Fic: "Nora Clayton, Loyal Dog", Nora/Charlie, Nora/Miles, PG-13
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COMM! This is my gift to you, in honor of our first year together, a little tribute to a season one character, Nora Clayton. Sorry I didn't finish on your birthday, but better late than never. (And I am working on the third chapter to Half-Light Crusader... it is not lost in the dark void of unfinished WIPs. It just so happens that Jeremy Baker is tougher for me to write than initially imagined.)
Title: Nora Clayton, Loyal Dog
Ships: Nora/Charlie, Nora/Miles
Summary: Nora Clayton is as loyal as a dog. She just doesn’t want to die like one.
Season One Spoilers, Un-beta'd
If anyone prefers to read on AO3, please be patient. I'm not going to publish this there yet. It's not for AO3... :3
It had started innocently enough, much like most things do.
At first, Nora just found Charlie easy to talk to. Charlie was kind and open. She didn't bury things deep down within her like her uncle, Miles, did. Nora liked that about Charlie. She was able to talk to Charlie about losing her son, train her up about the rebellion, side with her during disputes.
Her blonde hair, blue eyes, bright smile, and big heart were all things that dramatized the kind of blameless angel this kid seemed to be. Naive, idealistic, hopelessly faithful, putting herself on the line to protect her brother, Danny, and the people of the Republic.
Charlie was everything Nora wanted Miles to be.
Believed he could be.
At some times, thought she could see him trying to be.
That's the kind of person Charlie was.
Yet, although she couldn't explain why, Nora Clayton had always been one to fight for lost causes. That's why she had always fallen for guys like Miles Matheson. That's why she shoved her tongue down his throat as she geared up to leave now with her sister, Mia. That’s why she would always try to shove her tongue down Miles' throat.
But another taste was nearly as fresh on her mouth-hot and sweet-and Nora could feel the gentle pressure from those lips if she closed her eyes and lingered on the memory of the night before.
It had been unexpected, but Nora thought it was far from wrong when she took Charlie’s face in her hands and reassured Charlie in the way she knew had worked before for Miles. “We’re almost there. We’ll get to him,” Nora said softly against Charlie’s lips, licking them and tasting a shed tear.
Charlie nodded meekly, a blush crawling across her cheeks, before running her hands downward along Nora's arms and resting them over the rough hands on her cheeks.
"Thank you." It seemed silly to say, but Charlie said it anyway.
Nora had nodded, smiling back at her, lips curled upward and eyes grinning.
Now, walking off with Mia, she couldn't help but think she was abandoning someone she loved who needed her, someone she considered family. Someone to whom she had pledged her loyalty. Two someones, to be fair. And she was leaving them.
She felt dirty.
A feeling that went unwashed when she realized Mia was lying to her about their father.
So, when Nora realized the truth of the situation, she ran back to Miles and Charlie.
-
The next time was longer, sweeter, and hotter.
It hadn’t helped that, then, she was sick of Miles’ I-cannot-be-responsible-because-I-simply-don’t-care attitude. Or maybe she was looking at it backwards. Either way, they were on the road to Philly, and the growing anticipation had the group bickering. In fact, Nora had been cold-shouldering Miles since lunch when he made a snide remark about women in combat in a half-assed attempt to get under Charlie's skin. It had backfired.
One would think Miles preferred the silent treatment, but being a man of few words taught him to depend too heavily on others for the comfort of conversation. Nora's silence had been especially punishing once she instructed Charlie about the proper behavior to implement while, in turn, told Aaron quite cheerfully to yak it up all he wanted. (He did.)
After some time, the sparkle in Charlie's eyes turned from glee to guilt, as she felt more and more like the social torture had lasted longer than necessary. But she could also see the fire still burning throughout Nora, so she waited to bring up the issue until just before dusk while to two scouted the north and east perimeters of their campsite.
Nora was teaching Charlie how to spot markers from travelers along barks of trees and how to deduce how recently they were made.
"Obviously, the older they are, the more worn they'll look. Just means the people who left these are probably long gone."
"But the marks are still visible, no matter how long ago they were made," Charlie thinks aloud. She isn’t really talking about the tree.
"Yeah."
"Has he had enough?" asked Charlie softly.
"He might've, but I haven't."
Charlie nodded slowly, a kind smile expressing her understanding, before taking Nora's hand in hers.
Nora stopped staring at the bark before her and looked up at Charlie. Nora could see Charlie working out what she should do. Nora sighed. Then, Charlie cupped Nora's face and pulled Nora up into her lips.
As Nora stood up, she pressed her small frame into Charlie's long, thin one. The physicality reminded her vaguely of Miles, but once their mouths parted and tongues began tasting, Nora found Charlie's tongue neither fought Nora's nor slid lazily along her teeth like Charlie's uncle's did. Charlie's tongue lacked such a contrast in behaviors. Rather than being either tactical or half-assed, her tongue expressed her feelings just as well as her shirt sleeves wore them, gliding across Nora's, making a wet noise, before drawing some picture on the roof of her mouth. It was curious, gentle, and full of intent. It was only when Nora started to pull back and Charlie stubbornly refused to let her that the kiss echoed Miles at all.
The thought made Nora laugh.
Charlie stopped. "Was it bad?"
Smiling, Nora leaned back in for a quick peck. "Not at all. Just reminded me."
Charlie cocked her eyebrow and tilted her head with a certain kind of curiosity but didn't ask of what, instead turning her gaze back toward the marked tree. Nora was pretty sure Charlie already knew anyway, her suspicions amplified by Charlie's next line.
"Ever notice how some trees bend with the wind without breaking, but some won't even budge?"
Charlie was too perceptive. Nora was merely grateful Charlie was acting passive aggressive tonight rather than her usual uncensored self.
Nora reached over and took Charlie's hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. "He gets on my nerves sometimes more than others, but I'll get over it. I always do." A corner of her lip twisted upward into a wry smirk as she used her clasped hand to swing Charlie back around to face her. "Not unlike someone else I know." She planted a soft kiss on Charlie's left cheek, Nora's nose stroking the spot she kissed as she pulled away, and dragged Charlie along to continue their perimeter check.
-
Nora didn't have any more alone time with Charlie, and by the time they got to Philadelphia, the group's fast pace made impossible any moments like the two Nora would recall to herself. But their time in the Capital and shortly thereafter drew Nora closer to Charlie. Before long, they were fighting a war together.
Everything changed when he died.
As Danny’s body decayed, breaking away into the dirt and worms of the earth, Charlie’s pain and bitterness sprung to life, growing like a weed, and it started to take its toll.
Charlie withdrew, toughened up, and sported a scowl to rival her uncle's. In turn, Miles blamed himself, which he expressed in his incessant pessimism the whole way, his degradation of Charlie's choices and his adamant position that we had to kill them before they killed us.
"Let's kill him," Charlie said without hesitation once about a militia scout they had uncovered.
Nora still remembered Miles' refusal and the petty fight the family members had picked with each other.
“No.”
“Not like you to to leave loose ends,” Charlie just about snarled.
“Not like you to kill now and ask questions later.”
Charlie had huffed, inadvertently blowing a few strands of hair away from her face, and a few returned to awkwardly stick around her lips. “He’s clearly not a captain. Doesn’t know anything about their plans, their movements.”
Miles responded, “He may know more than he realizes.”
Charlie has never exactly been patient, and she turned on her heels and marched in the direction they had been headed before the soldier had been discovered.
Miles shook his head, and the harsh breaths he took told the others he was as intolerant as his niece.
“I’ll follow Charlie,” Nora had offered. “Just give us a head start.” The men nodded.
Nora kept a jogging pace for about twenty five yards through the trees before she caught up shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie. They were just out of sight of the men, though probably within earshot if they talked loud enough.
A safe distance, thought Nora, as she slipped her fingers between Charlie’s, Nora’s older, rough ones tingling at the sticky warmth Charlie’s provided.
“Don’t,” said Charlie. “Don’t say a word.” And she used her grip on Nora’s hand to spin Nora’s body away from her. Then Charlie circled behind her, first nuzzling her nose in Nora’s neck, and then darting her tongue out along a tempting vein.
Nora hummed appreciatively albeit unexpectedly. She dropped Charlie’s hand, reaching up behind her to take hold of Charlie’s hair at the base of her neck, and invited Charlie to explore more deeply.
When Nora dwelt on the sound of the smacking Charlie made against Nora’s neck, she began to grow wet. So, after a minute, Nora pulled away.
She turned around to face Charlie just in time to see Aaron stepping through the tree line.
“Hey,” he called, his hand up in the air in salutation but unmoving.
Nora nodded at him.
“I think the Grinch could use you back there.”
Her head still spinning from Charlie, Nora made the yardage back to Miles. Once there, she stepped over the body of the now dead soldier and poked her finger hard into Miles’ chest. “Go easy on her!”
“Me?! Little Miss Rain Storm is the one clouding up a sunny day. I’m being my usual cheery self.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “She lost her brother. Surely you get how that fucking feels.”
“You think I don’t feel it? That I don’t see everything it’s doing to her?”
Nora didn’t think she had ever in her life seen Miles Matheson’s lips quiver.
He cleared his throat.
Nora forgot that Miles had been losing, too. Not just his own brother, Ben, but Danny whom he had set out to rescue and failed-an echo of his long lost brother, Bass, whom he also had not saved.
Of which he had been reminded every day.
Hell, he probably thought about it every minute of every day, considering all the time he spends with Charlie trying to fight off the militia which he had helped build.
“Well?” Miles prompted, made even more off kilter by the fact he was the one leading a conversation. “Don’t leave me to my thoughts so much,” he gruffed. “They’ll get away from me.”
Nora didn’t know what to say, though she almost called him ‘Charlie’. “Miles...”
She couldn’t take seeing him so uncharacteristically vulnerable. It’s hard to watch someone you love suffer and just do nothing, when you know of something that might work.
Recalling her favorite play from the book, she grabbed him roughly by the collar of his shirt and tugged hard. Then she reached up her other hand and secured her fingers around the hair toward his neckline.
She didn’t have to pull him down. He was already leaning in, his mouth open, his tongue wetted and welcoming.
If she gave herself time to really sit back and think about it, Nora might be really wigged out at making out with Miles and Charlie, uncle and niece, something on the deplorable side of most people’s moral radars that perhaps only Monroe might be caught doing. But not her, right?
Wrong.
It was like some bizarre alternate reality in which Nora couldn't figure out why she was making out with whom. All she knew was she loved them both, and they were fucking hurt.
So she licked their wounds, like a good dog.
-
Nora wondered if the Mathesons could see how destructive they were. How everywhere they went, people seemed to die and cities seemed to burn. How every decision they made led to the demise of their latest ally.
She wondered how much time she had left before she met the same fate of all the other things they touched. Before she turned to ash.
Like Danny. Like Ben.
-
She couldn’t fucking care, to be honest. The threat of death never kept Nora from doing what she thought was right, even if it turned out she had been wrong about it, because she always did things for the people she loved to death.
-
Nora knew as they drew closer and closer to the Tower that she was walking into her tomb, but she wouldn’t leave Charlie or Miles. She was loyal like that. She only hoped that when sun set on her, both would return the favor and stay at her side.
---end.
It's been a good first year! Many happy returns!
Title: Nora Clayton, Loyal Dog
Ships: Nora/Charlie, Nora/Miles
Summary: Nora Clayton is as loyal as a dog. She just doesn’t want to die like one.
Season One Spoilers, Un-beta'd
If anyone prefers to read on AO3, please be patient. I'm not going to publish this there yet. It's not for AO3... :3
It had started innocently enough, much like most things do.
At first, Nora just found Charlie easy to talk to. Charlie was kind and open. She didn't bury things deep down within her like her uncle, Miles, did. Nora liked that about Charlie. She was able to talk to Charlie about losing her son, train her up about the rebellion, side with her during disputes.
Her blonde hair, blue eyes, bright smile, and big heart were all things that dramatized the kind of blameless angel this kid seemed to be. Naive, idealistic, hopelessly faithful, putting herself on the line to protect her brother, Danny, and the people of the Republic.
Charlie was everything Nora wanted Miles to be.
Believed he could be.
At some times, thought she could see him trying to be.
That's the kind of person Charlie was.
Yet, although she couldn't explain why, Nora Clayton had always been one to fight for lost causes. That's why she had always fallen for guys like Miles Matheson. That's why she shoved her tongue down his throat as she geared up to leave now with her sister, Mia. That’s why she would always try to shove her tongue down Miles' throat.
But another taste was nearly as fresh on her mouth-hot and sweet-and Nora could feel the gentle pressure from those lips if she closed her eyes and lingered on the memory of the night before.
It had been unexpected, but Nora thought it was far from wrong when she took Charlie’s face in her hands and reassured Charlie in the way she knew had worked before for Miles. “We’re almost there. We’ll get to him,” Nora said softly against Charlie’s lips, licking them and tasting a shed tear.
Charlie nodded meekly, a blush crawling across her cheeks, before running her hands downward along Nora's arms and resting them over the rough hands on her cheeks.
"Thank you." It seemed silly to say, but Charlie said it anyway.
Nora had nodded, smiling back at her, lips curled upward and eyes grinning.
Now, walking off with Mia, she couldn't help but think she was abandoning someone she loved who needed her, someone she considered family. Someone to whom she had pledged her loyalty. Two someones, to be fair. And she was leaving them.
She felt dirty.
A feeling that went unwashed when she realized Mia was lying to her about their father.
So, when Nora realized the truth of the situation, she ran back to Miles and Charlie.
-
The next time was longer, sweeter, and hotter.
It hadn’t helped that, then, she was sick of Miles’ I-cannot-be-responsible-because-I-simply-don’t-care attitude. Or maybe she was looking at it backwards. Either way, they were on the road to Philly, and the growing anticipation had the group bickering. In fact, Nora had been cold-shouldering Miles since lunch when he made a snide remark about women in combat in a half-assed attempt to get under Charlie's skin. It had backfired.
One would think Miles preferred the silent treatment, but being a man of few words taught him to depend too heavily on others for the comfort of conversation. Nora's silence had been especially punishing once she instructed Charlie about the proper behavior to implement while, in turn, told Aaron quite cheerfully to yak it up all he wanted. (He did.)
After some time, the sparkle in Charlie's eyes turned from glee to guilt, as she felt more and more like the social torture had lasted longer than necessary. But she could also see the fire still burning throughout Nora, so she waited to bring up the issue until just before dusk while to two scouted the north and east perimeters of their campsite.
Nora was teaching Charlie how to spot markers from travelers along barks of trees and how to deduce how recently they were made.
"Obviously, the older they are, the more worn they'll look. Just means the people who left these are probably long gone."
"But the marks are still visible, no matter how long ago they were made," Charlie thinks aloud. She isn’t really talking about the tree.
"Yeah."
"Has he had enough?" asked Charlie softly.
"He might've, but I haven't."
Charlie nodded slowly, a kind smile expressing her understanding, before taking Nora's hand in hers.
Nora stopped staring at the bark before her and looked up at Charlie. Nora could see Charlie working out what she should do. Nora sighed. Then, Charlie cupped Nora's face and pulled Nora up into her lips.
As Nora stood up, she pressed her small frame into Charlie's long, thin one. The physicality reminded her vaguely of Miles, but once their mouths parted and tongues began tasting, Nora found Charlie's tongue neither fought Nora's nor slid lazily along her teeth like Charlie's uncle's did. Charlie's tongue lacked such a contrast in behaviors. Rather than being either tactical or half-assed, her tongue expressed her feelings just as well as her shirt sleeves wore them, gliding across Nora's, making a wet noise, before drawing some picture on the roof of her mouth. It was curious, gentle, and full of intent. It was only when Nora started to pull back and Charlie stubbornly refused to let her that the kiss echoed Miles at all.
The thought made Nora laugh.
Charlie stopped. "Was it bad?"
Smiling, Nora leaned back in for a quick peck. "Not at all. Just reminded me."
Charlie cocked her eyebrow and tilted her head with a certain kind of curiosity but didn't ask of what, instead turning her gaze back toward the marked tree. Nora was pretty sure Charlie already knew anyway, her suspicions amplified by Charlie's next line.
"Ever notice how some trees bend with the wind without breaking, but some won't even budge?"
Charlie was too perceptive. Nora was merely grateful Charlie was acting passive aggressive tonight rather than her usual uncensored self.
Nora reached over and took Charlie's hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. "He gets on my nerves sometimes more than others, but I'll get over it. I always do." A corner of her lip twisted upward into a wry smirk as she used her clasped hand to swing Charlie back around to face her. "Not unlike someone else I know." She planted a soft kiss on Charlie's left cheek, Nora's nose stroking the spot she kissed as she pulled away, and dragged Charlie along to continue their perimeter check.
-
Nora didn't have any more alone time with Charlie, and by the time they got to Philadelphia, the group's fast pace made impossible any moments like the two Nora would recall to herself. But their time in the Capital and shortly thereafter drew Nora closer to Charlie. Before long, they were fighting a war together.
Everything changed when he died.
As Danny’s body decayed, breaking away into the dirt and worms of the earth, Charlie’s pain and bitterness sprung to life, growing like a weed, and it started to take its toll.
Charlie withdrew, toughened up, and sported a scowl to rival her uncle's. In turn, Miles blamed himself, which he expressed in his incessant pessimism the whole way, his degradation of Charlie's choices and his adamant position that we had to kill them before they killed us.
"Let's kill him," Charlie said without hesitation once about a militia scout they had uncovered.
Nora still remembered Miles' refusal and the petty fight the family members had picked with each other.
“No.”
“Not like you to to leave loose ends,” Charlie just about snarled.
“Not like you to kill now and ask questions later.”
Charlie had huffed, inadvertently blowing a few strands of hair away from her face, and a few returned to awkwardly stick around her lips. “He’s clearly not a captain. Doesn’t know anything about their plans, their movements.”
Miles responded, “He may know more than he realizes.”
Charlie has never exactly been patient, and she turned on her heels and marched in the direction they had been headed before the soldier had been discovered.
Miles shook his head, and the harsh breaths he took told the others he was as intolerant as his niece.
“I’ll follow Charlie,” Nora had offered. “Just give us a head start.” The men nodded.
Nora kept a jogging pace for about twenty five yards through the trees before she caught up shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie. They were just out of sight of the men, though probably within earshot if they talked loud enough.
A safe distance, thought Nora, as she slipped her fingers between Charlie’s, Nora’s older, rough ones tingling at the sticky warmth Charlie’s provided.
“Don’t,” said Charlie. “Don’t say a word.” And she used her grip on Nora’s hand to spin Nora’s body away from her. Then Charlie circled behind her, first nuzzling her nose in Nora’s neck, and then darting her tongue out along a tempting vein.
Nora hummed appreciatively albeit unexpectedly. She dropped Charlie’s hand, reaching up behind her to take hold of Charlie’s hair at the base of her neck, and invited Charlie to explore more deeply.
When Nora dwelt on the sound of the smacking Charlie made against Nora’s neck, she began to grow wet. So, after a minute, Nora pulled away.
She turned around to face Charlie just in time to see Aaron stepping through the tree line.
“Hey,” he called, his hand up in the air in salutation but unmoving.
Nora nodded at him.
“I think the Grinch could use you back there.”
Her head still spinning from Charlie, Nora made the yardage back to Miles. Once there, she stepped over the body of the now dead soldier and poked her finger hard into Miles’ chest. “Go easy on her!”
“Me?! Little Miss Rain Storm is the one clouding up a sunny day. I’m being my usual cheery self.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “She lost her brother. Surely you get how that fucking feels.”
“You think I don’t feel it? That I don’t see everything it’s doing to her?”
Nora didn’t think she had ever in her life seen Miles Matheson’s lips quiver.
He cleared his throat.
Nora forgot that Miles had been losing, too. Not just his own brother, Ben, but Danny whom he had set out to rescue and failed-an echo of his long lost brother, Bass, whom he also had not saved.
Of which he had been reminded every day.
Hell, he probably thought about it every minute of every day, considering all the time he spends with Charlie trying to fight off the militia which he had helped build.
“Well?” Miles prompted, made even more off kilter by the fact he was the one leading a conversation. “Don’t leave me to my thoughts so much,” he gruffed. “They’ll get away from me.”
Nora didn’t know what to say, though she almost called him ‘Charlie’. “Miles...”
She couldn’t take seeing him so uncharacteristically vulnerable. It’s hard to watch someone you love suffer and just do nothing, when you know of something that might work.
Recalling her favorite play from the book, she grabbed him roughly by the collar of his shirt and tugged hard. Then she reached up her other hand and secured her fingers around the hair toward his neckline.
She didn’t have to pull him down. He was already leaning in, his mouth open, his tongue wetted and welcoming.
If she gave herself time to really sit back and think about it, Nora might be really wigged out at making out with Miles and Charlie, uncle and niece, something on the deplorable side of most people’s moral radars that perhaps only Monroe might be caught doing. But not her, right?
Wrong.
It was like some bizarre alternate reality in which Nora couldn't figure out why she was making out with whom. All she knew was she loved them both, and they were fucking hurt.
So she licked their wounds, like a good dog.
-
Nora wondered if the Mathesons could see how destructive they were. How everywhere they went, people seemed to die and cities seemed to burn. How every decision they made led to the demise of their latest ally.
She wondered how much time she had left before she met the same fate of all the other things they touched. Before she turned to ash.
Like Danny. Like Ben.
-
She couldn’t fucking care, to be honest. The threat of death never kept Nora from doing what she thought was right, even if it turned out she had been wrong about it, because she always did things for the people she loved to death.
-
Nora knew as they drew closer and closer to the Tower that she was walking into her tomb, but she wouldn’t leave Charlie or Miles. She was loyal like that. She only hoped that when sun set on her, both would return the favor and stay at her side.
---end.
It's been a good first year! Many happy returns!