Fic: Thirty Years of Things That Never Work Out
Title: Thirty Years of Things That Never Work Out
Author: sterling_sky
Pairing: Implied CJ/Danny and some unrequited CJ/Toby.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,700ish.
Disclaimer: Not Sorkin, not Wells. Don't sue?
Warnings | Timeline | Spoilers: Post-series, excluding that bit of Toby canon in s7 because, well, it’s stupid and I want to.
A/N: For the 'pick n mix' prompt. The fact that I am attempting to write Toby is probably a really bad idea.
Summary: Three kids and almost thirty years between them.
There are many in your life
And many still to be
Since you are a shining light
There's many that you'll see
But I have to deal with envy
When you choose the precious few
Who've left their pride on the other side of
Coming back to you.
- Leonard Cohen
It had seemed like a really good idea at the time. Most things in his life seem to follow that theme. But now he was sunburned and sweaty and just now noticing that he had most of Molly’s strawberry ice cream cone melted over his shoulder. The one she needed - really, really, really, Daddy, I promise - to have on the walk back to the car, until she decided what she really, really, really needed was to be carried the rest of the way. It had seemed like a really good idea a month ago to call CJ and let her know they’d be in town for a few days. It still seemed like a halfway decent, if not exactly good idea a couple days ago to agree to meet up and let their kids watch whatever travesty of cinema Dreamworks has churned out this year. But now, trying to manoeuvre the hulking rental sedan into a spot apparently designed for tiny matchstick cars, with Huck finding it necessary to remind him every few seconds that “Dad, you are really quite close to this red car beside us, here...” and his cell phone chirping incessantly from some unknown spot on the floor of the back seat, now it seems like possibly the worst idea he has ever had. And that’s including every suit he wore in the ‘80s.
Molly has the cellphone clamped against her ear with both hands as he gets them out of the car.
“CJ wants to know if we’re here yet.”
“Tell her I can see her from here.” He thinks about waving but decides against turning his kids loose in a parking lot with the kind of drivers he just got off the interstate with. He’s hard to miss, half dragging one kid and being half dragged by the other, bent over and embarrassingly unglamorous against the manufactured shine of her adopted hometown. She waves when she sees him anyways, tall and tanned in a gauzy top and jeans, leaning against the handles of a giant stroller that looks more like an SUV, as if her toddler might have to go into combat at any moment.
She hugs him like an old friend as he tries not to hug her like a lifeline, and while the kids squeal and laugh at each other and the twins revel in their bigness next to her daughter, he’s trying to remember what she called her baby, who is hardly a baby now, running and walking and confined to a stroller only for the sake of CJ’s sanity.
“So, are you hoping she’s going to be a showgirl when she grows up, or...”
“What?”
“From the, you know, her name was Lola, she was a showgirl,” he gestures, his hand rolling in the air. Keep up, CJ, keep up; she’s seen it in enough different circumstances to recognize it even now.
“No, I know what you mean, but....”
“But you just thought it would be fun to extend the embarrassment exercise for me?”
“Well, you know, you’re quoting Cobacabana at me, Toby, forgive me if I take a moment to catch up!”
“It’s the... I spent all day at Disneyland, CJ, okay? So maybe just catch up faster.”
“Okay.” She resists the temptation to roll her eyes at him, but just barely, and he thinks maybe he doesn’t want his daughter to grow up exactly like her, because he might not survive the whole teenage thing. They walk to the ticket takers in a silence that doesn’t last long.
“It’s short for Delores.”
“What is?”
“Lola. It’s short for Delores.”
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to know she ended up with that ridiculous nickname only because her parents picked an even more ridiculous first name.”
“It’s not ridiculous. It was Danny’s grandmother’s name. She was the first one to tell him that if he wanted to go be a writer, he should go be a writer.”
He wishes that he didn’t notice the way her voice softens on her husband’s name.
“I guess being a journalist is close enough.” She smacks him, and is promptly told not to hit by her own daughter.
“So, Disneyland, huh?”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Disneyland.” He’d was still finding it a little hard to believe that his kids had managed to drag him all the way to the West Coast to watch a bunch of grown men and women dance around in big fuzzy character suits in the middle of summer. Mickey and Minnie were still just giant, fictional rodents, even if he was told how adorable they were every eight and a half minutes. Disneyland was entirely unimpressive. The fact that people without children went there for fun, for vacation, was actually a little disturbing.
“You go on the rides with them?”
“Some of them. They’ve got those, you know, ‘You must be this tall’ things, so those ones.”
“Enjoy yourself?”
He glares. She giggles in a way grown women shouldn’t be allowed to.
“I survived.”
“Favourite ride?”
“CJ, seriously...”
“I just mean, you didn’t take them on Space Mountain or anything, right? Kept ‘em low to the ground? Did you do It’s a Small World?”
“I kept them on the kids rides, okay?”
“Did you do It’s a Small World?”
“That’s...”
“Come on, it’s fun, there’s singing, and little... puppets, or marionettes, or whatever those things are-“
“You didn’t think it was terrifying when you were six?”
“They’re puppets, Toby! What, they can't watch Sesame Street either, just in case Elmo is involved in a particularly stressful storyline?”
“They’re scary puppets when you’re six, okay?”
“Were you afraid of the puppets, Toby?” She looks over her giant slushie cup at him, mischief in her eyes and bright red food colouring on
her mouth that he’s surprised they haven’t linked to cancer yet.
“Can we maybe, you know, not go ten rounds on the pros and cons of theme park attractions?”
“You want to watch the trailers?”
“I’m just... you named your kid Lola, you don’t get to give parenting advice.”
“You named your kid Huckleberry.”
“My wi-My ex-wife named him Huckleberry. And do you want to maybe not mock his name when he’s sitting three seats away from you?”
“They’re watching a preview for the umpteenth Madagascar sequel. They have no idea what we’re talking about.”
“What’s this one about, anyways?”
“The one we’re seeing? Same generic animal story. This time I believe it’s with sheep, and some kind of evil lion or something.”
“Why would a lion be - “ The movie is starting before he can finish his sentence, which is just as well considering the glare he’s getting
from her. We’re not analyzing the food chain of the animal kingdom, Toby. We’re here for the kids. Just shut up and enjoy yourself. Or at least shut up and let them enjoy themselves. Instead he just sighs.
He can remember back to a time when he was married and she wasn’t, and having kids was just something other people did. People who weren’t them. People who weren’t going to save the world the way the two of them were. They never considered the idea that maybe the world didn’t want to be saved. Or that maybe it just didn’t want to be saved by people like them.
He can remember back even further, too, back to when she was a friend of a friend of somebody he sort of vaguely remembered going to some tacky campus bar with, too many years his junior to be just as smart as he was. To when she was “just CJ, just girl-in-a-bar-CJ,” except for the fact that anyone who’d ever met her knew she’d never been just anything in her life; she was the type to live in quiet extremes. She always had been strange drinks and smart talk; always had been long and lean and danced like liquid nitrogen. Always had been and always will be so much more. But somehow when she introduced herself as Just CJ it made sense. It’s probably what made her so goddamn good at her job; she could’ve stood at that podium and convinced them all of anything. Hey, guys, guess what. Turns out the earth goes around the sun after all, we made a bad call on that. And every last one of them would’ve believed her.
They’d decided way back then that they didn’t want to “screw it up” with sex, which he’d nodded his agreement to, and she’d said “Ironic, isn’t it? You know, don’t want to screw it up, but we’re talking about sex, so, y’know, screwing... Anyways.” So they were too smart, too mature, too different and too much alike for it to work out, and who wants to ruin a perfectly good friendship with something ridiculous like romance, because those things never really work out in the end, do they.
He laughs at her laughing at the animated sheep doing a double-take at what is apparently supposed to be the sexy girl sheep, because while it’s really not that funny, he did pay thirteen bucks to come see it, in 3-D no less, and he might as well enjoy himself. Then she laughs at him laughing, and they both dip their chins when they laugh, and she grins over at him, chin still dipped just like that, just like Just CJ, just-girl-in-a-bar-CJ, just like all those years ago. And he thinks to himself that there are too many justs in that sentence, and that right now is the kind of moment in the movies where the guy kisses the girl and the audience swoons. Except actors have scripts and million dollar paycheques for staring longingly at each other, and as far as he knows he’s never had either, and even if he did there’s no guarantee it’d be a star-making blockbuster and not a straight-to-video career killer.
Funny how almost thirty years together (in a million ways, except the ones you want) can turn a statement into a question. Those things never really work out in the end, do they?
He thinks about asking her that but the truth is, he likes his words better when they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, and his ideas have always been better than his timing.
Author: sterling_sky
Pairing: Implied CJ/Danny and some unrequited CJ/Toby.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,700ish.
Disclaimer: Not Sorkin, not Wells. Don't sue?
Warnings | Timeline | Spoilers: Post-series, excluding that bit of Toby canon in s7 because, well, it’s stupid and I want to.
A/N: For the 'pick n mix' prompt. The fact that I am attempting to write Toby is probably a really bad idea.
Summary: Three kids and almost thirty years between them.
There are many in your life
And many still to be
Since you are a shining light
There's many that you'll see
But I have to deal with envy
When you choose the precious few
Who've left their pride on the other side of
Coming back to you.
- Leonard Cohen
It had seemed like a really good idea at the time. Most things in his life seem to follow that theme. But now he was sunburned and sweaty and just now noticing that he had most of Molly’s strawberry ice cream cone melted over his shoulder. The one she needed - really, really, really, Daddy, I promise - to have on the walk back to the car, until she decided what she really, really, really needed was to be carried the rest of the way. It had seemed like a really good idea a month ago to call CJ and let her know they’d be in town for a few days. It still seemed like a halfway decent, if not exactly good idea a couple days ago to agree to meet up and let their kids watch whatever travesty of cinema Dreamworks has churned out this year. But now, trying to manoeuvre the hulking rental sedan into a spot apparently designed for tiny matchstick cars, with Huck finding it necessary to remind him every few seconds that “Dad, you are really quite close to this red car beside us, here...” and his cell phone chirping incessantly from some unknown spot on the floor of the back seat, now it seems like possibly the worst idea he has ever had. And that’s including every suit he wore in the ‘80s.
Molly has the cellphone clamped against her ear with both hands as he gets them out of the car.
“CJ wants to know if we’re here yet.”
“Tell her I can see her from here.” He thinks about waving but decides against turning his kids loose in a parking lot with the kind of drivers he just got off the interstate with. He’s hard to miss, half dragging one kid and being half dragged by the other, bent over and embarrassingly unglamorous against the manufactured shine of her adopted hometown. She waves when she sees him anyways, tall and tanned in a gauzy top and jeans, leaning against the handles of a giant stroller that looks more like an SUV, as if her toddler might have to go into combat at any moment.
She hugs him like an old friend as he tries not to hug her like a lifeline, and while the kids squeal and laugh at each other and the twins revel in their bigness next to her daughter, he’s trying to remember what she called her baby, who is hardly a baby now, running and walking and confined to a stroller only for the sake of CJ’s sanity.
“So, are you hoping she’s going to be a showgirl when she grows up, or...”
“What?”
“From the, you know, her name was Lola, she was a showgirl,” he gestures, his hand rolling in the air. Keep up, CJ, keep up; she’s seen it in enough different circumstances to recognize it even now.
“No, I know what you mean, but....”
“But you just thought it would be fun to extend the embarrassment exercise for me?”
“Well, you know, you’re quoting Cobacabana at me, Toby, forgive me if I take a moment to catch up!”
“It’s the... I spent all day at Disneyland, CJ, okay? So maybe just catch up faster.”
“Okay.” She resists the temptation to roll her eyes at him, but just barely, and he thinks maybe he doesn’t want his daughter to grow up exactly like her, because he might not survive the whole teenage thing. They walk to the ticket takers in a silence that doesn’t last long.
“It’s short for Delores.”
“What is?”
“Lola. It’s short for Delores.”
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to know she ended up with that ridiculous nickname only because her parents picked an even more ridiculous first name.”
“It’s not ridiculous. It was Danny’s grandmother’s name. She was the first one to tell him that if he wanted to go be a writer, he should go be a writer.”
He wishes that he didn’t notice the way her voice softens on her husband’s name.
“I guess being a journalist is close enough.” She smacks him, and is promptly told not to hit by her own daughter.
“So, Disneyland, huh?”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Disneyland.” He’d was still finding it a little hard to believe that his kids had managed to drag him all the way to the West Coast to watch a bunch of grown men and women dance around in big fuzzy character suits in the middle of summer. Mickey and Minnie were still just giant, fictional rodents, even if he was told how adorable they were every eight and a half minutes. Disneyland was entirely unimpressive. The fact that people without children went there for fun, for vacation, was actually a little disturbing.
“You go on the rides with them?”
“Some of them. They’ve got those, you know, ‘You must be this tall’ things, so those ones.”
“Enjoy yourself?”
He glares. She giggles in a way grown women shouldn’t be allowed to.
“I survived.”
“Favourite ride?”
“CJ, seriously...”
“I just mean, you didn’t take them on Space Mountain or anything, right? Kept ‘em low to the ground? Did you do It’s a Small World?”
“I kept them on the kids rides, okay?”
“Did you do It’s a Small World?”
“That’s...”
“Come on, it’s fun, there’s singing, and little... puppets, or marionettes, or whatever those things are-“
“You didn’t think it was terrifying when you were six?”
“They’re puppets, Toby! What, they can't watch Sesame Street either, just in case Elmo is involved in a particularly stressful storyline?”
“They’re scary puppets when you’re six, okay?”
“Were you afraid of the puppets, Toby?” She looks over her giant slushie cup at him, mischief in her eyes and bright red food colouring on
her mouth that he’s surprised they haven’t linked to cancer yet.
“Can we maybe, you know, not go ten rounds on the pros and cons of theme park attractions?”
“You want to watch the trailers?”
“I’m just... you named your kid Lola, you don’t get to give parenting advice.”
“You named your kid Huckleberry.”
“My wi-My ex-wife named him Huckleberry. And do you want to maybe not mock his name when he’s sitting three seats away from you?”
“They’re watching a preview for the umpteenth Madagascar sequel. They have no idea what we’re talking about.”
“What’s this one about, anyways?”
“The one we’re seeing? Same generic animal story. This time I believe it’s with sheep, and some kind of evil lion or something.”
“Why would a lion be - “ The movie is starting before he can finish his sentence, which is just as well considering the glare he’s getting
from her. We’re not analyzing the food chain of the animal kingdom, Toby. We’re here for the kids. Just shut up and enjoy yourself. Or at least shut up and let them enjoy themselves. Instead he just sighs.
He can remember back to a time when he was married and she wasn’t, and having kids was just something other people did. People who weren’t them. People who weren’t going to save the world the way the two of them were. They never considered the idea that maybe the world didn’t want to be saved. Or that maybe it just didn’t want to be saved by people like them.
He can remember back even further, too, back to when she was a friend of a friend of somebody he sort of vaguely remembered going to some tacky campus bar with, too many years his junior to be just as smart as he was. To when she was “just CJ, just girl-in-a-bar-CJ,” except for the fact that anyone who’d ever met her knew she’d never been just anything in her life; she was the type to live in quiet extremes. She always had been strange drinks and smart talk; always had been long and lean and danced like liquid nitrogen. Always had been and always will be so much more. But somehow when she introduced herself as Just CJ it made sense. It’s probably what made her so goddamn good at her job; she could’ve stood at that podium and convinced them all of anything. Hey, guys, guess what. Turns out the earth goes around the sun after all, we made a bad call on that. And every last one of them would’ve believed her.
They’d decided way back then that they didn’t want to “screw it up” with sex, which he’d nodded his agreement to, and she’d said “Ironic, isn’t it? You know, don’t want to screw it up, but we’re talking about sex, so, y’know, screwing... Anyways.” So they were too smart, too mature, too different and too much alike for it to work out, and who wants to ruin a perfectly good friendship with something ridiculous like romance, because those things never really work out in the end, do they.
He laughs at her laughing at the animated sheep doing a double-take at what is apparently supposed to be the sexy girl sheep, because while it’s really not that funny, he did pay thirteen bucks to come see it, in 3-D no less, and he might as well enjoy himself. Then she laughs at him laughing, and they both dip their chins when they laugh, and she grins over at him, chin still dipped just like that, just like Just CJ, just-girl-in-a-bar-CJ, just like all those years ago. And he thinks to himself that there are too many justs in that sentence, and that right now is the kind of moment in the movies where the guy kisses the girl and the audience swoons. Except actors have scripts and million dollar paycheques for staring longingly at each other, and as far as he knows he’s never had either, and even if he did there’s no guarantee it’d be a star-making blockbuster and not a straight-to-video career killer.
Funny how almost thirty years together (in a million ways, except the ones you want) can turn a statement into a question. Those things never really work out in the end, do they?
He thinks about asking her that but the truth is, he likes his words better when they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, and his ideas have always been better than his timing.