musebyquotes | 1.5. Unknown quote
1.5. "Love is like a puzzle. When you're in love, all the pieces fit but when your heart gets broken, it takes a while to get everything back together."
- Author Unknown
Co-written with straight2point | Follows THIS
Harri was passed out on her bed, now wearing Marc's Rugby jersey, sweatpants, and a pair of his socks. Her feet got cold easily lately, so she couldn't help it. She tucked her hands under the pillow, watching Marc as he got out of his Prada shirt. She'd spent a good twenty minutes throwing up before dinner, and then managed to wolf down two serves of pasta. So far her dinner was staying put, so she was hoping for a night that didn't involve camping in the bathroom. She was so over that, and she still had several months to go.
Aiden had stayed for as long as he could, and Harri had been a very kind and sacrifcied some of her ice cream for dessert. She sighed as she closed her eyes briefly and thought of Aiden's face just before she'd asked him about godfather duty. She was still sure he'd been keeping something from her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She was hoping it really was hormones and she wasn't losing her touch. "Do you like him?" Harri asked quietly.
Marc flung the shirt off in the general direction of the end of the bed and went to the dresser to where his injection kit was. He tipped the small vial of insulin upside down and then capped the syringe with the needle. "I do. He seems like a great guy..." he said hesitantly. "Pretty sure he doesn't trust me as far as he can spit on me, though."
Any other night she might have offered to do it for him, but tonight she was damn sure she couldn't move off the bed if she tried. "There's no one like Aiden... No one. He's just being protective. It's been a while since he's had to be. For all I know he's giving you months worth of built up protection. I'm kind of sorry I never had you two meet before... guess we all just got distracted."
Marc drew the injection up and tapped the side of it. He injected his stomach with ease and then discarded the remnants in the small sharps container. He pressed his finger over the puncture to wait for the bleeding to stop. "Is Aiden married?" he asked as he came and sat down on the side of the bed. "Is Pat, like, his mistress, for want of a better word?"
Harri pulled a face as she looked at Marc. "What? No! Fuck. Aiden's not married. Pat is his fucking soulmate and fiancé. He's not a Mormon either, before you ask. He's strictly a one man guy. He hates breasts, except for mine, but you already pointed out I'm practically a transvestite."
"Oh," Marc said with a nod and then shrugged. "I could've swore that was a wedding ring he was wearing. Is it just his engagement ring or something?"
"His... what?" Harri frowned, and rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. "His... he had a wedding ring on?" She rolled onto her back and rest her hand on her forehead. She was trying to work out if she remembered a ring on Aiden's finger, but her mind was drawing a blank.
"He had a platinum band on the ring finger of his left hand," Marc corrected and started to unbutton his trousers. "I figured you would have mentioned if he was married, but then if he was having an affair with Pat, I'd get why you hadn't. Then I maybe thought he had a token wife for appearance sakes or something. That's not particularly uncommon for gay guys in high places, which you would be well aware of."
"Aiden's not like that. Maybe he's not screamingly gay, and he does like his private life private, but he's not ashamed of who he is, or who he's with. He's definitely not ashamed of Pat. Pat is not the Other Man." Harri pushed her foot against the matress and sighed. "He's married, isn't he? He and Pat... It's legal in Canada, right?"
Marc nodded and shrugged at the same time. "Same sex unions are, just like in England. But I don't know Aiden well enough to make a call like that. I could barely tell if his smiles were genuine or not. Would he do something like that without telling you?" he asked. "Marriage is a huge thing."'
Harri tried to shrug lying down, and huffed out a breath as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She was getting that restless feeling. "They were," Harri murmured as she pulled her knees up to her chest. "Aiden really doesn't fake much. And I don't know... maybe if he thought it was the right time. Pat can get pretty ill when he has an attack. Maybe they took advantage of his good spell and being in Canada? I don't know... I'd have to ask him."
"Does he usually wear jewellery or rings? Maybe it was a gift? I don't know. It didn't look cheap. See, now I bet you're wishing Pat was here so you could've seen if he had a matching one, huh?" Marc said with a smirk. "Maybe he went to Vegas, got drunk, and woke up with it?" he added with a snort.
Harri shook her head. "It's not Aiden. Not the Vegas thing. He does everything with huge amounts of thought..." She glanced at Marc and flashed him a sheepish smile that became a smirk. "Yeah, I am. I just want Aiden happy, and if he did marry Pat, then I know it's because Pat is what makes Aiden happy. He loves him a lot." She wet her lips and pointed a finger at Marc. "You didn't remind me to ask you something."
Marc raised his eyebrows a little, wondering why Harri wasn't more shocked at the prospect her best friend might've eloped. If it had been Ali, Marc probably would've fallen off the bed and then still not believed it. "Good thing you have a better memory than me," he said with a smirk.
"We're talking about marriage, and love. It helped jog my memory," Harri returned. She was shocked, but it was a quiet shock. She had a feeling it would come out more when she faced Aiden again.
"Oh..." Marc said and stood long enough to tug his pants off. He folded them in half and slung them over the chair near Harri's bed. "So, what do you want to ask me?"
"It's alright, I'm not about to propose," she assured him. Her stomach gave a nervous flop and she had to close her eyes briefly to wait and see if she was about to have the nausea to go with it. When she opened her eyes, her blue ones fixed on Marc. "Look, I'm pretty rubbish at this stuff. I don't pretend to know what I'm doing, and I really don't know if it's already happened since I have no bloody clue what day it even is... but will you move in with me?"
Marc put his fingers up and rubbed them across his forehead. "I can't," he began and then let out a slow breath. "Or more accurately, I can't unless you agree to sign into my world, hook, line and sinker," he elaborated.
"What's left to sign into?" Harri asked, genuinely confused for a moment. "Is this... is it an Alex thing? Or ya need ya own place because ya can't be seen havin' a pregnant girlfriend?"
Marc shook his head. "No. None of that. More like if I am seen with a pregnant girlfriend and you're going to be linked with me, you're being linked with an elaborate and constructed world. If we try the committment thing, you're coming into that world. And if you do, I literally need you to ask you to sign your life away. In silence contracts, privacy agreements, gag orders. You'll meet my colleagues, you'll know where I really work, you'll know my schedule. You'll basically be a part of the investigation without being an Agent. You'll be a smokescreen, in a sense. You become part of my masquerade as my pregnant girlfriend. Is Marcus Fraser's world something Harriet Ryan can be linked to, business-wise? If you're okay with that, are you personally okay with becoming part of something you might never really understand?"
"I don't understand it even now," Harri admitted. She rubbed at her face, and let her head rest in her hand as she braced her elbow against her knee. Fuck, she was tired. And asking Marc to move in now required her brain to work. She didn't even consider the SS stuff, and now she felt ridiculously stupid. She wasn't even sure she could blame her pregnant brain. Maybe it had just been wishful thinking that it would be easy. She should know by now that nothing with him was. "They wouldn't let me, would they? Even with all those bits of paper, would the SS or whoever really be okay with it? Would you?"
Marc laughed softly. "That's why it's all there. You don't think they expect us to give up our whole lives and never fall in love, never have a family, anything like that, do you? Because they don't. It's just not as easy for us it is for everyone else out there. It's not easy for the people we choose to bring into that world. Divorce rate is high. Women walking around out there under the force of gag orders trying to get on with their lives after the marriage failed because the husband was too tied up in the investigations. Or vice versa for female Agents. It's not impossible, but it's something you have to be absolutely certain about inside to even consider it, love. You come into this, you'll have two lives."
"And if I don't 'come into this'? Things just stay as they are?" She watched him quietly, forcing herself to turn it all over in her mind. "But if I sign... you can just talk freely if you need to? You don't have to be vague with me? And I... do what? Come out with you when you need to be Marcus?"
"Basically," Marc murmured with a nod. "Only, that's the very bare minimum. It's not just about being my man bag," he told her with a smirk. "You'll still be Harriet Ryan, fantastic and popular boss of Razor, I'll be Marcus Fraser, CEO of Promantech with a shady and promiscuous past. We'll just be attached and probably gossiped about until the rich bastards' tongues fall off. Which is good... for my case. On a deeper level, what will change for you is you will know the operations of my 'second' life, so to speak. You will be privy to more than I've been able to tell you now. You'll just know. You'll still be you, you'll just know more."
Harri tilted her head as she continued to watch him. "You still didn't say if you'd be okay with it, or not."
"Neither did you," Marc returned quietly, meeting her gaze.
"Got a pen?" she asked as she raised an eyebrow. "I'm in. I went this far, didn't I? If you're not okay with Marcus Fraser having a pregnant girlfriend, then that's okay. It's one thing to be attached to Harri Ryan, fantastic and popular boss of Razor. It's another to have knocked her up. In public."
Marc just smirked tiredly at her. "Rule number one. Don't underestimate me," he told her. "If I wasn't okay with this, you would never have known me beyond that elevator. I would have disappeared after LA and you would never have seen me again. I'm here now because I hoped that maybe one day you would sign those documents."
Harri smiled as she uncurled and crawled towards the end of the bed. She knelt and held her arms out for him. "Does this mean you love me? Marcus Fraser, and James Campbell?"
"It means I'm learning to need you," Marc told her, accepting the embrace. "I just need a tiny bit more time to wrap my head around the rest. I've got a lot in my past to let go of, and I'm getting there. Is that okay?"
"More than," she whispered as she held him tightly. "Guess I better clear out my closet a bit."
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,059
- Author Unknown
Co-written with straight2point | Follows THIS
Harri was passed out on her bed, now wearing Marc's Rugby jersey, sweatpants, and a pair of his socks. Her feet got cold easily lately, so she couldn't help it. She tucked her hands under the pillow, watching Marc as he got out of his Prada shirt. She'd spent a good twenty minutes throwing up before dinner, and then managed to wolf down two serves of pasta. So far her dinner was staying put, so she was hoping for a night that didn't involve camping in the bathroom. She was so over that, and she still had several months to go.
Aiden had stayed for as long as he could, and Harri had been a very kind and sacrifcied some of her ice cream for dessert. She sighed as she closed her eyes briefly and thought of Aiden's face just before she'd asked him about godfather duty. She was still sure he'd been keeping something from her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She was hoping it really was hormones and she wasn't losing her touch. "Do you like him?" Harri asked quietly.
Marc flung the shirt off in the general direction of the end of the bed and went to the dresser to where his injection kit was. He tipped the small vial of insulin upside down and then capped the syringe with the needle. "I do. He seems like a great guy..." he said hesitantly. "Pretty sure he doesn't trust me as far as he can spit on me, though."
Any other night she might have offered to do it for him, but tonight she was damn sure she couldn't move off the bed if she tried. "There's no one like Aiden... No one. He's just being protective. It's been a while since he's had to be. For all I know he's giving you months worth of built up protection. I'm kind of sorry I never had you two meet before... guess we all just got distracted."
Marc drew the injection up and tapped the side of it. He injected his stomach with ease and then discarded the remnants in the small sharps container. He pressed his finger over the puncture to wait for the bleeding to stop. "Is Aiden married?" he asked as he came and sat down on the side of the bed. "Is Pat, like, his mistress, for want of a better word?"
Harri pulled a face as she looked at Marc. "What? No! Fuck. Aiden's not married. Pat is his fucking soulmate and fiancé. He's not a Mormon either, before you ask. He's strictly a one man guy. He hates breasts, except for mine, but you already pointed out I'm practically a transvestite."
"Oh," Marc said with a nod and then shrugged. "I could've swore that was a wedding ring he was wearing. Is it just his engagement ring or something?"
"His... what?" Harri frowned, and rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. "His... he had a wedding ring on?" She rolled onto her back and rest her hand on her forehead. She was trying to work out if she remembered a ring on Aiden's finger, but her mind was drawing a blank.
"He had a platinum band on the ring finger of his left hand," Marc corrected and started to unbutton his trousers. "I figured you would have mentioned if he was married, but then if he was having an affair with Pat, I'd get why you hadn't. Then I maybe thought he had a token wife for appearance sakes or something. That's not particularly uncommon for gay guys in high places, which you would be well aware of."
"Aiden's not like that. Maybe he's not screamingly gay, and he does like his private life private, but he's not ashamed of who he is, or who he's with. He's definitely not ashamed of Pat. Pat is not the Other Man." Harri pushed her foot against the matress and sighed. "He's married, isn't he? He and Pat... It's legal in Canada, right?"
Marc nodded and shrugged at the same time. "Same sex unions are, just like in England. But I don't know Aiden well enough to make a call like that. I could barely tell if his smiles were genuine or not. Would he do something like that without telling you?" he asked. "Marriage is a huge thing."'
Harri tried to shrug lying down, and huffed out a breath as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She was getting that restless feeling. "They were," Harri murmured as she pulled her knees up to her chest. "Aiden really doesn't fake much. And I don't know... maybe if he thought it was the right time. Pat can get pretty ill when he has an attack. Maybe they took advantage of his good spell and being in Canada? I don't know... I'd have to ask him."
"Does he usually wear jewellery or rings? Maybe it was a gift? I don't know. It didn't look cheap. See, now I bet you're wishing Pat was here so you could've seen if he had a matching one, huh?" Marc said with a smirk. "Maybe he went to Vegas, got drunk, and woke up with it?" he added with a snort.
Harri shook her head. "It's not Aiden. Not the Vegas thing. He does everything with huge amounts of thought..." She glanced at Marc and flashed him a sheepish smile that became a smirk. "Yeah, I am. I just want Aiden happy, and if he did marry Pat, then I know it's because Pat is what makes Aiden happy. He loves him a lot." She wet her lips and pointed a finger at Marc. "You didn't remind me to ask you something."
Marc raised his eyebrows a little, wondering why Harri wasn't more shocked at the prospect her best friend might've eloped. If it had been Ali, Marc probably would've fallen off the bed and then still not believed it. "Good thing you have a better memory than me," he said with a smirk.
"We're talking about marriage, and love. It helped jog my memory," Harri returned. She was shocked, but it was a quiet shock. She had a feeling it would come out more when she faced Aiden again.
"Oh..." Marc said and stood long enough to tug his pants off. He folded them in half and slung them over the chair near Harri's bed. "So, what do you want to ask me?"
"It's alright, I'm not about to propose," she assured him. Her stomach gave a nervous flop and she had to close her eyes briefly to wait and see if she was about to have the nausea to go with it. When she opened her eyes, her blue ones fixed on Marc. "Look, I'm pretty rubbish at this stuff. I don't pretend to know what I'm doing, and I really don't know if it's already happened since I have no bloody clue what day it even is... but will you move in with me?"
Marc put his fingers up and rubbed them across his forehead. "I can't," he began and then let out a slow breath. "Or more accurately, I can't unless you agree to sign into my world, hook, line and sinker," he elaborated.
"What's left to sign into?" Harri asked, genuinely confused for a moment. "Is this... is it an Alex thing? Or ya need ya own place because ya can't be seen havin' a pregnant girlfriend?"
Marc shook his head. "No. None of that. More like if I am seen with a pregnant girlfriend and you're going to be linked with me, you're being linked with an elaborate and constructed world. If we try the committment thing, you're coming into that world. And if you do, I literally need you to ask you to sign your life away. In silence contracts, privacy agreements, gag orders. You'll meet my colleagues, you'll know where I really work, you'll know my schedule. You'll basically be a part of the investigation without being an Agent. You'll be a smokescreen, in a sense. You become part of my masquerade as my pregnant girlfriend. Is Marcus Fraser's world something Harriet Ryan can be linked to, business-wise? If you're okay with that, are you personally okay with becoming part of something you might never really understand?"
"I don't understand it even now," Harri admitted. She rubbed at her face, and let her head rest in her hand as she braced her elbow against her knee. Fuck, she was tired. And asking Marc to move in now required her brain to work. She didn't even consider the SS stuff, and now she felt ridiculously stupid. She wasn't even sure she could blame her pregnant brain. Maybe it had just been wishful thinking that it would be easy. She should know by now that nothing with him was. "They wouldn't let me, would they? Even with all those bits of paper, would the SS or whoever really be okay with it? Would you?"
Marc laughed softly. "That's why it's all there. You don't think they expect us to give up our whole lives and never fall in love, never have a family, anything like that, do you? Because they don't. It's just not as easy for us it is for everyone else out there. It's not easy for the people we choose to bring into that world. Divorce rate is high. Women walking around out there under the force of gag orders trying to get on with their lives after the marriage failed because the husband was too tied up in the investigations. Or vice versa for female Agents. It's not impossible, but it's something you have to be absolutely certain about inside to even consider it, love. You come into this, you'll have two lives."
"And if I don't 'come into this'? Things just stay as they are?" She watched him quietly, forcing herself to turn it all over in her mind. "But if I sign... you can just talk freely if you need to? You don't have to be vague with me? And I... do what? Come out with you when you need to be Marcus?"
"Basically," Marc murmured with a nod. "Only, that's the very bare minimum. It's not just about being my man bag," he told her with a smirk. "You'll still be Harriet Ryan, fantastic and popular boss of Razor, I'll be Marcus Fraser, CEO of Promantech with a shady and promiscuous past. We'll just be attached and probably gossiped about until the rich bastards' tongues fall off. Which is good... for my case. On a deeper level, what will change for you is you will know the operations of my 'second' life, so to speak. You will be privy to more than I've been able to tell you now. You'll just know. You'll still be you, you'll just know more."
Harri tilted her head as she continued to watch him. "You still didn't say if you'd be okay with it, or not."
"Neither did you," Marc returned quietly, meeting her gaze.
"Got a pen?" she asked as she raised an eyebrow. "I'm in. I went this far, didn't I? If you're not okay with Marcus Fraser having a pregnant girlfriend, then that's okay. It's one thing to be attached to Harri Ryan, fantastic and popular boss of Razor. It's another to have knocked her up. In public."
Marc just smirked tiredly at her. "Rule number one. Don't underestimate me," he told her. "If I wasn't okay with this, you would never have known me beyond that elevator. I would have disappeared after LA and you would never have seen me again. I'm here now because I hoped that maybe one day you would sign those documents."
Harri smiled as she uncurled and crawled towards the end of the bed. She knelt and held her arms out for him. "Does this mean you love me? Marcus Fraser, and James Campbell?"
"It means I'm learning to need you," Marc told her, accepting the embrace. "I just need a tiny bit more time to wrap my head around the rest. I've got a lot in my past to let go of, and I'm getting there. Is that okay?"
"More than," she whispered as she held him tightly. "Guess I better clear out my closet a bit."
All muses referenced with permission and are from the princeton2nyc universe
Word Count | 2,059