Chase Fic: a stranger says
It's late, it's late, but I'm catching up and I'm pretty sure I've enough coffee to keep an entire army awake and am probably hacking my lungs out all over my computer too. Plus it's my second to last night home. :( But anyways! Christmas! Advent Calendar! I'm getting through. This, anyways, is for surreallis who, like me, is one of the three fans of this show. Merry, happy, and lovely holidays, J! ♥
a stranger says
chase ; annie, daisy (annie/jimmy) ; 2,051 words, pg
there is always work at home. boundaries are not laws in motion. spoilers for under the radar.
-
Daisy finishes her beer.
“You know, I don’t get it,” she says finally. “You and Jimmy, if anything, I’d think it would just be you and Jimmy, inside and outside the office. There’s no way anyone can be that good and be platonic.”
Annie scoffs. Daisy grins, and offers her the last beer; Annie passes. They’re standing outside the nail place, watching the manager as she locks up. Lights float on and off inside by the window.
“Where’s the question, Daisy?” she asks anyways. She’s humoring the other woman, still likes the fact that she can come out and it’s not necessarily about the other twenty-two hours of her life, the fast pace thrill that makes her half a junkie, half an excellent Marshall.
“Or,” Annie adds, “is this about me giving my blessing to you an’ Jimmy - ‘cause honestly, I think you’d eat him alive and Jimmy, well, Jimmy’s back with that other lady, the one that’s thinkin’ about taking him home to her mother and makin’ him wear some kind of suit.”
Daisy laughs, and it’s jimmy and suit, and the two of them are just two women talking about that kind of guy; it feels a little odd and Annie’s facing that warm kind of uncertainty that comes with Jimmy and territory and everything in between.
“Jimmy’s an ass,” Daisy says affectionately.
“Yeah,” Annie says. “Yeah.”
Truth and a lie; there’s always more to this.
Home is kind of this thing that Annie doesn’t like to talk about, but after Daisy drops her off, she buries her fingers in 59’s fur as he makes a soft, tired sound in her bed.
“I know, I know,” she sighs, and drops back, her eyes closing. The beer’s swelling in her head and she lets herself sink into the bed. This was nice, she thinks and leaves it at that. It’s just kind of that thing, she decides.
Next to the bed, her cell phone starts to ring. She groans, throwing her hand over the night table and grabbing it. The phone snaps, falling into the bed, and 59 shudders to sit up.
“Damn it,” she mutters. Annie groans and slides her phone to her ear. “What?” she asks, “It’s late.”
Jimmy’s laugh is low. “You didn’t think, huh?”
She glances at the clock on the table too. 59 jumps from the bed and onto the floor, stretching out in front of her.
“You’re the only on that calls this late, you know. And it’s usually ‘cause you’ve gone and screwed up monumentally with that poor, sweet girl of yours. Let me guess - you said no boat, not unless there’s some sort of fishing reel involved?”
“Not exactly,” Jimmy says. “I merely said I’d prefer some kind of cabin, a romantic lowlight, and a nice piece of fish.”
“Same thing,” she retorts.
“She didn’t take it well.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Annie mutters, and over it, Jimmy’s laughing again, anyway, like he’s trying to forget. She imagines he’s a few beers in and that steak, the one that he always buys early in the week, just in case, is already on the stove because it’s too damn cold outside for any sort of grilling that he likes to do. Jimmy’s always been a particular case.
“Catch you at a bad time?”
Annie blinks. In the back of her head, she sees herself with Daisy and the truck, laughing about a few different things.
“Always,” she says dryly.
“Apologies,” he teases. “Seems I’m knocking it out of the park today, with all the ladies in my life.”
Annie rolls her eyes. 59 looks up at her and cocks his head to the side. She flashes an amused smile and her dog turns and marches himself out to his food. She’s moved it by the door, closer for him to get out; the last time’s still fresh in her head, with McGraw waltzing into her apartment. These days it’s a second habit, taking more precautions.
“Annie?”
“Sorry.”
Jimmy curses over the line. There’s a clatter and she chuckles, rubbing her eyes. Her hand gropes blindly for a few blankets
“Is it that time yet?” she asks, and Jimmy’s particularly quiet, heavy-handed and she’s already guessing what’s coming next. They’ve got that kind of history, it seems, more or less about the right kind of words and more or less about the things neither of them say.
“What?” Jimmy says, and he’s feigning innocence. Her mouth twitches. “It’s late, you know, for me coming over and all.”
“Burned your steak,” she guesses.
“Nah, it’s just not the same - steak’s different on the grill, different taste and with a mighty fine beer, it’s whole new game. I can tell, you’re already thinking about havin’ some.”
“Uh-huh.”
She can see him grinning. Jimmy’s place is only a few miles away, a right turn here and another left past a set of old shops. He’s got too many cowboy posters, a few odd Western films and a pair of boots that just kinda hang around, like an homage or something.
“Fine,” Annie says. She shakes her head. “Let yourself in.”
Jimmy’s laugh is always easy.
There can’t be anyone else. Annie’s life is too selective, a roundabout way of confessing to Daddy issues and then some more. Jimmy’s the closest to stability, the most she’s had in a real long time - everybody’s been thinking it’s either him or Ben. She’d eat both of them alive anyway.
The door to her apartment opens. She tenses for a moment.
“Annie!”
“Don’t make a goddamn mess in my kitchen!” she yells back, after the door slams shut; 59 wasn’t barking and she can only assume. Her gun’s under her pillow and it’s just that easy.
But Jimmy doesn’t answer and when she looks from the bed, he’s standing at the doorframe, leaning against it. It’s like he belongs there, all of the sudden, and her mouth twitches with amusement.
“Not cooking,” she guesses.
“Left the beer in the kitchen,” he says. “Didn’t know if we were opening anything tonight. Unless you got some impending plan.”
She laughs. “Me?”
“You,” he says.
Jimmy moves into the room and then to the bed, sitting by her hip. The bed sinks with his weight and he leans back, just lightly against her legs. His hands stretch out and she catches them, tossing her arm over her eyes. Clear your head, she tells herself.
“No plan,” she murmurs. “Took Daisy drinking. It was nice, you know. Drinking with someone who’s not all about his love problems, problems that -” she pauses, teasing him. She’s grinning from underneath her arm. “Problems that aren’t really problems, if you had half a brain and stopped being a man that thinks with his -”
“Got it, got it, got it,” Jimmy interrupts. “S’not why I’m here,” he says.
“Then?”
Annie pulls her arm away from her face. She shifts and the blankets bunch against her legs. There’s a loud yawn and it’s 59, Jimmy turning quickly to catch him too. They both laugh.
Jimmy’s hand hits her leg. “Dunno,” he tells her. “Had to come and see you, I guess. We’ve real good as of late and I suppose I wanted to come and ride the momentum.”
Annie groans. She smacks his arm and then reaches for her phone. She picks it up and off the night table again, pretending to check it and then tosses it back into the blankets.
“Don’t wanna talk about my daddy, Jimmy.”
“You and your boots,” he says, and doesn’t really finish his thought; Jimmy knows the story. It was a drunken confession, one of the many few, when it was just him and her, at the bar with a little bit of the Stones covering a good, old fashioned country bar.
“Really know how to get at a girl,” she mutters.
“Was thinking about it.” Somewhere in there, she thinks, he’s giving her an apology. But Jimmy continues, like it’s nothing. “You and your dad, me and my daddy, all these damn secrets, you know? You’re not the only one, Boots. It’s the only thing that comes out of drinking all day.”
“Sure you wanna have this conversation with me?” she asks quietly.
He looks down at her, his eyes half-closed in a lazy expression. The corners of his mouth are turned just a little and there’s some kind of affectionate smile in there, for her.
His hand brushes over her hip too and it’s Jimmy, she thinks, just Jimmy as his fingers spread over her t-shirt. She swallows then. The taste of beer is there, stuck to the roof her mouth. She looks back at him too, and there’s no part of her, not one that seems to know how to look away. Her fingers curl next to her in the sheets, half-picking, half-nerves, and a part of wishes for 59 to come marching right in.
“We ever gonna talk?” Jimmy asks then. His hand stays steady against her hip and he twists, pulling up his leg over the bed. He bows over her too. “You know,” he murmurs. “You and me talk.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she says carefully.
“You sure?”
It’s such a simple question. The two of them, they’ve been here before, or have done some kind of two step around it. It’s the sort of thing, they’re used to and Annie is about keeping things, people, and places in particular grooves. Jimmy has to be the easiest.
“Real sure,” she murmurs. “Real -” She’s cut short. 59’s back on the bed again, surprising her. Both she and Jimmy jump and the moment, whatever that was, fades away from a start. Her dog nuzzles her leg.
Jimmy gives her a smile then; it’s not altogether there, but it’s a smile and some kind of pass. So Annie lets it be.
(Jimmy stays the night, you know. It’s the kind of thing that neither of them are able to real share, not that the others would care; Annie always imagined them to be sittin’ around, laughing and with a few told yous tossed in for good measure. But Jimmy doesn’t take the couch, ‘cause Jimmy’s not that kind of gentleman and 59’s somewhere at their feet. It’s Annie that sleeps on her stomach and Jimmy stays at his back; if you catch them, if you really catch them, you might get a slip:
Annie always sleeps closes enough.)
They are always the first ones in and if they’re late, it’s not a strange thing to see Jimmy and Annie walking in together. But it’s Daisy that brings her coffee in the morning, a warm smile waiting for her at her desk.
“Figured you’d need it,” she says too; Jimmy passes behind Annie wearing some kind of smile that makes Daisy roll her eyes. “Beer has that affect on me too, you see.”
Annie laughs, shaking her head. She drops to her desk. There are a few files and she takes the coffee from Daisy gratefully.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
“No problem.”
They’re quiet too and suddenly, the offices a flurry of morning rush. Some people drag in; her team decides to come on in with Annie’s kind of fever, an understanding that whatever day it is, it’s all gotta get done. But Daisy looks down at her and Annie leans back in her chair, boots hitting the odd corner of her desk.
She catches the boys too, cluttering around the other corner; there’s a burst of laughter, Jimmy’s roar and the other two and their amusement.
“Boys,” she mutters. She tries not to give it too much thought and puts her coffee down on her desk. “Somehow, they go and try to be the same.”
“Speaking from experience?” Daisy asks, and Annie can feel the look, her eyes and then the guys as they turn to her too. Jimmy’s smile is there, but it’s nothing more than habit and for a moment, she considers trying to walk into it for once.
Daisy pulls back from her desk though. The other woman doesn’t follow through and it’s not something she’s interested in opening right here. When Annie stands, her hand goes to her hip.
She checks her gun. “Only if I let it be,” she says.
a stranger says
chase ; annie, daisy (annie/jimmy) ; 2,051 words, pg
there is always work at home. boundaries are not laws in motion. spoilers for under the radar.
-
Daisy finishes her beer.
“You know, I don’t get it,” she says finally. “You and Jimmy, if anything, I’d think it would just be you and Jimmy, inside and outside the office. There’s no way anyone can be that good and be platonic.”
Annie scoffs. Daisy grins, and offers her the last beer; Annie passes. They’re standing outside the nail place, watching the manager as she locks up. Lights float on and off inside by the window.
“Where’s the question, Daisy?” she asks anyways. She’s humoring the other woman, still likes the fact that she can come out and it’s not necessarily about the other twenty-two hours of her life, the fast pace thrill that makes her half a junkie, half an excellent Marshall.
“Or,” Annie adds, “is this about me giving my blessing to you an’ Jimmy - ‘cause honestly, I think you’d eat him alive and Jimmy, well, Jimmy’s back with that other lady, the one that’s thinkin’ about taking him home to her mother and makin’ him wear some kind of suit.”
Daisy laughs, and it’s jimmy and suit, and the two of them are just two women talking about that kind of guy; it feels a little odd and Annie’s facing that warm kind of uncertainty that comes with Jimmy and territory and everything in between.
“Jimmy’s an ass,” Daisy says affectionately.
“Yeah,” Annie says. “Yeah.”
Truth and a lie; there’s always more to this.
Home is kind of this thing that Annie doesn’t like to talk about, but after Daisy drops her off, she buries her fingers in 59’s fur as he makes a soft, tired sound in her bed.
“I know, I know,” she sighs, and drops back, her eyes closing. The beer’s swelling in her head and she lets herself sink into the bed. This was nice, she thinks and leaves it at that. It’s just kind of that thing, she decides.
Next to the bed, her cell phone starts to ring. She groans, throwing her hand over the night table and grabbing it. The phone snaps, falling into the bed, and 59 shudders to sit up.
“Damn it,” she mutters. Annie groans and slides her phone to her ear. “What?” she asks, “It’s late.”
Jimmy’s laugh is low. “You didn’t think, huh?”
She glances at the clock on the table too. 59 jumps from the bed and onto the floor, stretching out in front of her.
“You’re the only on that calls this late, you know. And it’s usually ‘cause you’ve gone and screwed up monumentally with that poor, sweet girl of yours. Let me guess - you said no boat, not unless there’s some sort of fishing reel involved?”
“Not exactly,” Jimmy says. “I merely said I’d prefer some kind of cabin, a romantic lowlight, and a nice piece of fish.”
“Same thing,” she retorts.
“She didn’t take it well.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Annie mutters, and over it, Jimmy’s laughing again, anyway, like he’s trying to forget. She imagines he’s a few beers in and that steak, the one that he always buys early in the week, just in case, is already on the stove because it’s too damn cold outside for any sort of grilling that he likes to do. Jimmy’s always been a particular case.
“Catch you at a bad time?”
Annie blinks. In the back of her head, she sees herself with Daisy and the truck, laughing about a few different things.
“Always,” she says dryly.
“Apologies,” he teases. “Seems I’m knocking it out of the park today, with all the ladies in my life.”
Annie rolls her eyes. 59 looks up at her and cocks his head to the side. She flashes an amused smile and her dog turns and marches himself out to his food. She’s moved it by the door, closer for him to get out; the last time’s still fresh in her head, with McGraw waltzing into her apartment. These days it’s a second habit, taking more precautions.
“Annie?”
“Sorry.”
Jimmy curses over the line. There’s a clatter and she chuckles, rubbing her eyes. Her hand gropes blindly for a few blankets
“Is it that time yet?” she asks, and Jimmy’s particularly quiet, heavy-handed and she’s already guessing what’s coming next. They’ve got that kind of history, it seems, more or less about the right kind of words and more or less about the things neither of them say.
“What?” Jimmy says, and he’s feigning innocence. Her mouth twitches. “It’s late, you know, for me coming over and all.”
“Burned your steak,” she guesses.
“Nah, it’s just not the same - steak’s different on the grill, different taste and with a mighty fine beer, it’s whole new game. I can tell, you’re already thinking about havin’ some.”
“Uh-huh.”
She can see him grinning. Jimmy’s place is only a few miles away, a right turn here and another left past a set of old shops. He’s got too many cowboy posters, a few odd Western films and a pair of boots that just kinda hang around, like an homage or something.
“Fine,” Annie says. She shakes her head. “Let yourself in.”
Jimmy’s laugh is always easy.
There can’t be anyone else. Annie’s life is too selective, a roundabout way of confessing to Daddy issues and then some more. Jimmy’s the closest to stability, the most she’s had in a real long time - everybody’s been thinking it’s either him or Ben. She’d eat both of them alive anyway.
The door to her apartment opens. She tenses for a moment.
“Annie!”
“Don’t make a goddamn mess in my kitchen!” she yells back, after the door slams shut; 59 wasn’t barking and she can only assume. Her gun’s under her pillow and it’s just that easy.
But Jimmy doesn’t answer and when she looks from the bed, he’s standing at the doorframe, leaning against it. It’s like he belongs there, all of the sudden, and her mouth twitches with amusement.
“Not cooking,” she guesses.
“Left the beer in the kitchen,” he says. “Didn’t know if we were opening anything tonight. Unless you got some impending plan.”
She laughs. “Me?”
“You,” he says.
Jimmy moves into the room and then to the bed, sitting by her hip. The bed sinks with his weight and he leans back, just lightly against her legs. His hands stretch out and she catches them, tossing her arm over her eyes. Clear your head, she tells herself.
“No plan,” she murmurs. “Took Daisy drinking. It was nice, you know. Drinking with someone who’s not all about his love problems, problems that -” she pauses, teasing him. She’s grinning from underneath her arm. “Problems that aren’t really problems, if you had half a brain and stopped being a man that thinks with his -”
“Got it, got it, got it,” Jimmy interrupts. “S’not why I’m here,” he says.
“Then?”
Annie pulls her arm away from her face. She shifts and the blankets bunch against her legs. There’s a loud yawn and it’s 59, Jimmy turning quickly to catch him too. They both laugh.
Jimmy’s hand hits her leg. “Dunno,” he tells her. “Had to come and see you, I guess. We’ve real good as of late and I suppose I wanted to come and ride the momentum.”
Annie groans. She smacks his arm and then reaches for her phone. She picks it up and off the night table again, pretending to check it and then tosses it back into the blankets.
“Don’t wanna talk about my daddy, Jimmy.”
“You and your boots,” he says, and doesn’t really finish his thought; Jimmy knows the story. It was a drunken confession, one of the many few, when it was just him and her, at the bar with a little bit of the Stones covering a good, old fashioned country bar.
“Really know how to get at a girl,” she mutters.
“Was thinking about it.” Somewhere in there, she thinks, he’s giving her an apology. But Jimmy continues, like it’s nothing. “You and your dad, me and my daddy, all these damn secrets, you know? You’re not the only one, Boots. It’s the only thing that comes out of drinking all day.”
“Sure you wanna have this conversation with me?” she asks quietly.
He looks down at her, his eyes half-closed in a lazy expression. The corners of his mouth are turned just a little and there’s some kind of affectionate smile in there, for her.
His hand brushes over her hip too and it’s Jimmy, she thinks, just Jimmy as his fingers spread over her t-shirt. She swallows then. The taste of beer is there, stuck to the roof her mouth. She looks back at him too, and there’s no part of her, not one that seems to know how to look away. Her fingers curl next to her in the sheets, half-picking, half-nerves, and a part of wishes for 59 to come marching right in.
“We ever gonna talk?” Jimmy asks then. His hand stays steady against her hip and he twists, pulling up his leg over the bed. He bows over her too. “You know,” he murmurs. “You and me talk.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she says carefully.
“You sure?”
It’s such a simple question. The two of them, they’ve been here before, or have done some kind of two step around it. It’s the sort of thing, they’re used to and Annie is about keeping things, people, and places in particular grooves. Jimmy has to be the easiest.
“Real sure,” she murmurs. “Real -” She’s cut short. 59’s back on the bed again, surprising her. Both she and Jimmy jump and the moment, whatever that was, fades away from a start. Her dog nuzzles her leg.
Jimmy gives her a smile then; it’s not altogether there, but it’s a smile and some kind of pass. So Annie lets it be.
(Jimmy stays the night, you know. It’s the kind of thing that neither of them are able to real share, not that the others would care; Annie always imagined them to be sittin’ around, laughing and with a few told yous tossed in for good measure. But Jimmy doesn’t take the couch, ‘cause Jimmy’s not that kind of gentleman and 59’s somewhere at their feet. It’s Annie that sleeps on her stomach and Jimmy stays at his back; if you catch them, if you really catch them, you might get a slip:
Annie always sleeps closes enough.)
They are always the first ones in and if they’re late, it’s not a strange thing to see Jimmy and Annie walking in together. But it’s Daisy that brings her coffee in the morning, a warm smile waiting for her at her desk.
“Figured you’d need it,” she says too; Jimmy passes behind Annie wearing some kind of smile that makes Daisy roll her eyes. “Beer has that affect on me too, you see.”
Annie laughs, shaking her head. She drops to her desk. There are a few files and she takes the coffee from Daisy gratefully.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
“No problem.”
They’re quiet too and suddenly, the offices a flurry of morning rush. Some people drag in; her team decides to come on in with Annie’s kind of fever, an understanding that whatever day it is, it’s all gotta get done. But Daisy looks down at her and Annie leans back in her chair, boots hitting the odd corner of her desk.
She catches the boys too, cluttering around the other corner; there’s a burst of laughter, Jimmy’s roar and the other two and their amusement.
“Boys,” she mutters. She tries not to give it too much thought and puts her coffee down on her desk. “Somehow, they go and try to be the same.”
“Speaking from experience?” Daisy asks, and Annie can feel the look, her eyes and then the guys as they turn to her too. Jimmy’s smile is there, but it’s nothing more than habit and for a moment, she considers trying to walk into it for once.
Daisy pulls back from her desk though. The other woman doesn’t follow through and it’s not something she’s interested in opening right here. When Annie stands, her hand goes to her hip.
She checks her gun. “Only if I let it be,” she says.