Not Prime Time Fic #2: "Vorbarra For America." (Olivia Vorbarra/Piotr Vorkosigan) R
Title: Vorbarra For America. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Pairing: Olivia Vorbarra/Piotr Vorkosigan
Rating: R
A/N: For
jenn_calaelen for 2012
not_primetime.
Summary: Olivia's mother is running for president. Let Vorbarra be Vorbarra.
"The military is a parasite," Sonia is saying as Olivia slips into the booth next to her. "It can only destroy. It can't create."
Piotr's looking constipated again, the way he always does when Sonia pins him in place and decides to debate counter-insurgency and military theory with him. It's not as if Piotr isn't willing to talk about COIN doctrine until your ears fall off. It's more that...
"Your sister is a hippie," Piotr complains to Olivia.
Exactly.
Sonia laughs. In the ten minutes that Olivia had been stuck in traffic, Sonia'd somehow managed to draw a peace sign on Piotr's cheek with a black sharpie. It looks good on him. "You're adorable," she tells him. "I can't imagine why Dad hates your guts."
Piotr blushes not at all adorably.
The first time Olivia had brought Piotr home, her father had taken one look at him and started running him through drills. And when he was done, her mother had quizzed him about women's rights and women in combat. Olivia's parents are... unique. When she was younger, she'd worried a lot about their fights, gotten Sonia ready in case the Inevitable Divorce happened when Sonia was still young enough to think it was her fault and not that her parents are just completely incompatible and proof positive that opposites might attract but they'll push each other away eventually. And then Olivia had walked in on her parents in the aftermath of one of those fights and, well, it had been an interesting lesson in conflict management, she'll just call it that. But she stopped worrying about the fights, moving it from 'worrisome' to 'my parents have weird foreplay' in her understanding of the universe.
Which is a different kind of worrisome, because what if something breaks? Other than Olivia's brain, of course. She can do math. She knows she was conceived while her mother was finishing up her PhD and her dad was systematically blowing stuff (read: countries) up and other operations she's not allowed to know about. Mom's thesis was about how conflict can fuck up fair trade, and for a long time, Olivia couldn't hear the word hatesex without twitching.
It did get worse than that. After Olivia was born, Mom started on her endless campaigns and Dad became a rising star in the State Department. Sonia happened somewhere between that whole weapons smuggling agreement (Dad), the most bloodthirsty midterms of all time (Mom), and kindergarten graduation (Olivia). Olivia knows Sonia must have gotten conceived somewhere along the way, but honest to God, she has no idea how her parents managed to find time for it.
Piotr guessed that they joined the Mile High Club, at which point Olivia decided that speculating about her parents' sex life was one thing, but doing it with your boyfriend was probably crossing too many lines and she should stop. But it's not her fault. Her mom's always encouraged her to be open about sexuality and intimacy and everything. Mom had even written the introduction to the copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves that she gave Olivia when she was ten.
Her parents are weird. The rest of her family is worse. Olivia thinks she's pretty well-adjusted, all things considered. Compare her to Sonia if you don't believe her. Sonia is basically a professional activist. And, meanwhile, Olivia's just moved in with her very hot and dangerous boyfriend. She graduated from West Point. She's making casserole for dinner. She's practically a poster child for normal. There is no one more normal than Olivia Vorbarra.
Shut up, Piotr.
"Sonia, there might be cameras," Olivia says. "Can we rain check the horrific tendencies of hard power?"
Sonia looks over her shoulder at the mostly-empty pizza parlor. "Nope," she says. They've all gotten the lectures about how not to destroy Mom's campaign and, to be honest, Olivia's money isn't on Sonia doing it, it's on Alex. He's a ball of incompetence so stunning it's nearly competence. Sonia's just a women's studies major who ran off to join the Peace Corps because she wanted to give everyone a tension headache. Or maybe just Olivia.
The point is, when Sonia and Olivia start arguing, they destroy puny pizza parlors like this one. Civilians should run for cover and probably call in an air assault. Maybe a SWAT team, too. Piotr could be on it. He certainly has the skill set and he's brave enough to get between them. Mom and Dad can get between them, too, but Mom's idea of a good time is being the Majority Whip, and even that wasn't fun enough, so now she's running for President. And Dad used to have Piotr's job, but then he decided that blowing up countries wasn't exciting enough, he was going to earn his grey hairs in six-party talks instead because putting the world back together again is more harrowing than breaking it apart in the first place. And Sonia dodges riot police for fun.
Alex's the only one who's not an adrenaline junkie and Olivia wouldn't even put money on that; he's probably going to take up base jumping or something as soon as he's old enough to sign his own waivers. The West Wing has nothing on Olivia's family's dysfunction.
And even with all that, Piotr's supposed to be the one that's a bad influence. Sure. Yeah, he can be a little intense, Mom, Dad, but that's not a bad thing. Olivia is all about Piotr being intense. Being intense is amazing. Being intense is the best sex she's ever had. There are no complaints about Piotr's intensity. Piotr pursues goals with a single-minded focus and he considers multiple orgasms to be a personal challenge to his ingenuity. Why would she have any complaints?
And there's no reason for Piotr to have any complaints either. Piotr has the kind of elaborate issues that mean, no matter who he might be attracted to, he'll only sleep with people who could kick his ass in a fight, fair or not. And Olivia can completely, demonstrably, kick his ass. It wasn't even foreplay, it was just to prove the point so Piotr would stop stressing out over it. Olivia wasn't there for that elaborate pining over Tesslev, but Piotr's Surprisingly-Well-Adjusted-Ex Ezar had filled her in on all the details. It had been part of the oh-shit-we-have-to-actually-talk-about-this-don't-we prep for that threesome they'll eventually get around to having.
Because Olivia could probably stand to be less secure about these things, but, wow, Ezar and Piotr get into fantastic fights. There's no benefit to being less secure in her sexuality and sexual preferences. Knowing what she wants means she's all that much closer to getting it. Also, it might be possible that stacking the deck to have amazing make-up sex might be genetic. Olivia wouldn't make any bets right now that it's not.
Not that Olivia would tell anyone about this in any of the interviews she keeps having to do about how she's the good, proper daughter; about how she grew up completely normal and well-adjusted even with parents like hers. They've even made her talk about Piotr because of how non-threatening and normal and media-friendly their soldiers-in-love relationship is, which in reality meant that they'd spent a couple days trying to figure out how on earth to spin what actually happened into something not threatening. Olivia's been getting press training since she was five -- someone got into her face at a rally, she bit them, it was completely justified and that's her story and she's sticking to it -- so she knows that no one wants to know about that time with that thing or any of the details, they just want to hear that their first date involved horseback riding. And nothing, nothing else, do you hear me? So they'd come up with an acceptable story and now they all have to remember it. It's annoying.
Her and Piotr's actual love story is probably rated R for sex and violence, and it's definitely not ready for prime time, so Mom's campaign manager will kill her if any of it ever gets onto the internet. Rule number whatever of the campaign: the candidate's wholesome, pure, all-American, etc, children are not permitted to have sex tapes (Olivia, too late), shaky cell phone pictures of underage drinking (Alex, too late), or get arrested (Sonia, years too late).
Because it's not just Mom running for President. It's their entire family. And no one's allowed to forget that or have any fun.
So, fine, okay. There's no one around. Probably. Piotr's got a peace sign on his cheek, Sonia's ring tone is 99 Red Balloons, and Olivia loves the pizza here. Okay. So. Let's talk about hard power.
This entry was originally posted at http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/691403.html.