TMP fic: Cloud Maybe
Title: Cloud Maybe
Pairing: Mindy/Danny
Word Count: 1900
Rating: PG
Summary: Just a short little scene after the end of 1x23. Was supposed to be a drabble but got a little longer.
Mindy kissed Casey goodbye and walked to her office, feeling like she was floating on a cloud. And not like one of those stringy cirrus clouds that might actually be an airplane’s discharge, or the dull gray sky blankets that remind you of pollution on overcast days, but like a Care Bear-level, pufftastic cloud. The pretty fluffy kind you see in storybooks or paintings of goddesses or National Geographic photo-of-the-year contests. She was like Drew Barrymore, twirling on a Care Bear cloud.
No, this was better than Drew Barrymore. Drew played some pretty ditzy parts, to be honest, and Mindy wasn’t sure why that was the first person she thought of just then.
This was … Drew Barrymore in that one movie where she played a brilliant mathematician. Only minus the Jimmy Fallon character obsessed with sports, plus a minister. And she actually kind of hated math. So, a totally different movie.
But whatever. Mindy was practically engaged, and that was fantasy cloud-worthy. Well, not engaged engaged. Ideally her marriage proposal wouldn’t happen in an elevator at work or feature the words “tater cone boy” (although that was cute, just not proposal-level cute), or be crashed by Morgan and Danny.
(For some reason, the image of Danny trying to propose to some poor woman in an H&R Block intruded into her brain just then, and she pushed it back out. Danny, get out of my romantic moment. You’re ruining it.)
So maybe that wasn’t a legit proposal, but Casey had used the words “marriage” and “babies,” before she’d even thought to use those words. And let’s face it, she’d been thinking those words about 30 percent of the time since about age 15, just not specifically about Casey, and now Casey was already thinking them about her. That in itself was reason enough to make a really expensive reservation someplace and buy a new dress. New shoes, too, probably.
Sometime before he went to Haiti.
No, it was better not to focus on that right now and instead think about shoes. It was just going to be a year, anyway. Without the distractions of dating someone local, she could spend it focusing on her career, making up now for the time she’d have to take off later for all the tropical sex and babies and stuff. She’d be so busy being a kickass doctor, this year would fly by, right?
And before she knew it, she could be married to Casey.
Her stomach flipped over at the thought, and not necessarily in a good way. Not necessarily in a bad way, either, but it was just … this was kind of a big deal, and it was hitting her all at once, and maybe she shouldn’t have eaten that leftover half of a burrito this morning.
Did she want to be married to Casey? She wanted to be married. And she liked Casey, sure. He was all hip and moral and gainfully employed and hot from certain specific angles. And he could see himself marrying her.
So … probably?
“Mindy, you have to check these out.”
Morgan burst into her office, interrupting her cloud reverie/deep life thoughts, and Mindy waved him away, but then he said, “This is the hottest I’ve ever seen you,” and she reached for the camera he was holding out to her.
She flipped quickly through the photos at first, wrinkling her nose. It was weird seeing pictures of herself making out. It didn’t look quite as great as it had felt, but who did look good with their mouths hanging open and their eyes half-closed and their faces smushed up on each other?
And there was Danny, hovering in the corner, like a total creepy peeping Tom. Only, he looked like he didn’t want to be there, and he wasn’t even trying to look at them, so she guessed that meant he wasn’t really peeping. Kind of the opposite, really.
Actually, he looked pretty miserable, and not in his usual antisocial way but … almost sad. Small. Smaller than usual, even, but that might just be because Casey was nearby, and Casey was like the sequoia tree of men.
Mindy flipped through the images again looking at Danny’s face in each of them, while Morgan leaned over her shoulder saying inane things like, “Heh, that one’s my favorite. Your nose is all smushed,” and, “Look, now we’re both kissing Casey! We make a cute family, don’t you think?” and finally, “I’m going to go put these on the Internet so the whole world can see,” as he was taking the camera back.
At this last one, Mindy grabbed his arm and yelled, “Stop!”
“In the naaaaame of love,” Morgan started singing, closing his eyes and bending his knees to emphasize the feeling in the lyrics. “Sorry. Reflex,” he added in a normal voice.
“Don’t put those on the Internet,” Mindy ordered him. “Actually, I want you to delete them all.” She put her hands on her hips and drew herself up to her full height, trying to look her most boss-like. Which wasn’t hard because … she was the boss. One of the bosses. “Delete them all, or you’re fired,” she added for good measure, cringing inwardly because she’d always pictured herself as a different sort of boss, the kind who was everyone’s best friend and confidante and not the sort who made empty threats about firing people.
Morgan looked crushed. “But I just came back. I thought we were family. Did you clear this with Danny? Danny called me his brother and he doesn’t remember it but he didn’t deny it either. If I have to go, can I at least keep this guy?”
“Who?” Mindy stepped back in alarm as Morgan reached for something in the vicinity of his crotch and was relieved-alarmed, but relieved-when he only pulled out a puppy. “Yeah, keep him. I don’t know who that is. And you’re not fired, okay? I don’t know why I said that. That’s not … that’s not how I roll. I’m the cool boss. Just delete the photos, man. And stop putting puppies in your pants, because that was startling.”
“Done," Morgan said, pressing some buttons on the back of the camera and then holding up the dog uncertainly. "And done-maybe. I’ll try. I’m just not sure where else to keep him." He appeared to be checking his sleeves for holes or pockets or something as he left her office.
Mindy shook her head, unsure of exactly where the urge to destroy the photographic evidence had come from. They were her engagement photos after all-well, her engaged-to-be-engaged photos, or maybe her talking-about-maybe-being-engaged-to-be-engaged-someday photos. That could be the love of her life in those photos, and she could have just cropped the other one out.
Speaking of Danny’s grumpy face … she glanced up to see him walking past her office just then, without even acknowledging her. She poked her head out the door and watched him continue to ignore her, then went after him.
“Hey,” she said, leaning casually in his doorway as he sat down at his desk.
“Hey,” he said flatly, taking some files out of his briefcase without really looking at her.
“I’m just popping in to say hi like friends do, because we’re friends,” she said, slightly accusatorily, because he wasn’t really acting very friendly right now.
He frowned at her and opened a file, and the message was clear that he wanted her to leave.
“How are you?” she asked, starting to be kind of really worried about him. “You feeling okay? You catch that cold that’s going around?”
“Nope, I’m fine. Perfect health.”
He didn’t seem fine, though.
Mindy stepped into the room, only to be greeted by an exasperated sigh, which she ignored. She leaned forward and picked up the picture frame on his desk. “How’s Christina? Things still good with her?” Maybe that was why he looked like that in the pictures-if things weren’t going well for him, it’d be uncomfortable to see how well things were going for her. Not because it was her specifically , just … because.
Danny shrugged stiffly. “Yeah. So far. I mean, we’re not making out in the elevator or anything. But she’s not into excessive PDA like some people, so I’m not really worried.”
Mindy set the picture down, feeling guilty even though she hadn’t really done anything wrong except for being happy in public. “Sorry about that,” she said anyway, because Danny seemed really bothered and that bothered her.
Danny cleared his throat, softening a little toward her, she thought. He was hunching over a little less at least.
“So you and Casey are back on again,” he observed. “What is this, the second or third time you’ve taken him back? Better watch it, or Kate Perry’s going to have enough material to write a song about you.”
“It’s Katy Perry. And oh my god. Did you just make a Katy Perry reference?”
Danny looked like he’d been caught, and Mindy smiled. She knew it. He secretly listened to pop music.
“The aerobics class at my gym plays their music too loud and it gets into the weight room and it gets in your head. That’s why it’s so annoying.” He shuddered, like that was some kind of imposition, but she wasn’t buying it.
She was so filing this away to give him a hard time about later. Just not at the moment.
“It’s the second time, by the way,” she clarified, going back to his actual question. “Unless you count the first time we almost stopped dating, then that would make this the third time, but we were only dating then, not in a relationship yet, so I don’t count that. But yeah, we’re back together.”
Actually, now that she thought of it, there had been a startling number of times she’d had second-and third and fourth-thoughts about Casey. But that was normal, right? Every relationship had issues, and they’d addressed them and moved forward, so it was all good. Better than good.
“Sounds serious,” Danny said, like he was just poking fun at her, but there was something about the twitch of his eyebrow that undercut him a little bit.
Mindy shrugged, deciding not to mention the whole engaged-to-maybe-be-engaged thing, even though it was the biggest thing to happen to her in a long time. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see how it goes.”
He smiled at that, then nodded, more gently this time, toward his paperwork, and she was going to let him get back to that seemingly very urgent paperwork, but then she glanced at the photo of Christina again. A thought popped into her head, and then quickly it fell out of her mouth.
“Hey, how’d you ask her to marry you?”
Danny stared at her blankly. “Ask who to marry me?”
“Christina! Your ex-wife, who you’re dating. Unless you have any other ex-wives you haven’t told me about, which, in that case, I have a lot other questions.”
“No, I don’t … why are you asking that? I’m not telling you that now. This is a workplace, and I’m working.”
Why was he being weird? It was making her momentary curiosity blossom into full-blown need-to-know status.
“Come on. Just tell me quick, and then I’ll leave you alone.” His eyes widened at her, and he looked pained. It must have been pretty bad, Mindy thought-like in a dive bar or an ATM vestibule, or maybe he threw up on her. “What, is it really embarrassing or lame or something?”
“No!” He glared at her, rolled his eyes, and looked sideways. “It was in bed,” he muttered finally, refusing to look at her. “I was feeling really emotional, and it slipped out, okay? There, you happy?”
“Yeah, I’m happy,” she said, grinning. “That’s actually pretty sweet, Danny.”
“You said if I told you, you’d go,” he reminded her.
“Fine, I’m going, I’m going.”
She backed out of his office, her hands up in mock surrender, but smiling.
That was actually surprisingly nice sounding, she thought, walking back to her own office to get back on her cloud. Impulsive, passionate-she thought maybe she wouldn’t mind a proposal like that.
From Casey, of course. Probably.
Definitely maybe Casey.
Pairing: Mindy/Danny
Word Count: 1900
Rating: PG
Summary: Just a short little scene after the end of 1x23. Was supposed to be a drabble but got a little longer.
Mindy kissed Casey goodbye and walked to her office, feeling like she was floating on a cloud. And not like one of those stringy cirrus clouds that might actually be an airplane’s discharge, or the dull gray sky blankets that remind you of pollution on overcast days, but like a Care Bear-level, pufftastic cloud. The pretty fluffy kind you see in storybooks or paintings of goddesses or National Geographic photo-of-the-year contests. She was like Drew Barrymore, twirling on a Care Bear cloud.
No, this was better than Drew Barrymore. Drew played some pretty ditzy parts, to be honest, and Mindy wasn’t sure why that was the first person she thought of just then.
This was … Drew Barrymore in that one movie where she played a brilliant mathematician. Only minus the Jimmy Fallon character obsessed with sports, plus a minister. And she actually kind of hated math. So, a totally different movie.
But whatever. Mindy was practically engaged, and that was fantasy cloud-worthy. Well, not engaged engaged. Ideally her marriage proposal wouldn’t happen in an elevator at work or feature the words “tater cone boy” (although that was cute, just not proposal-level cute), or be crashed by Morgan and Danny.
(For some reason, the image of Danny trying to propose to some poor woman in an H&R Block intruded into her brain just then, and she pushed it back out. Danny, get out of my romantic moment. You’re ruining it.)
So maybe that wasn’t a legit proposal, but Casey had used the words “marriage” and “babies,” before she’d even thought to use those words. And let’s face it, she’d been thinking those words about 30 percent of the time since about age 15, just not specifically about Casey, and now Casey was already thinking them about her. That in itself was reason enough to make a really expensive reservation someplace and buy a new dress. New shoes, too, probably.
Sometime before he went to Haiti.
No, it was better not to focus on that right now and instead think about shoes. It was just going to be a year, anyway. Without the distractions of dating someone local, she could spend it focusing on her career, making up now for the time she’d have to take off later for all the tropical sex and babies and stuff. She’d be so busy being a kickass doctor, this year would fly by, right?
And before she knew it, she could be married to Casey.
Her stomach flipped over at the thought, and not necessarily in a good way. Not necessarily in a bad way, either, but it was just … this was kind of a big deal, and it was hitting her all at once, and maybe she shouldn’t have eaten that leftover half of a burrito this morning.
Did she want to be married to Casey? She wanted to be married. And she liked Casey, sure. He was all hip and moral and gainfully employed and hot from certain specific angles. And he could see himself marrying her.
So … probably?
“Mindy, you have to check these out.”
Morgan burst into her office, interrupting her cloud reverie/deep life thoughts, and Mindy waved him away, but then he said, “This is the hottest I’ve ever seen you,” and she reached for the camera he was holding out to her.
She flipped quickly through the photos at first, wrinkling her nose. It was weird seeing pictures of herself making out. It didn’t look quite as great as it had felt, but who did look good with their mouths hanging open and their eyes half-closed and their faces smushed up on each other?
And there was Danny, hovering in the corner, like a total creepy peeping Tom. Only, he looked like he didn’t want to be there, and he wasn’t even trying to look at them, so she guessed that meant he wasn’t really peeping. Kind of the opposite, really.
Actually, he looked pretty miserable, and not in his usual antisocial way but … almost sad. Small. Smaller than usual, even, but that might just be because Casey was nearby, and Casey was like the sequoia tree of men.
Mindy flipped through the images again looking at Danny’s face in each of them, while Morgan leaned over her shoulder saying inane things like, “Heh, that one’s my favorite. Your nose is all smushed,” and, “Look, now we’re both kissing Casey! We make a cute family, don’t you think?” and finally, “I’m going to go put these on the Internet so the whole world can see,” as he was taking the camera back.
At this last one, Mindy grabbed his arm and yelled, “Stop!”
“In the naaaaame of love,” Morgan started singing, closing his eyes and bending his knees to emphasize the feeling in the lyrics. “Sorry. Reflex,” he added in a normal voice.
“Don’t put those on the Internet,” Mindy ordered him. “Actually, I want you to delete them all.” She put her hands on her hips and drew herself up to her full height, trying to look her most boss-like. Which wasn’t hard because … she was the boss. One of the bosses. “Delete them all, or you’re fired,” she added for good measure, cringing inwardly because she’d always pictured herself as a different sort of boss, the kind who was everyone’s best friend and confidante and not the sort who made empty threats about firing people.
Morgan looked crushed. “But I just came back. I thought we were family. Did you clear this with Danny? Danny called me his brother and he doesn’t remember it but he didn’t deny it either. If I have to go, can I at least keep this guy?”
“Who?” Mindy stepped back in alarm as Morgan reached for something in the vicinity of his crotch and was relieved-alarmed, but relieved-when he only pulled out a puppy. “Yeah, keep him. I don’t know who that is. And you’re not fired, okay? I don’t know why I said that. That’s not … that’s not how I roll. I’m the cool boss. Just delete the photos, man. And stop putting puppies in your pants, because that was startling.”
“Done," Morgan said, pressing some buttons on the back of the camera and then holding up the dog uncertainly. "And done-maybe. I’ll try. I’m just not sure where else to keep him." He appeared to be checking his sleeves for holes or pockets or something as he left her office.
Mindy shook her head, unsure of exactly where the urge to destroy the photographic evidence had come from. They were her engagement photos after all-well, her engaged-to-be-engaged photos, or maybe her talking-about-maybe-being-engaged-to-be-engaged-someday photos. That could be the love of her life in those photos, and she could have just cropped the other one out.
Speaking of Danny’s grumpy face … she glanced up to see him walking past her office just then, without even acknowledging her. She poked her head out the door and watched him continue to ignore her, then went after him.
“Hey,” she said, leaning casually in his doorway as he sat down at his desk.
“Hey,” he said flatly, taking some files out of his briefcase without really looking at her.
“I’m just popping in to say hi like friends do, because we’re friends,” she said, slightly accusatorily, because he wasn’t really acting very friendly right now.
He frowned at her and opened a file, and the message was clear that he wanted her to leave.
“How are you?” she asked, starting to be kind of really worried about him. “You feeling okay? You catch that cold that’s going around?”
“Nope, I’m fine. Perfect health.”
He didn’t seem fine, though.
Mindy stepped into the room, only to be greeted by an exasperated sigh, which she ignored. She leaned forward and picked up the picture frame on his desk. “How’s Christina? Things still good with her?” Maybe that was why he looked like that in the pictures-if things weren’t going well for him, it’d be uncomfortable to see how well things were going for her. Not because it was her specifically , just … because.
Danny shrugged stiffly. “Yeah. So far. I mean, we’re not making out in the elevator or anything. But she’s not into excessive PDA like some people, so I’m not really worried.”
Mindy set the picture down, feeling guilty even though she hadn’t really done anything wrong except for being happy in public. “Sorry about that,” she said anyway, because Danny seemed really bothered and that bothered her.
Danny cleared his throat, softening a little toward her, she thought. He was hunching over a little less at least.
“So you and Casey are back on again,” he observed. “What is this, the second or third time you’ve taken him back? Better watch it, or Kate Perry’s going to have enough material to write a song about you.”
“It’s Katy Perry. And oh my god. Did you just make a Katy Perry reference?”
Danny looked like he’d been caught, and Mindy smiled. She knew it. He secretly listened to pop music.
“The aerobics class at my gym plays their music too loud and it gets into the weight room and it gets in your head. That’s why it’s so annoying.” He shuddered, like that was some kind of imposition, but she wasn’t buying it.
She was so filing this away to give him a hard time about later. Just not at the moment.
“It’s the second time, by the way,” she clarified, going back to his actual question. “Unless you count the first time we almost stopped dating, then that would make this the third time, but we were only dating then, not in a relationship yet, so I don’t count that. But yeah, we’re back together.”
Actually, now that she thought of it, there had been a startling number of times she’d had second-and third and fourth-thoughts about Casey. But that was normal, right? Every relationship had issues, and they’d addressed them and moved forward, so it was all good. Better than good.
“Sounds serious,” Danny said, like he was just poking fun at her, but there was something about the twitch of his eyebrow that undercut him a little bit.
Mindy shrugged, deciding not to mention the whole engaged-to-maybe-be-engaged thing, even though it was the biggest thing to happen to her in a long time. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see how it goes.”
He smiled at that, then nodded, more gently this time, toward his paperwork, and she was going to let him get back to that seemingly very urgent paperwork, but then she glanced at the photo of Christina again. A thought popped into her head, and then quickly it fell out of her mouth.
“Hey, how’d you ask her to marry you?”
Danny stared at her blankly. “Ask who to marry me?”
“Christina! Your ex-wife, who you’re dating. Unless you have any other ex-wives you haven’t told me about, which, in that case, I have a lot other questions.”
“No, I don’t … why are you asking that? I’m not telling you that now. This is a workplace, and I’m working.”
Why was he being weird? It was making her momentary curiosity blossom into full-blown need-to-know status.
“Come on. Just tell me quick, and then I’ll leave you alone.” His eyes widened at her, and he looked pained. It must have been pretty bad, Mindy thought-like in a dive bar or an ATM vestibule, or maybe he threw up on her. “What, is it really embarrassing or lame or something?”
“No!” He glared at her, rolled his eyes, and looked sideways. “It was in bed,” he muttered finally, refusing to look at her. “I was feeling really emotional, and it slipped out, okay? There, you happy?”
“Yeah, I’m happy,” she said, grinning. “That’s actually pretty sweet, Danny.”
“You said if I told you, you’d go,” he reminded her.
“Fine, I’m going, I’m going.”
She backed out of his office, her hands up in mock surrender, but smiling.
That was actually surprisingly nice sounding, she thought, walking back to her own office to get back on her cloud. Impulsive, passionate-she thought maybe she wouldn’t mind a proposal like that.
From Casey, of course. Probably.
Definitely maybe Casey.