Gamefic: Ten Things About Jerry Harrington, As Seen By Samuel Taylor.
Title: Ten Things About Jerry Harrington, As Seen By Samuel Taylor.
Rating: R.
Fandom: Covenant/Healy Compound.
Synopsis: Ten things about Jerry that are also things about Sam, in their own way. Sexual references, some very explicit, Jerry/Sam. Written because I was challenged to do so by someone who thought I wouldn't do it. So nyah.
***
1. She still doesn't sleep through the nights, most of the time; not all the way through, anyway. Maybe she never will. She thinks he doesn't notice, because she thinks she's got it under control, but she's never realized that there are some things you don't get to control -- she thinks she can make the world behave itself according to the rules, if she just orders it sternly enough and refuses to back down. He's not sure she could survive learning that this last, foundational belief was wrong, and so he just holds her closer when she cries in the middle of the night, and doesn't tell her about it in the morning.
2. He fell in love with her about two weeks after he kissed her for the first time, which was sooner than he expected to, especially since he hadn't been expecting to fall in love with her at all. But he realized he could fall in love with her on the afternoon where she took him to task in the bookstore, scolding him for following them home as if he had a right to be there. No one else had bothered to acknowledge that he wasn't some guy named Gary who happened to be a friend of a friend of the family. Not until Jerry. That was when she stopped being an interesting thing to poke with sticks, and started being a person. Even if she'd been an interesting thing with a great rack, before.
3. Sam had a girlfriend before Jerry, and she was great, she was fun to talk to and pretty enough to take to games and movies and stuff, and she didn't carry stakes and holy water in her purse, or scatter caltrops on her bedroom floor, or rig traps every night before she went to bed. She was a really neat girl, and he liked her a lot, even if he never quite loved her. He thinks about her sometimes, usually when Jerry's trying to disinfect her own wounds before getting Eddie to stitch her up, and he wonders how he ever thought she'd be enough.
4. Everyone knows she’s smart, but no one but him realizes just how smart she really is. Him, and maybe Kim. Only maybe not, because Kim's still a Healy, and Healys are, like, bred not to appreciate Watcher-smart. Jerry's Watcher-smart, she's trained to analyze and study situations before she engages. Maybe that means she's not as brave as the other girls. Maybe it means she'll live longer. He hopes so.
5. The first time they had sex was in the rafters of Shawn Hunter's warehouse, which is probably a lousy place to lose your virginity, but since Jerry didn't complain, he's never bothered bringing it up. They both thought they were going to die in the raid on Wolfram and Hart. That whole 'true love means being willing to wait' thing his health teacher'd tried to push during fourth period really didn't seem so important in the light of, y'know. Apocalypse. Apocalypse beats potentially disappointing your health teacher any day of the week.
6. Sometimes he still finds Jerry sleeping on the chair across the hall from the room Eddie's sharing with Carmen, a book pressed open against her chest, chin dipped down until it touches the space above her breastbone. She sleeps like a cat when she does that, all raw nerves and twitching. He thinks he knows what she's dreaming, on the nights she sleeps with an eye on her brother's room. That's why he never wakes her.
7. He's been reading the Watcher Diaries lately, the ones the Healys keep in the library, the ones with 'wanker' and 'no wonder the Grathnar beast ate you' written in the margins in the handwriting of a dozen generations. He hasn't started taking notes or anything, but some things are pretty hard to miss. Like the average life-expectancy of Slayers. Like how many of them just go off to fight something horrible, and then never find their way back home. Like how few of them even survive to that stupid ritual where the Council takes their powers away to 'test' them into an early grave. He isn't taking notes, but he's taking note, and he doesn't let Jerry fight alone. Not when he can help it, anyway.
8. Jerry's going to die messy, she's going to die violent, and she's going to die because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knew that when he signed up for this gig, and he's still not sorry. It's the part where she's probably also going to die young that bugs him, when he lets it, and so he doesn't let it. It's worth it. And as long as they keep telling each other that, maybe it'll stay true.
9. They go out to the cornfield almost every weekend in the summer, when the corn is high and the crickets sing like broken violins, and there's room between the rows for two people to chase each other, laughing, and to catch each other, and to make love in beds of broken cornstalks, with the clumps of plowed-up dirt digging into their backs and sides. Jerry sleeps on the cornfield nights, curled up against him, breathing easy, because on the cornfield nights, it's all a game. Teasing the killer in the hockey mask who never comes, running through a horror movie, begging to be scared. She sleeps on those nights, and because she does, so does he. Those are his favorite times. The ones that only happen in the cornfield.
10. Eddie thinks she's too young to get married, and his mom thinks the same thing about them, but Sam knows they're both wrong, because this is...this is it. This is the way things are supposed to be. Maybe she'll die tomorrow and maybe she'll live for twenty years, maybe he'll die with her and maybe he'll live to love somebody else, somebody without a Calling to widow him again, but right here, right now, this is it. They don't have time to waste, because all their time got wasted for them. He wonders, sometimes, if he should be guilty that he's glad she got Called. If she hadn't been, he might still be hiding from the normal girls, pretending to be human. Would he miss her, if she'd never been a part of his life? He doesn't know.
What matters is that Jerry loves him. He knows that much; he knows enough.
Rating: R.
Fandom: Covenant/Healy Compound.
Synopsis: Ten things about Jerry that are also things about Sam, in their own way. Sexual references, some very explicit, Jerry/Sam. Written because I was challenged to do so by someone who thought I wouldn't do it. So nyah.
***
1. She still doesn't sleep through the nights, most of the time; not all the way through, anyway. Maybe she never will. She thinks he doesn't notice, because she thinks she's got it under control, but she's never realized that there are some things you don't get to control -- she thinks she can make the world behave itself according to the rules, if she just orders it sternly enough and refuses to back down. He's not sure she could survive learning that this last, foundational belief was wrong, and so he just holds her closer when she cries in the middle of the night, and doesn't tell her about it in the morning.
2. He fell in love with her about two weeks after he kissed her for the first time, which was sooner than he expected to, especially since he hadn't been expecting to fall in love with her at all. But he realized he could fall in love with her on the afternoon where she took him to task in the bookstore, scolding him for following them home as if he had a right to be there. No one else had bothered to acknowledge that he wasn't some guy named Gary who happened to be a friend of a friend of the family. Not until Jerry. That was when she stopped being an interesting thing to poke with sticks, and started being a person. Even if she'd been an interesting thing with a great rack, before.
3. Sam had a girlfriend before Jerry, and she was great, she was fun to talk to and pretty enough to take to games and movies and stuff, and she didn't carry stakes and holy water in her purse, or scatter caltrops on her bedroom floor, or rig traps every night before she went to bed. She was a really neat girl, and he liked her a lot, even if he never quite loved her. He thinks about her sometimes, usually when Jerry's trying to disinfect her own wounds before getting Eddie to stitch her up, and he wonders how he ever thought she'd be enough.
4. Everyone knows she’s smart, but no one but him realizes just how smart she really is. Him, and maybe Kim. Only maybe not, because Kim's still a Healy, and Healys are, like, bred not to appreciate Watcher-smart. Jerry's Watcher-smart, she's trained to analyze and study situations before she engages. Maybe that means she's not as brave as the other girls. Maybe it means she'll live longer. He hopes so.
5. The first time they had sex was in the rafters of Shawn Hunter's warehouse, which is probably a lousy place to lose your virginity, but since Jerry didn't complain, he's never bothered bringing it up. They both thought they were going to die in the raid on Wolfram and Hart. That whole 'true love means being willing to wait' thing his health teacher'd tried to push during fourth period really didn't seem so important in the light of, y'know. Apocalypse. Apocalypse beats potentially disappointing your health teacher any day of the week.
6. Sometimes he still finds Jerry sleeping on the chair across the hall from the room Eddie's sharing with Carmen, a book pressed open against her chest, chin dipped down until it touches the space above her breastbone. She sleeps like a cat when she does that, all raw nerves and twitching. He thinks he knows what she's dreaming, on the nights she sleeps with an eye on her brother's room. That's why he never wakes her.
7. He's been reading the Watcher Diaries lately, the ones the Healys keep in the library, the ones with 'wanker' and 'no wonder the Grathnar beast ate you' written in the margins in the handwriting of a dozen generations. He hasn't started taking notes or anything, but some things are pretty hard to miss. Like the average life-expectancy of Slayers. Like how many of them just go off to fight something horrible, and then never find their way back home. Like how few of them even survive to that stupid ritual where the Council takes their powers away to 'test' them into an early grave. He isn't taking notes, but he's taking note, and he doesn't let Jerry fight alone. Not when he can help it, anyway.
8. Jerry's going to die messy, she's going to die violent, and she's going to die because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knew that when he signed up for this gig, and he's still not sorry. It's the part where she's probably also going to die young that bugs him, when he lets it, and so he doesn't let it. It's worth it. And as long as they keep telling each other that, maybe it'll stay true.
9. They go out to the cornfield almost every weekend in the summer, when the corn is high and the crickets sing like broken violins, and there's room between the rows for two people to chase each other, laughing, and to catch each other, and to make love in beds of broken cornstalks, with the clumps of plowed-up dirt digging into their backs and sides. Jerry sleeps on the cornfield nights, curled up against him, breathing easy, because on the cornfield nights, it's all a game. Teasing the killer in the hockey mask who never comes, running through a horror movie, begging to be scared. She sleeps on those nights, and because she does, so does he. Those are his favorite times. The ones that only happen in the cornfield.
10. Eddie thinks she's too young to get married, and his mom thinks the same thing about them, but Sam knows they're both wrong, because this is...this is it. This is the way things are supposed to be. Maybe she'll die tomorrow and maybe she'll live for twenty years, maybe he'll die with her and maybe he'll live to love somebody else, somebody without a Calling to widow him again, but right here, right now, this is it. They don't have time to waste, because all their time got wasted for them. He wonders, sometimes, if he should be guilty that he's glad she got Called. If she hadn't been, he might still be hiding from the normal girls, pretending to be human. Would he miss her, if she'd never been a part of his life? He doesn't know.
What matters is that Jerry loves him. He knows that much; he knows enough.