grown like the quickening hues (pg, olivia/lincoln--the alternates)
title: grown like the quickening hues
characters/pairing: alt!lincoln and alt!livia (so, basically it's straight up red-verse)
rating: pg
notes: this was written in between studying for my last exam and typing out an unnecessarily wordy and lengthy legal document, so you know, it has that going for it. and the title is stolen from bon iver, 'cause i'm hip like that.
summary: au, domestic fluff/schmoop with olivia, lincoln, and henry. (honestly, i just really wanted to write something where lincoln cuts olivia's hair. no joke.)
Absolutely beautiful banner made by monanotlisa
A few days after you bring Henry home from the hospital, you cut your hair.
You stand in front of the mirror in your bathroom and you cut your hair using a pair of scissors that you find in the same drawer where you keep the steak knives. The cut is messy and uneven, and pieces of hair stick to the sink and the floor and your shoulders, all in thick and wet clumps.
You turn on the taps, let the water take care of what’s in the sink, and as you grab a towel to clean up the rest, you see yourself. You look different. You don’t look like you anymore.
(And you tell yourself that you never looked like her.)
Your face is framed by a neat and straight line of bangs across your forehead and the rest is an untidy mess that limply hangs below your chin. You touch your fingers to the ends and think, it’ll grow back.
You spend the rest of the night absently reaching for what isn’t there.
And fuck if that isn’t a metaphor for like, your entire life.
Lincoln smiles when he sees you, moves his fingers through the choppy ends of the cut as he says, Don’t worry, Liv. We can fix this.
I like it, you tell him, arms crossed and chin out.
He holds his hand to the side of your face, his thumb pressed to a small spot somewhere in between the bridge of your nose and the sharp start of your cheekbone. You feel a familiar sort of burn spread through your chest and you lean into the touch, put your fingers on top of his. You stay like that for a moment, the two of you in the narrow hallway of your apartment, hands pressed together.
I wasn’t talking about your hair, he says.
You nod, shrug and slowly lift his hand from your cheek. You wrap your fingers over his knuckles, stare down at the soft hair that sits on his arm and disappears at the start of his sleeve.
Yeah, you say. Yeah, I know.
But we should probably fix that too, he says. ‘Cause it looks like hell.
He laughs a little, all boyish and charming. And you narrow your eyes and drop his hand, pretending to be mad as you knock a loosely curled fist into his shoulder.
He feigns hurt, grips at the supposed sore spot through his jacket and says, Hey, violence. Not cool, Liv.
You make a face, and coo, aww, muffin, your voice sweet and clear and mocking, and Lincoln smiles brightly back at you.
Your heart starts to slam a little harder against your ribs as you realize how much you’ve missed this. You’ve missed him and you’ve missed how he looks at you when he thinks that you’re not looking back and you’ve missed who you are with him.
(And with him, you were never her.)
You sit on the edge of the bathtub with your hands on your knees and a towel on your shoulders. Lincoln holds the back of your head with one warm and heavy hand and you can hear the sharp snip snip snip as he works the scissors open and closed with the other.
Chin up, he instructs, like he’s done this before.
You lift your head, obedient, but smirking, and hear the same snip snip snip.
When he’s finished, he kneels down in front of you and gently pulls on the ends of your hair, tugging the smooth strands between his fingers, checking to make sure that everything is even.
There, he says, lightly sweeping his fingers over your nose and lips and chin, brushing away stray bits of hair. Perfect.
Lincoln falls asleep in your bed.
He falls asleep in your bed with his arm heavy across your stomach, his nose to your neck, and one leg stretched out over yours, so you’re hooked together at the ankle.
Your keep the television on, with the sound off, as you feed Henry, and your small bedroom is filled with the soft sound of Henry (who is pressed to your chest) suckling and the less-soft sound of Lincoln snoring.
You keep a steady hand on Henry’s back, fingers tracing the soft line of his small shoulders. You lift your other hand to move the hair off of your neck (and your fingers touch skin, and you think, it’ll grow back), stopping when your knuckles bump against Lincoln’s cheek.
And he sighs, Liv.
You smile. This is who you are. With Henry and Lincoln (and repeats of Liv, Liv, Liv), you’re you.
characters/pairing: alt!lincoln and alt!livia (so, basically it's straight up red-verse)
rating: pg
notes: this was written in between studying for my last exam and typing out an unnecessarily wordy and lengthy legal document, so you know, it has that going for it. and the title is stolen from bon iver, 'cause i'm hip like that.
summary: au, domestic fluff/schmoop with olivia, lincoln, and henry. (honestly, i just really wanted to write something where lincoln cuts olivia's hair. no joke.)
Absolutely beautiful banner made by monanotlisa
A few days after you bring Henry home from the hospital, you cut your hair.
You stand in front of the mirror in your bathroom and you cut your hair using a pair of scissors that you find in the same drawer where you keep the steak knives. The cut is messy and uneven, and pieces of hair stick to the sink and the floor and your shoulders, all in thick and wet clumps.
You turn on the taps, let the water take care of what’s in the sink, and as you grab a towel to clean up the rest, you see yourself. You look different. You don’t look like you anymore.
(And you tell yourself that you never looked like her.)
Your face is framed by a neat and straight line of bangs across your forehead and the rest is an untidy mess that limply hangs below your chin. You touch your fingers to the ends and think, it’ll grow back.
You spend the rest of the night absently reaching for what isn’t there.
And fuck if that isn’t a metaphor for like, your entire life.
Lincoln smiles when he sees you, moves his fingers through the choppy ends of the cut as he says, Don’t worry, Liv. We can fix this.
I like it, you tell him, arms crossed and chin out.
He holds his hand to the side of your face, his thumb pressed to a small spot somewhere in between the bridge of your nose and the sharp start of your cheekbone. You feel a familiar sort of burn spread through your chest and you lean into the touch, put your fingers on top of his. You stay like that for a moment, the two of you in the narrow hallway of your apartment, hands pressed together.
I wasn’t talking about your hair, he says.
You nod, shrug and slowly lift his hand from your cheek. You wrap your fingers over his knuckles, stare down at the soft hair that sits on his arm and disappears at the start of his sleeve.
Yeah, you say. Yeah, I know.
But we should probably fix that too, he says. ‘Cause it looks like hell.
He laughs a little, all boyish and charming. And you narrow your eyes and drop his hand, pretending to be mad as you knock a loosely curled fist into his shoulder.
He feigns hurt, grips at the supposed sore spot through his jacket and says, Hey, violence. Not cool, Liv.
You make a face, and coo, aww, muffin, your voice sweet and clear and mocking, and Lincoln smiles brightly back at you.
Your heart starts to slam a little harder against your ribs as you realize how much you’ve missed this. You’ve missed him and you’ve missed how he looks at you when he thinks that you’re not looking back and you’ve missed who you are with him.
(And with him, you were never her.)
You sit on the edge of the bathtub with your hands on your knees and a towel on your shoulders. Lincoln holds the back of your head with one warm and heavy hand and you can hear the sharp snip snip snip as he works the scissors open and closed with the other.
Chin up, he instructs, like he’s done this before.
You lift your head, obedient, but smirking, and hear the same snip snip snip.
When he’s finished, he kneels down in front of you and gently pulls on the ends of your hair, tugging the smooth strands between his fingers, checking to make sure that everything is even.
There, he says, lightly sweeping his fingers over your nose and lips and chin, brushing away stray bits of hair. Perfect.
Lincoln falls asleep in your bed.
He falls asleep in your bed with his arm heavy across your stomach, his nose to your neck, and one leg stretched out over yours, so you’re hooked together at the ankle.
Your keep the television on, with the sound off, as you feed Henry, and your small bedroom is filled with the soft sound of Henry (who is pressed to your chest) suckling and the less-soft sound of Lincoln snoring.
You keep a steady hand on Henry’s back, fingers tracing the soft line of his small shoulders. You lift your other hand to move the hair off of your neck (and your fingers touch skin, and you think, it’ll grow back), stopping when your knuckles bump against Lincoln’s cheek.
And he sighs, Liv.
You smile. This is who you are. With Henry and Lincoln (and repeats of Liv, Liv, Liv), you’re you.