexican Druglord, steal your own nephew."
"I'm having an abortion," says Silas, watching TV.
"Cunt," says Shane, towel-snapping the back of his head.
"Ah," says Andy, changing Sig's diaper. Silas wrestles Shane to the ground with a chokehold. "Family."
*
Andy drops his pussy-paychecks and the tutoring in favour of a sous-chef gig a couple blocks over from home. Steady money, brunch-lunch-dunch hours, and there's a full on Swedish-breasted au-pair-staffed daycare next door for Sig. He actually -- truthfully -- couldn't have planned this better if he'd given legitimacy any kind of a half-assed try for real.
Si moves out into some Ikea-themed studio with his girlfriend -- Larine? Karine? Petrine? whatever -- and Shane gets way, way too excited, so Andy removes the second bedroom door and tacks up a see-through goldfish-dotted shower curtain in its place.
"Dette er alvorligt sindssyg," Shane says, moving his shit into the room nonetheless.
"Three years," says Andy, "that was the deal. But kudos on the language learning, nice."
*
He tells Isabelle, thanks, and she tells him, je ne comprends pas anglais, and, okay, it sucks the biggest not being able to hear tell of Nance anymore, but the lesbo got him his kid back, so, yeah -- forgive and forget for the best fifty-thou ever spent, the end.
He adds a handful of news feeds to his daily surfing schedule -- who knew there were sites on the 'net not related to porn or women's beach volleyball? go figure -- and tracks Nancy's courtroom drama as best as he can via google (which is to say, not at all, because apparently nancy+croquet+prison equals porn, not person of interest, but it's relatively good porn, so). So.
He makes a copy of his Nancy-and-Stevie-getting-arrested photo and hangs it off a twisted coathanger above Sig's crib and talks to him, says things like, this is your Mom, and, I'm your Dad, and, we love you, you little life-fucker you, and doesn't even feel like a retard for embracing the hallmark stereotype, not even a bit, not even when sober.
And he is sober a lot more these days, more's the pity, spending a good percentage of his kroners on things like diapers and broccoli-mush and shit, and, okay, maybe four nights out of seven isn't a big deal for other people, but for him this is major normality. He's maybe growing as a person, for fuck's sake -- he hasn't been this spun out on reality since one-of-those-thirty-minutes-that-never-actually-happened-in Alaska.
Shane gets promoted again, no shit, to First Assistant Whatever, and Andy lets him replace the shower curtain for an opaque one decorated with naked Eurasians as a sign of good faith when the guy he'd replaced doesn't show up dead and brain-smashed after a week. Silas is still kicking intellectual ass (maybe literally now, Andy hasn't asked for the specifics recently) in the hallowed halls of higher education, etcetera etcetera, and hasn't even gotten his regular chick knocked up or deported to another country or both.
(In fact, Si and 'rine come over for dinner once a week and they all get high and eat his five-star roasted lamb with a sweet, sweet cherry glaze and watch Bear Hunt episodes on youtube 'til two in the morning. Shane's pushing hard for Sig's first sentence to be, you can't miss the bear, and Andy has no problems with encouraging this -- that kinda logic will take a person far in life, true story.)
Pornstache-Bob gives him a fruit basket on his twenty-fifth instalment repay; Chef Boss at the restaurant lets him add two dishes to the new menu; and Sig is, honest to fucking God, normal-kid healthy and happy according to the paediatrician Andy takes him to that one time on a dare.
He's done good, he thinks, is doing good -- they all are. And, yeah, maybe there's still another shoe out there, waiting to bug-squash him, and them, but it's been a year almost. An almost-year of pwning good, of living the dream, of Copenhagen, so, yes, yes, yes and fuck you, Mr Hildacki from junior high who said I'd never amount to anything, fuck-you-very-very-much.
*
It's his afternoon off, a Spring day ending in y, when Nancy arrives in cowboy boots and a leather jacket. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail perfect for grabbing, her makeup's a few layers less than skank, and there's backpack on her shoulder. She looks pretty and younger and utterly fuckable, so Andy's not too surprised to find that he's half-hard when he gets past the lightning-strike-what-the-fuckery that is seeing her at his door and steps back to let her into the apartment.
"Mistrial," she says, standing in their mini-hallway. She shrugs. "I'm free."
Closing the door, Andy locks it and backs himself up against the wood for a second before remembering that this is his apartment, his life. Pushing away, he walks around her and into the kitchen. "You want something to drink?"
"Sure."
He raids the fridge and passes her a beer. "Don't they have to sequel the whole court thing when they fuck up?"
"I'm thinking they're now more concerned with me skipping on bail." She makes with sudden jazz hands, quirking an odd smile. "Whoops?"
"At least tell me you covered your ass as it left the slingshot," he says, flicking his bottle top into Shane's coffee cup from this morning and scoring.
"Analise White, nice to meet you. Andy --" Her knuckles turn white around the beer bottle. "I just came to say, you know, thanks? And hi? And -- fuck it, Andy, I need the money."
"Money?"
"Warren's money."
"Oh," says Andy slowly, leaning against the sink. "Warren's money." He pulls on his beer. "It's gone."
He's expecting her to snap, to throw the beer bottle and kick his fridge and curse, maybe pull a knife, because she is Nancy, Queen of the Unexpected PMT, but.
Her face freezes.
"Weed's pretty good around here already, though," Andy says into the silence, not sure if he's trying to make her feel better or worse or whatever, because, fuck, he's never seen her this still, not ever, and, "not MILF good, obviously, but okay, you know, for Danish kiff and all. I don't know that you'd be able to easily buy into the marke--"
"Stevie's gone," she says softly, and Andy thinks, oh. "Stolen. I was going to use --"
From the bedroom, Sig shouts, "up! Ig up!"
"Yeah," says Andy, scratching his chin, "about that."
*
"You're different," he says, watching her watch Sig play with his trucks and shit. "You high?"
She throws him a baffled look. "Excuse me?"
"Doped? Flying? Potted? Tripping? What is it -- hash? Edibles? You don't smell like --"
"I'm not UI," she says, moving up to slouch beside him. Her hair drapes against the arm he has resting along the back of the couch. "I'm just --" She waves a hand.
Mellow. Calm. Peaceful. "I thought jail was supposed to harden criminals, not turn you into Saintly Sister Serenity."
Her head lolls on his arm until she can look up at him. "Esteban's dead."
"Now I'm a Saintly Sister, shit." Not even bothering to hide his joy at that little burst of sunshiney goodness, Andy presses a kiss to the top of her head all quick-like. "You?"
She huffs, "no," like she's offended but she's smiling too, so, "rival cartel," and, sure, that could still mean her, but he's good with the fifteenth chances these days, so.
"We should send flowers. Chocolates. Perfume, maybe? I don't know -- what's on a cartel 'thank you' registry these days?"
"Not funny, Andy," she says but she says it still with the smiling and she's shifting a little closer like they're regular ol' snuggle-buddies.
Andy drops his arm around her shoulder and tugs her in against his side proper. "Sure it is."
*
"Thank you," she says again later, this time like she really, honestly, truly means it. "I mean it. I'm proud of you."
Lounging against his doorjamb, Andy watches her take her shirt off and unfasten her bra. "You'll have to get a job -- something that won't get us deported -- and help, I don't know, clean the kitchen and shit."
"I can do that." She runs her palm over her old clothes, all folded and neat in his dresser.
"And no giving the boys grief about their life choices or whatever -- Shane's over a third into earning door privileges, and Silas is gonna make some Dane a wonderful house-husband pretty soon if his dick doesn't rot off first from all the vanilla in his diet."
"Okay," she says, abandoning the dresser and walking over to him all topless and beautiful and naked breasty.
"And, uh, me, okay? No --" Her hand takes a hold of the door handle and he feels his boner wilt a little. Same old shitty story, he thinks depressively as he tenses for the door slam in his face, all cock-tease and no fuck. He sighs. "I'll get you some cucumbers next time I shop."
Her other hand catches the collar of his t-shirt, yanking him into the room, into her kiss. "Don't."
*
There's tears when Silas and Shane find out she's back and, okay, Andy's no expert on emo-shit but he's just gonna label them happy tears and keep dreaming the dream for as long as the bubble stays unburst, alright?
(He may do a naked happy dance a couple times the first week. Maybe.)
*
Andy's watching Sunday morning Dutch-smurf cartoons with Sig and sexting Nancy while she's at work (and, okay, maybe he's thinking about having a crack in the bathroom next commercial break but, come on, she just sent him a picture proving she's not wearing any underwear -- what other response to that is there?) when Sig crawls over to the couch and hauls himself up on two wobbly knock-kneed little legs, blocking his view of the flatscreen.
"Dada," Sig says, smearing his Pop Tart covered nose on Andy's forearm. "Dada, guh?"
"Yeah," says Andy, hauling him up so Sig can sprawl across his chest, his baby-hair tickling Andy's chin and his little sugary digits fisting in his t-shirt, "Dada guhs you too, kid."
*
Copenhagen, he thinks every now and then, just because. Population -- Botwins for the fucking win.
* * * * *
The End.
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated. *g*
STATUS: Complete
SUMMARY: Copenhagen. If he wasn't living it, he thinks, he'd be smoking it.
RATING: R
CLASSIFICATIONS: Nancy/Andy
SPOILERS: post-season 6
ARCHIVING: Do not archive. Thank you.
NOTES: Unbeta'd. Sorry. Danish and French translations in mouseover.
WORDS: 4,018
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Don't sue.
Copyright anr; March 2011.
* * * * *
The Drug That Works by anr
* * * * *
In Copenhagen, he and Silas exchange Warren's money for dinars, first, then shillings, rupees, euros, yens, and, finally, kroners. They trade off the airport's currency booths, losing about ten percent here and there in commission fees, but whatever -- off-the-radar-paper-trail-misdirections, okay? This is his kung fu.
He buys three seats on next plane to Amsterdam, cargo class, and tasks Shane with finding some college kids in the terminal who won't question why they're being sold a legit ticket under a fake name for a fraction of the cost of a proper ticket and all. (He gets why Si wants the life, yeah, but damn -- so. stupid. today's youth is truly idiotic.)
He's lost an indecent amount once all the converting and bullshitting is done but it's not so bad as, say, having no stolen money, so.
So.
Shouldering his duffel, he grabs Nance's bag, grabs Stevie's too, and kicks Shane in the butt when he lags. "Let's go, Copenhagenians."
He walks out of the airport with a nephew on each side and it's not the way it's supposed to be, yeah, but it is what it'll be, and, okay, he can do this, right?
Yeah.
*
He tells the guys all about Plan C, proving it to them with an article in the online Times -- Nancy Botwin, arrested by the FBI at Michigan International, has confessed to the murder of Pilar Zuzua -- and while that's nowhere near enough good news for Si and Shane to crack a smile, it is a pearler of an excuse for getting shit-faced, celebration-style, for their first two days and nights in Copen-fuck-yes-hagen.
Andy prints out the article photo of Nancy surrendering with Stevie strapped to her chest, and slips it into his wallet between a condom and a glow-in-the-dark cock-ring, and thinks, yeah, yeah, okay.
He can totally do this.
*
He finds them a two bedroom furnished apartment on craigslist that isn't too outrageously priced and is close enough for the boys to school and work; keeps the master room for himself and gives Silas the other one.
"Fucking what?" asks Shane, narrowing his eyes. "How is that even --"
"Go three without skinning, pureeing or electroding anything living -- dead or alive -- and you'll get a closed door. Til then, my lidt skrummel, you're on the futon." Heading into the kitchen, he tries to come up with a grocery list that has more than Dorritos, M&M's and Dr Pepper on it.
Shane throws his bag across the room where it lands on said futon with awesome -- and, likely, unintentional -- accuracy. "Three days," he says. "That's the most stupid test ev--"
Andy adds cucumbers to his mental list -- remembers that Nancy's not with them -- and takes them off again. To Shane, he corrects, "years. Three years."
Silas starts to laugh -- and keeps laughing, idiot -- until Shane king hits him, breaking his nose.
"Bandaids," says Andy, finger ticking the air. "Definitely bandaids." He frowns. "Hey, do you think they sell Pepsi Max here?"
*
Silas enrols in the Københavns Universitet, sleeps with the girl he'd picked up at the baggage claim, dates a barista down the street from where they're living, and gets a part-time gig tending actual non-druggy flowerbeds at a local park. He's fucking normal like normal's about to go off to war and get ass-blown by an Iranian landmine but, whatever, okay? Andy's in no place to judge someone else's kinks.
He lets Shane test out -- or, okay, bribe some kid into testing out for him -- and get a not-even-close-to-being-legal job manning a register in a shop that sells, amongst other such cockbusters, Andy's own line of toe-porn. Nance'd hate it -- hell, Andy kinda secretly does too, free rentals aside -- but the kid's a sociopath. As if he's gonna say no to Bundy Junior every day.
Andy treads the line, finds a balance that somehow works, and thinks, I love you, Nancy, sometimes, like that means something new still.
*
He gets a job tutoring English and only sleeps with brunettes who can prove with two separate pieces of legit ID that they're over twenty-five (he's not taking any chances here -- this is his dream, okay? not his fucking dream), speak with an American accent that twangs a little Southern when really pissed off, have a stretch-mark that looks like a little cock with wings just above the right hip and a road-sign tattoo on their ass cheek.
(Strangely enough, he's yet to find anyone who meets the full superfecta. Go figure.)
"It'll fall off if you're not careful," Si tells him over a bowl of Hjem-IS one night. "S'not healthy to deny yourself."
Andy adds bananas to the week's grocery list. "Copenhagen," he says, "is all about standards."
*
He gets in contact with Isabelle because, come on, if he's going to risk talking to anyone back home, it's gonna be the girl who once stole Celia's literal shit. Plus, Dean and Doug'd probably send the entire American law enforcement buddy-squad an engraved invitation to his new life just by answering the fucking phone with a, hey -- how's it hanging? so, yeah, no.
(He does miss Doug though, kinda, sorta, like, maybe when he's smoking a good score from one of Si's college buds and the haze is just perfect for some Doug-speak and brownies and red liquorice, but it may be just the California-nut brownies he misses, so. Hard to tell.)
Isabelle gives him updates on Nance's trial (recessed again), on Stevie's foster parents (who are complete douches, okay? they're dressing his kid in fucking snowflakes for fuck's sake), on Esteban's re-election campaign and custody suit (and why Shane couldn't have malleted Senor Dick instead of Pilar, he'll never understand), and Andy doesn't want to know how she knows so much because, fuck, the girl's a regular wikipedia and that's scary shit to think about when he's getting baked on Uni-weed, or teaching some blonde nymphet the synonyms for cunnilingus and frottage, or both.
And, okay, so maybe after each report, he checks that Nancy and Stevie's things are still neatly folded in his dresser but that's just because, you know, Copenhagen, yeah? It's the dream.
He's gotta sleep sooner or later, right?
*
Silas gets B's or credits or whatever it is kid's get when they're doing well at akademiske verden instead of all night keggers and shit.
Shane gets promoted to Second Assistant Night Manager (the fuck are they smoking in that shop? seriously) and it's not even a joke.
Andy remembers to go grocery shopping each week, to pay the rent from their post office stash, to show up for his tutoring, and sometimes, when he's really high and his right hand is aching, to clean the bathroom.
Six months in and they're the fucking Waltons of Dane-land; if he wasn't living it, he thinks, he'd be smoking it.
*
Isabelle tells him that she needs fifty-thousand US yesterday and Andy considers telling her to take up a career in lesbian porn (like any other self-unrespecting teenager with body image issues does after a bad run of really bad decisions) but things have been going well for a really long time now -- and she has been doing him a real information solid since he ex-pat'd out -- and, well, he's overdue for a fuck-up, okay?
He wires her everything they have left, gets a completely unlegitimate loan from a guy who knows a guy for the rest and sends her that too, and doesn't tell Silas and Shane that their spendings are gone. Or that his tutoring salary, such as it is, will now be going to pornstache-Bob-from-across-the-bridge for the next fifty years (or until he decides he doesn't want his liver anymore, either or). Or why he's suddenly gassing up the moped he bought after they arrived, buying a map he can't read, and seducing his way through the Østerbro neighbourhoods on the weekends to pick up some extra toy-boy cash.
When they finally notice the rug burns on his knees, Silas congratulates him on finally taking care of himself again, and Shane wonders why the apartment no longer smells like microwave bananas.
Family, Andy thinks. Whatever.
*
Andy never says it, not even when he's smashed out of his fucking gourd and can't understand why the afternoon soap he's gotten addicted to is in another language, but if he'd had a choice, had any chance at all, he'd have done anything -- anything -- to have had Plan A work out.
And it's not because he loves her (hell, that's a given non-anything now, twenty-odd years in the making and permanent like oxygen and weed and shit) or because he thinks she would have done any better (she wouldn't have, she'd have been up to her ears in drugs and murder and arson before even collecting her shit from the airport baggage claim) but because this is the dream, his dream, and everything he has is hers and he knows it.
Everything.
*
He's giving Vibeke (or maybe it's Gjerta? he's never been that great at telling sisters apart) a foot massage when his cell phone vibrates with a text from one of Isabelle's contact numbers -- airport arrivals, 11pm cet, DONOTBELATE!! -- and after a few minutes of asking Vibeke-or-Gjerta if she knows what 'belate' means in English, his upper brain kicks in and he finishes her off with a few quick scratches and heads for the door.
He calls Silas on his way to the airport, tells him to prepare for a Plan D (E?), just in case, and gets there in time to buy a baseball cap, a coffee, and see Tara-fucking-God-nut-Lindman walk out of the arrivals gate with his kid in her arms.
"He needs a change," she says, dumping Stevie into his arms, a diaper bag on his foot, and somehow liberating his coffee all without missing a beat. "Paper's in the bag."
Andy -- who is absolutely, definitely, one-hundred-and-thirty-nine-percent not crying, not even a little, fuck-you-very-much -- watches her flick her hair over her shoulder, adjust the cross around her neck, then turn and walk away towards the departures gate without so much as a goodbye or wave or what-the-fuck-ever.
Stevie slaps him in the face, the way only mini-humans can, and Andy wipes his not-actually-wet eyes on his sleeve.
Pornstache-Bob can have his liver gift-wrapped.
*
Shane's not home but Silas is, bag all packed and the cookie jar busted all over the kitchen bench.
"False alarm, false alarm," says Andy, shouldering his way inside. "You can put the dope dollars back."
Silas drops his bag with a thud and stares at Stevie. "Fuck."
"Colloquial," says Andy, "but fair, context-wise. Your baby brother has followed us across the oceans, far and wide. Oh frabjous day, callooh callay."
"Where's Mom?"
Plopping Stevie onto Shane's futon, Andy unslings the diaper bag from over his shoulder and starts rifling for the promised papers. "Behind bars, last I heard still. Kid flew in with a 'sitter -- or kidnapper, hmm, not too sure on that one -- and, shit."
Silas, now crouched on the floor in the corner, head in his hands, looks up. "What?"
"Sigmund? Sigmund?" Lowering the passport and birth certificate, Andy stares with an honest-to-God mix of sympathy and revulsion at his son -- a quick check on the docs again and, yes, still his son, thank Mary Jane -- and shakes his head. "Oh, you poor, poor, looking-at-a-future-hung-by-your-wedgie-on-the-teeter-totter kid. As if you weren't already Freud-fucked enough being in this family."
Silas starts banging his head against the wall.
*
After Silas has stopped concussing himself, and they've toked a joint or two, he sends him out for a crib and diapers and baby food and, shit, a rattle or whatever. They set up everything in his room then munch out on the bed while they watch his kid fall asleep between some sweet-ass Star Wars cot-sheets. His son's here, he thinks, over and over, Nancy's son, his son, their son (Esteban who now?) -- totally here here here.
Silas rolls onto his back and tosses Cheetos into the air, catching them on his tongue. "'m moving out, An."
He's not surprised, not really, but. "Now? Don't you want to wait? It may be a never will -- she's a shoo-in for Bertha stripes and rope-soap for the next quarter to life."
"We both know the US penitentiary system doesn't come with earthquake insurance. Sooner I get to high ground, the better my chances at surviving the next big one."
It's a fair call, and one Andy's wished he was brave enough to follow through on several times before himself. "Stay within cell range, yeah?"
Si chomps a handful of cheese curls. "Yeah."
Sig -- Siggy? Mundy? oh sweet Jesus -- snuffles in his sleep, and Andy's heart totally turns to sap but, whatever, okay? He's got a good number of inches on his dick, he's man enough for it.
Silas looks at him curiously. "How'd the hell you get him home on the moped anyway?"
Andy shrugs. "May have Gumby'd a few laws, I don't really remember." He slides off the bed and scratches his stomach. "Hey, we got any more smoke?"
*
Shane's eyes light up when he sees Sig and Andy's quick to douse him with a bottle of Carlsberg. "My offspring," he says, handing him a towel after. "When Silas gets man-preggers by a Mexican Druglord, steal your own nephew."
"I'm having an abortion," says Silas, watching TV.
"Cunt," says Shane, towel-snapping the back of his head.
"Ah," says Andy, changing Sig's diaper. Silas wrestles Shane to the ground with a chokehold. "Family."
*
Andy drops his pussy-paychecks and the tutoring in favour of a sous-chef gig a couple blocks over from home. Steady money, brunch-lunch-dunch hours, and there's a full on Swedish-breasted au-pair-staffed daycare next door for Sig. He actually -- truthfully -- couldn't have planned this better if he'd given legitimacy any kind of a half-assed try for real.
Si moves out into some Ikea-themed studio with his girlfriend -- Larine? Karine? Petrine? whatever -- and Shane gets way, way too excited, so Andy removes the second bedroom door and tacks up a see-through goldfish-dotted shower curtain in its place.
"Dette er alvorligt sindssyg," Shane says, moving his shit into the room nonetheless.
"Three years," says Andy, "that was the deal. But kudos on the language learning, nice."
*
He tells Isabelle, thanks, and she tells him, je ne comprends pas anglais, and, okay, it sucks the biggest not being able to hear tell of Nance anymore, but the lesbo got him his kid back, so, yeah -- forgive and forget for the best fifty-thou ever spent, the end.
He adds a handful of news feeds to his daily surfing schedule -- who knew there were sites on the 'net not related to porn or women's beach volleyball? go figure -- and tracks Nancy's courtroom drama as best as he can via google (which is to say, not at all, because apparently nancy+croquet+prison equals porn, not person of interest, but it's relatively good porn, so). So.
He makes a copy of his Nancy-and-Stevie-getting-arrested photo and hangs it off a twisted coathanger above Sig's crib and talks to him, says things like, this is your Mom, and, I'm your Dad, and, we love you, you little life-fucker you, and doesn't even feel like a retard for embracing the hallmark stereotype, not even a bit, not even when sober.
And he is sober a lot more these days, more's the pity, spending a good percentage of his kroners on things like diapers and broccoli-mush and shit, and, okay, maybe four nights out of seven isn't a big deal for other people, but for him this is major normality. He's maybe growing as a person, for fuck's sake -- he hasn't been this spun out on reality since one-of-those-thirty-minutes-that-never-actually-happened-in Alaska.
Shane gets promoted again, no shit, to First Assistant Whatever, and Andy lets him replace the shower curtain for an opaque one decorated with naked Eurasians as a sign of good faith when the guy he'd replaced doesn't show up dead and brain-smashed after a week. Silas is still kicking intellectual ass (maybe literally now, Andy hasn't asked for the specifics recently) in the hallowed halls of higher education, etcetera etcetera, and hasn't even gotten his regular chick knocked up or deported to another country or both.
(In fact, Si and 'rine come over for dinner once a week and they all get high and eat his five-star roasted lamb with a sweet, sweet cherry glaze and watch Bear Hunt episodes on youtube 'til two in the morning. Shane's pushing hard for Sig's first sentence to be, you can't miss the bear, and Andy has no problems with encouraging this -- that kinda logic will take a person far in life, true story.)
Pornstache-Bob gives him a fruit basket on his twenty-fifth instalment repay; Chef Boss at the restaurant lets him add two dishes to the new menu; and Sig is, honest to fucking God, normal-kid healthy and happy according to the paediatrician Andy takes him to that one time on a dare.
He's done good, he thinks, is doing good -- they all are. And, yeah, maybe there's still another shoe out there, waiting to bug-squash him, and them, but it's been a year almost. An almost-year of pwning good, of living the dream, of Copenhagen, so, yes, yes, yes and fuck you, Mr Hildacki from junior high who said I'd never amount to anything, fuck-you-very-very-much.
*
It's his afternoon off, a Spring day ending in y, when Nancy arrives in cowboy boots and a leather jacket. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail perfect for grabbing, her makeup's a few layers less than skank, and there's backpack on her shoulder. She looks pretty and younger and utterly fuckable, so Andy's not too surprised to find that he's half-hard when he gets past the lightning-strike-what-the-fuckery that is seeing her at his door and steps back to let her into the apartment.
"Mistrial," she says, standing in their mini-hallway. She shrugs. "I'm free."
Closing the door, Andy locks it and backs himself up against the wood for a second before remembering that this is his apartment, his life. Pushing away, he walks around her and into the kitchen. "You want something to drink?"
"Sure."
He raids the fridge and passes her a beer. "Don't they have to sequel the whole court thing when they fuck up?"
"I'm thinking they're now more concerned with me skipping on bail." She makes with sudden jazz hands, quirking an odd smile. "Whoops?"
"At least tell me you covered your ass as it left the slingshot," he says, flicking his bottle top into Shane's coffee cup from this morning and scoring.
"Analise White, nice to meet you. Andy --" Her knuckles turn white around the beer bottle. "I just came to say, you know, thanks? And hi? And -- fuck it, Andy, I need the money."
"Money?"
"Warren's money."
"Oh," says Andy slowly, leaning against the sink. "Warren's money." He pulls on his beer. "It's gone."
He's expecting her to snap, to throw the beer bottle and kick his fridge and curse, maybe pull a knife, because she is Nancy, Queen of the Unexpected PMT, but.
Her face freezes.
"Weed's pretty good around here already, though," Andy says into the silence, not sure if he's trying to make her feel better or worse or whatever, because, fuck, he's never seen her this still, not ever, and, "not MILF good, obviously, but okay, you know, for Danish kiff and all. I don't know that you'd be able to easily buy into the marke--"
"Stevie's gone," she says softly, and Andy thinks, oh. "Stolen. I was going to use --"
From the bedroom, Sig shouts, "up! Ig up!"
"Yeah," says Andy, scratching his chin, "about that."
*
"You're different," he says, watching her watch Sig play with his trucks and shit. "You high?"
She throws him a baffled look. "Excuse me?"
"Doped? Flying? Potted? Tripping? What is it -- hash? Edibles? You don't smell like --"
"I'm not UI," she says, moving up to slouch beside him. Her hair drapes against the arm he has resting along the back of the couch. "I'm just --" She waves a hand.
Mellow. Calm. Peaceful. "I thought jail was supposed to harden criminals, not turn you into Saintly Sister Serenity."
Her head lolls on his arm until she can look up at him. "Esteban's dead."
"Now I'm a Saintly Sister, shit." Not even bothering to hide his joy at that little burst of sunshiney goodness, Andy presses a kiss to the top of her head all quick-like. "You?"
She huffs, "no," like she's offended but she's smiling too, so, "rival cartel," and, sure, that could still mean her, but he's good with the fifteenth chances these days, so.
"We should send flowers. Chocolates. Perfume, maybe? I don't know -- what's on a cartel 'thank you' registry these days?"
"Not funny, Andy," she says but she says it still with the smiling and she's shifting a little closer like they're regular ol' snuggle-buddies.
Andy drops his arm around her shoulder and tugs her in against his side proper. "Sure it is."
*
"Thank you," she says again later, this time like she really, honestly, truly means it. "I mean it. I'm proud of you."
Lounging against his doorjamb, Andy watches her take her shirt off and unfasten her bra. "You'll have to get a job -- something that won't get us deported -- and help, I don't know, clean the kitchen and shit."
"I can do that." She runs her palm over her old clothes, all folded and neat in his dresser.
"And no giving the boys grief about their life choices or whatever -- Shane's over a third into earning door privileges, and Silas is gonna make some Dane a wonderful house-husband pretty soon if his dick doesn't rot off first from all the vanilla in his diet."
"Okay," she says, abandoning the dresser and walking over to him all topless and beautiful and naked breasty.
"And, uh, me, okay? No --" Her hand takes a hold of the door handle and he feels his boner wilt a little. Same old shitty story, he thinks depressively as he tenses for the door slam in his face, all cock-tease and no fuck. He sighs. "I'll get you some cucumbers next time I shop."
Her other hand catches the collar of his t-shirt, yanking him into the room, into her kiss. "Don't."
*
There's tears when Silas and Shane find out she's back and, okay, Andy's no expert on emo-shit but he's just gonna label them happy tears and keep dreaming the dream for as long as the bubble stays unburst, alright?
(He may do a naked happy dance a couple times the first week. Maybe.)
*
Andy's watching Sunday morning Dutch-smurf cartoons with Sig and sexting Nancy while she's at work (and, okay, maybe he's thinking about having a crack in the bathroom next commercial break but, come on, she just sent him a picture proving she's not wearing any underwear -- what other response to that is there?) when Sig crawls over to the couch and hauls himself up on two wobbly knock-kneed little legs, blocking his view of the flatscreen.
"Dada," Sig says, smearing his Pop Tart covered nose on Andy's forearm. "Dada, guh?"
"Yeah," says Andy, hauling him up so Sig can sprawl across his chest, his baby-hair tickling Andy's chin and his little sugary digits fisting in his t-shirt, "Dada guhs you too, kid."
*
Copenhagen, he thinks every now and then, just because. Population -- Botwins for the fucking win.
* * * * *
The End.
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