The Falling 5/?
-South Of Nowhere
-Spencer/Ashley
-AU (Alternative Universe) story. Angst and smatterings of humor. Christmas/holiday-time themes are present. Spencer POV 99% of the time.
-And right before Spencer Carlin’s world ended, she just wasn’t sure if her answers were as good as she wanted them to be.
-PG 15-ish to possibly light R
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me-“
“It’s okay…”
“-I mean, I do not normally do things like that-“
“Seriously, it is just fine…”
“-and we barely know each other, which adds this whole other weird element to me doing… what I just did-“
Spencer reaches out and places her fingertips against Ashley’s mouth, ending the run-on sentence.
“You are rambling and not listening at all. So, while you are silent… it’s okay. I don’t mind what you just did.”
“You… don’t?” Ashley asks, sounding slightly muffled and eyes blinking rapidly.
“Nope.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Spencer removes her fingers from Ashley’s lips and smiles happily at the woman, grabbing the Hershey kiss from Ashley’s hand and opening it and then offering it up.
“Now, eat your Christmas gift before I do.”
Ashley blinks some more and leans forward as if entranced, stopping just short of the chocolate treat poised between Spencer’s index finger and thumb.
Blue eyes on brown, just staring for endless seconds…
“…Who are you, Spencer Carlin?”
“You, uh, just said my name.”
“I can’t figure-“
“Me out, I know… why don’t you stop trying and just accept that an amazing lady has fallen into your lap… and she has candy…”
And Spencer watches mutely as Ashley’s tongue snakes out, just barely sliding over Spencer’s fingers and takes the Hershey kiss away. She watches as Ashley’s eyes close and the woman lets out a little pleased moan.
Holy… mother of… umm, okay… how much candy did I steal from Amelia’s bowl? How many times can I get Ashley to do that?
“You’re drooling.”
Spencer coughs suddenly and backs away, feeling her face flush rather quickly.
And Ashley’s confident smirk isn’t helping matters.
“So, I am right in thinking that you’ve been checking me out these past couple of weeks?”
“…Maybe…”
“Just maybe, hmm?”
“…More like, you know, absolutely.”
“I like your candor. It’s refreshing.”
“I like you in that top.”
Ashley grins, bringing her hand up and pushing back a strand of Spencer’s hair - letting a touch or two linger before lowering her hand once more.
“You, uh, had… it was kind of in… your face…”
Now it is Spencer’s turn to grin knowingly.
“I think you’ve been checking me out.”
Ashley ducks her head and steps lightly past Spencer, her voice but a wisp of air against Spencer’s ear before the woman goes back into the office.
“…Maybe.”
Oh, I think definitely, Ashley Davies…
///
Somewhere around one in the morning, it seemed to come as a mutual decision that neither one of them were going home.
Spencer suggested an all-nighter and Ashley actually agreed.
They raided the third floor snack machine and Spencer swiped Craig’s (the guy who has a super crush on me, so I don’t think he’ll mind) radio.
She turned it to Christmas music and she turned it up loud, even when Ashley looked less than enthusiastic.
“Let’s continue the twenty questions game.” Ashley said in-between bites of a Snickers bar.
“Okay, but I want to ask questions too.”
“Fine by me.”
“Can I go first?”
“By all means…”
“Why are you a lawyer?”
“The money.”
“Really?”
Ashley polishes off the candy bar and proceeds to lick her fingers of any remaining chocolate goodness, watching Spencer the whole time… and it almost distracts Spencer from their little game.
Almost.
“Rule Seven of Engagement - Be Ever Vigilant.”
“Stop teasing me and answer the question.”
“Oh fine, have it your way… I don’t know, I guess… because of my family.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know my father is a lawyer and I wanted to, you know, follow in his footsteps.”
“Do you like being a lawyer?”
“…Sometimes. Does anyone really love what they do for a living all the time?”
“If you do what you are passionate about, then yes.”
“So you love making my coffee and fetching my documents?”
“I certainly do.”
“You are an odd one, Spencer.”
“Odd, but cute… right?”
“Is that one of your questions or just a general inquiry?”
“Ha ha ha…”
“Either way, the answer is yes. Odd, but cute… very much so…”
And they grin at one another. Again. In fact, they do quite a bit of that as the night wears on to dawn.
Ashley asks more questions about life in Ohio and about Spencer’s brothers and all the random stuff that will pop into a head that is somewhere between a sugar-high and a lack of sleep.
Spencer, though, stays sharp and - while she does ask some frivolous questions as well (like favorite song of the moment or most embarrassing incident… which Ashley swore her to secrecy about after telling) - she asks the things that need to be asked as well.
Because, despite her own warm and slightly fuzzy feelings for the woman, Ashley Davies is still the same person who tried to end her life.
And Spencer Carlin won’t let that ever happen again.
Like I said before, not on my watch, Ashley…
“What are you passionate about?”
“Music, I suppose.”
“As in…?”
“Oh, I used to have that daydream of fronting a band or something. Very L.A. of me, I know.”
“Why didn’t you pursue that?”
“…Uh, well, I wanted to do this instead, the law thing.”
“Did… did your father want you to do this, to join the business?”
“In the beginning, sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, don’t play naïve with me, Spencer… I know what everyone around here says about me. They all say that I am only here because of being a Davies and that my father won’t fire me because I am his daughter. And you know what? They are right. I am a crap lawyer and, if not for my last name, I’d be out on my ass.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Not really.”
“You just won three cases, Ashley. You know what you are doing out there.”
“That’s rare. I just… I don’t have whatever it takes to be a good lawyer. I never have.”
“Is that what you two fight about all the time?”
Ashley’s eyes go a little hard there, as if warning Spencer to tread lightly.
And while Spencer wants to respect that boundary clearly showing, it is her job to push beyond it.
Because the longer that Ashley Davies tries to keep the bad stuff at bay…
… the closer she’ll be to the edge of whatever sky-rise that will have her…
“…Not all the time, no.” Ashley bites out and then looks away.
Spencer shifts closer, deciding to sit beside Ashley - shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip - and she leans her head back against the desk.
And Ashley doesn’t move away.
“My mother used to really get on me about things, especially concerning… my extreme interest in other girls. She’d break out the bible and quote scripture. It made me feel so… unloved, so unlovable. And it drove me away. All I could see was her face, condemning me, and I had to run… I could never be what she wanted me to be. And even now… even now… I wonder if she ever saw who I really was and learned to love that person, as is…”
Spencer’s voice dries up and she can feel Ashley’s gaze on her like a spotlight - and it hits her all too late that the words she spoke were in past-tense, but she can’t take it back… and if Ashley notices, she doesn’t say a single thing about it.
It was like Spencer’s heart cracked open in an attempt to help another… and it just brought up her own life, that one she used to have and that one left unfinished in so many ways - the life she lost on cold stone, somewhere in New York, years and years ago…
And Spencer is crying suddenly.
And Ashley is timidly wrapping her up in a warm embrace.
After that, they don’t really move away from one another for the rest of the early morning hours of Christmas.
///
“Why did you…?”
“Why did I… what?”
“Why were you going to jump?”
It is almost three in the morning and the music is playing low now.
Ashley tossed two blankets and a pillow from a closet, claiming that this ‘isn’t the first holiday I’ve spent here’ and Spencer has to clench her hands into fists because that knowledge is like a wound.
“I’d had enough.”
“Enough of living?”
“Something like that. I was just so damn tired. Sometimes… I still am.”
“Why?”
“…I never seem to do the right thing, you know? I always seem to let someone down.”
“Like… your father?”
They are laying on the floor, only one light on, facing one another - Spencer’s elbow is softly pressed against Ashley’s upper arm and Ashley’s foot is overlapping Spencer’s own - and they are underneath the two blankets, they are sharing the one pillow.
It’s the most serious sleepover I’ve ever had. But… I think it is safe to say… that it is the best as well.
“Like him. Like my mother. Like everyone.”
“You’ve not let me down.”
“…Just give it time.”
“I could give you centuries, Ashley, and I don’t think you would ever let me down. Not ever.”
Ashley’s sleepy eyes smile before her lips catch up, but it spreads out like a wave - from eyes to lips to the heat coming off her body and Spencer feels as good as she did when pulling Ashley back from the darkness that night not so long ago.
I can save you. I really can. I know it. I am going to save you, Ashley. I think… I think it is what I was meant to do, even before I ever met you…
“I’ve never done this.”
“What?”
“Opened up like this, not to anyone.”
“I’m glad you chose me.”
“Me, too.”
///
Somewhere between four and five, they must have fallen asleep.
Or rather, Ashley fell asleep and Spencer drifted - because she can’t truly sleep.
She can act it out and she can close her eyes… she can ‘drift’, but nothing more.
Angels are the weary ones - awake while the rest of the universe nods off, keeping watch as humans dream the night away.
But every time the sun lowers, Spencer finds her eyes shutting and her body curled up in that nice bed in that nice apartment.
It is a habit she refuses to break.
Same with eating and drinking - two things she doesn’t need to do at all - but it reminds her of living and that is a bittersweet pleasure.
It is a habit, pure and simple.
And she wonders if her feelings are the same way - if all she feels is like muscle memory, a phantom thing that is not really there.
Does she really miss her parents and brothers? Does she really feel road rage as she drives to work every morning?
Or is it all a habit, a thing she is so used to feeling… that she just can’t let go of it?
Ashley stirs behind her and Spencer feels the fluttering of a palm against her stomach, feels the pressure of a body against her back and the sensation of hot air against the back of her neck…
And it feels so real. It feels so much like being alive again.
It feels amazing. Completely and utterly amazing.
“Rule Eight of Engagement - Do Not Forget Why You Are An Angel and Why You Are On Earth Again.”*
*In times of trouble, call 555-1212
And it is so easy to forget, isn’t it? So damn easy…
“…The sun will be up soon.”
“Hmm.”
“That is one thing I am glad to be alive for. There is nothing better than a sunrise in California, the way it slowly crests along the sky…”
“Sounds lovely.”
“It is.”
They are silent after that, Ashley not moving away and Spencer staying right where she’s been for the past hour or so. They watch dawn approach, orange and yellow pushing at dusky blue and black.
And Spencer feels the softest of kisses graze her cheek.
And she wants so badly to just fall right into it all, to just forsake everything and stay right here - with Ashley.
Oh God, I am in trouble.
“Thank you.”
“…For what?”
“For all of this. For… being you.”
“You mean for being your crazy assistant that you can’t figure out?”
Ashley laughs and it shakes Spencer’s body slightly.
“Yes. And for… listening, for caring, for… for giving me the best Christmas I think I’ve ever had.”
And the sun is rising now, fast and high and wide across the canvas that is California - and it is Christmas, one without snow and ice and all the things that Spencer has ever associated with the holiday… It is Christmas in this office, two blankets and one pillow and Thai food and candy wrappers…
And so they kiss.
And this time, with rays of light beaming in on them through the multitude of windows, Spencer knows they have set the world on fire.
///
Did you live well?
No, not really. But… it’s never too late to try… is it?
///
TBC
-Spencer/Ashley
-AU (Alternative Universe) story. Angst and smatterings of humor. Christmas/holiday-time themes are present. Spencer POV 99% of the time.
-And right before Spencer Carlin’s world ended, she just wasn’t sure if her answers were as good as she wanted them to be.
-PG 15-ish to possibly light R
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me-“
“It’s okay…”
“-I mean, I do not normally do things like that-“
“Seriously, it is just fine…”
“-and we barely know each other, which adds this whole other weird element to me doing… what I just did-“
Spencer reaches out and places her fingertips against Ashley’s mouth, ending the run-on sentence.
“You are rambling and not listening at all. So, while you are silent… it’s okay. I don’t mind what you just did.”
“You… don’t?” Ashley asks, sounding slightly muffled and eyes blinking rapidly.
“Nope.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Spencer removes her fingers from Ashley’s lips and smiles happily at the woman, grabbing the Hershey kiss from Ashley’s hand and opening it and then offering it up.
“Now, eat your Christmas gift before I do.”
Ashley blinks some more and leans forward as if entranced, stopping just short of the chocolate treat poised between Spencer’s index finger and thumb.
Blue eyes on brown, just staring for endless seconds…
“…Who are you, Spencer Carlin?”
“You, uh, just said my name.”
“I can’t figure-“
“Me out, I know… why don’t you stop trying and just accept that an amazing lady has fallen into your lap… and she has candy…”
And Spencer watches mutely as Ashley’s tongue snakes out, just barely sliding over Spencer’s fingers and takes the Hershey kiss away. She watches as Ashley’s eyes close and the woman lets out a little pleased moan.
Holy… mother of… umm, okay… how much candy did I steal from Amelia’s bowl? How many times can I get Ashley to do that?
“You’re drooling.”
Spencer coughs suddenly and backs away, feeling her face flush rather quickly.
And Ashley’s confident smirk isn’t helping matters.
“So, I am right in thinking that you’ve been checking me out these past couple of weeks?”
“…Maybe…”
“Just maybe, hmm?”
“…More like, you know, absolutely.”
“I like your candor. It’s refreshing.”
“I like you in that top.”
Ashley grins, bringing her hand up and pushing back a strand of Spencer’s hair - letting a touch or two linger before lowering her hand once more.
“You, uh, had… it was kind of in… your face…”
Now it is Spencer’s turn to grin knowingly.
“I think you’ve been checking me out.”
Ashley ducks her head and steps lightly past Spencer, her voice but a wisp of air against Spencer’s ear before the woman goes back into the office.
“…Maybe.”
Oh, I think definitely, Ashley Davies…
///
Somewhere around one in the morning, it seemed to come as a mutual decision that neither one of them were going home.
Spencer suggested an all-nighter and Ashley actually agreed.
They raided the third floor snack machine and Spencer swiped Craig’s (the guy who has a super crush on me, so I don’t think he’ll mind) radio.
She turned it to Christmas music and she turned it up loud, even when Ashley looked less than enthusiastic.
“Let’s continue the twenty questions game.” Ashley said in-between bites of a Snickers bar.
“Okay, but I want to ask questions too.”
“Fine by me.”
“Can I go first?”
“By all means…”
“Why are you a lawyer?”
“The money.”
“Really?”
Ashley polishes off the candy bar and proceeds to lick her fingers of any remaining chocolate goodness, watching Spencer the whole time… and it almost distracts Spencer from their little game.
Almost.
“Rule Seven of Engagement - Be Ever Vigilant.”
“Stop teasing me and answer the question.”
“Oh fine, have it your way… I don’t know, I guess… because of my family.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know my father is a lawyer and I wanted to, you know, follow in his footsteps.”
“Do you like being a lawyer?”
“…Sometimes. Does anyone really love what they do for a living all the time?”
“If you do what you are passionate about, then yes.”
“So you love making my coffee and fetching my documents?”
“I certainly do.”
“You are an odd one, Spencer.”
“Odd, but cute… right?”
“Is that one of your questions or just a general inquiry?”
“Ha ha ha…”
“Either way, the answer is yes. Odd, but cute… very much so…”
And they grin at one another. Again. In fact, they do quite a bit of that as the night wears on to dawn.
Ashley asks more questions about life in Ohio and about Spencer’s brothers and all the random stuff that will pop into a head that is somewhere between a sugar-high and a lack of sleep.
Spencer, though, stays sharp and - while she does ask some frivolous questions as well (like favorite song of the moment or most embarrassing incident… which Ashley swore her to secrecy about after telling) - she asks the things that need to be asked as well.
Because, despite her own warm and slightly fuzzy feelings for the woman, Ashley Davies is still the same person who tried to end her life.
And Spencer Carlin won’t let that ever happen again.
Like I said before, not on my watch, Ashley…
“What are you passionate about?”
“Music, I suppose.”
“As in…?”
“Oh, I used to have that daydream of fronting a band or something. Very L.A. of me, I know.”
“Why didn’t you pursue that?”
“…Uh, well, I wanted to do this instead, the law thing.”
“Did… did your father want you to do this, to join the business?”
“In the beginning, sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, don’t play naïve with me, Spencer… I know what everyone around here says about me. They all say that I am only here because of being a Davies and that my father won’t fire me because I am his daughter. And you know what? They are right. I am a crap lawyer and, if not for my last name, I’d be out on my ass.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Not really.”
“You just won three cases, Ashley. You know what you are doing out there.”
“That’s rare. I just… I don’t have whatever it takes to be a good lawyer. I never have.”
“Is that what you two fight about all the time?”
Ashley’s eyes go a little hard there, as if warning Spencer to tread lightly.
And while Spencer wants to respect that boundary clearly showing, it is her job to push beyond it.
Because the longer that Ashley Davies tries to keep the bad stuff at bay…
… the closer she’ll be to the edge of whatever sky-rise that will have her…
“…Not all the time, no.” Ashley bites out and then looks away.
Spencer shifts closer, deciding to sit beside Ashley - shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip - and she leans her head back against the desk.
And Ashley doesn’t move away.
“My mother used to really get on me about things, especially concerning… my extreme interest in other girls. She’d break out the bible and quote scripture. It made me feel so… unloved, so unlovable. And it drove me away. All I could see was her face, condemning me, and I had to run… I could never be what she wanted me to be. And even now… even now… I wonder if she ever saw who I really was and learned to love that person, as is…”
Spencer’s voice dries up and she can feel Ashley’s gaze on her like a spotlight - and it hits her all too late that the words she spoke were in past-tense, but she can’t take it back… and if Ashley notices, she doesn’t say a single thing about it.
It was like Spencer’s heart cracked open in an attempt to help another… and it just brought up her own life, that one she used to have and that one left unfinished in so many ways - the life she lost on cold stone, somewhere in New York, years and years ago…
And Spencer is crying suddenly.
And Ashley is timidly wrapping her up in a warm embrace.
After that, they don’t really move away from one another for the rest of the early morning hours of Christmas.
///
“Why did you…?”
“Why did I… what?”
“Why were you going to jump?”
It is almost three in the morning and the music is playing low now.
Ashley tossed two blankets and a pillow from a closet, claiming that this ‘isn’t the first holiday I’ve spent here’ and Spencer has to clench her hands into fists because that knowledge is like a wound.
“I’d had enough.”
“Enough of living?”
“Something like that. I was just so damn tired. Sometimes… I still am.”
“Why?”
“…I never seem to do the right thing, you know? I always seem to let someone down.”
“Like… your father?”
They are laying on the floor, only one light on, facing one another - Spencer’s elbow is softly pressed against Ashley’s upper arm and Ashley’s foot is overlapping Spencer’s own - and they are underneath the two blankets, they are sharing the one pillow.
It’s the most serious sleepover I’ve ever had. But… I think it is safe to say… that it is the best as well.
“Like him. Like my mother. Like everyone.”
“You’ve not let me down.”
“…Just give it time.”
“I could give you centuries, Ashley, and I don’t think you would ever let me down. Not ever.”
Ashley’s sleepy eyes smile before her lips catch up, but it spreads out like a wave - from eyes to lips to the heat coming off her body and Spencer feels as good as she did when pulling Ashley back from the darkness that night not so long ago.
I can save you. I really can. I know it. I am going to save you, Ashley. I think… I think it is what I was meant to do, even before I ever met you…
“I’ve never done this.”
“What?”
“Opened up like this, not to anyone.”
“I’m glad you chose me.”
“Me, too.”
///
Somewhere between four and five, they must have fallen asleep.
Or rather, Ashley fell asleep and Spencer drifted - because she can’t truly sleep.
She can act it out and she can close her eyes… she can ‘drift’, but nothing more.
Angels are the weary ones - awake while the rest of the universe nods off, keeping watch as humans dream the night away.
But every time the sun lowers, Spencer finds her eyes shutting and her body curled up in that nice bed in that nice apartment.
It is a habit she refuses to break.
Same with eating and drinking - two things she doesn’t need to do at all - but it reminds her of living and that is a bittersweet pleasure.
It is a habit, pure and simple.
And she wonders if her feelings are the same way - if all she feels is like muscle memory, a phantom thing that is not really there.
Does she really miss her parents and brothers? Does she really feel road rage as she drives to work every morning?
Or is it all a habit, a thing she is so used to feeling… that she just can’t let go of it?
Ashley stirs behind her and Spencer feels the fluttering of a palm against her stomach, feels the pressure of a body against her back and the sensation of hot air against the back of her neck…
And it feels so real. It feels so much like being alive again.
It feels amazing. Completely and utterly amazing.
“Rule Eight of Engagement - Do Not Forget Why You Are An Angel and Why You Are On Earth Again.”*
*In times of trouble, call 555-1212
And it is so easy to forget, isn’t it? So damn easy…
“…The sun will be up soon.”
“Hmm.”
“That is one thing I am glad to be alive for. There is nothing better than a sunrise in California, the way it slowly crests along the sky…”
“Sounds lovely.”
“It is.”
They are silent after that, Ashley not moving away and Spencer staying right where she’s been for the past hour or so. They watch dawn approach, orange and yellow pushing at dusky blue and black.
And Spencer feels the softest of kisses graze her cheek.
And she wants so badly to just fall right into it all, to just forsake everything and stay right here - with Ashley.
Oh God, I am in trouble.
“Thank you.”
“…For what?”
“For all of this. For… being you.”
“You mean for being your crazy assistant that you can’t figure out?”
Ashley laughs and it shakes Spencer’s body slightly.
“Yes. And for… listening, for caring, for… for giving me the best Christmas I think I’ve ever had.”
And the sun is rising now, fast and high and wide across the canvas that is California - and it is Christmas, one without snow and ice and all the things that Spencer has ever associated with the holiday… It is Christmas in this office, two blankets and one pillow and Thai food and candy wrappers…
And so they kiss.
And this time, with rays of light beaming in on them through the multitude of windows, Spencer knows they have set the world on fire.
///
Did you live well?
No, not really. But… it’s never too late to try… is it?
///
TBC