The Size of Dreaming (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Phryne/Jack, Mature)
I always make a hugely long list of treats I want to write, based on the letters that have caught my eye. In this case, mardia jumped to the top of my list because she'd asked for Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (specifically Jack/Phryne) and also because we'd had a very nice exchange in the comments of my first MFMM fic.
This was her request: Jack/Phryne FTW! I freely admit that I ship Jack and Phryne like BURNING--the pining looks, the friendship, the absolutely INSANE amounts of UST--so if you were to write a fic where they get together at LAST (and have crazy amounts of sex all over Phryne's house) I would love you for all eternity. Alternatively, I also adore the shit out of Dot and Hugh, and if you wanted to write a story about them, or about their separate relationships with their mentors Jack and Phryne, I would be very happy indeed.
This is probably going to be the vaguest of all the requests, for which I apologize, but man, I feel like I'd be happy with almost any fic that involved these four characters. I ship Jack/Phryne like a crazy person, but I also adore Dot and Hugh's more conventional-for-the-time period, and I lovelovelove the found families aspect to the show. So really, any combination of these four characters would be super appreciated! (And if you can find a way to work in Jack's apparent love of poetry, I will love you forever.)
I'd actually had a vague idea for this fic even before I read the request - a sort of series of ep codas, but I didn't want to repeat the work so many others have done. And for my money the sexiest end scene is the end of 1x10, which I'd already covered in the aforementioned earlier fic. So I got to consider what might tip Phryne over into fantasizing about Jack, which was all kinds of fun. My first beta, blithers, got me to reshape the last scene, and ijemanja approved the changes and Oz-picked for me. I picked the title out of Antony and Cleopatra for reasons that should be obvious to any Jack/Phryne shipper, and I have to say I really enjoy the pun of the quote, the sighs of dreaming.
Anyway, on to the fic! (Just in case it's not clear, the cases noted are 1x01, 1x02, 1x05, 1x12, 2x05, and 2x06.)
"The Size of Dreaming"
Phryne had noticed that the Detective Inspector was rather a handsome man the first time she'd clapped eyes on him, of course, though he'd been doing his best to look dour, unimpressed, and authoritative; there'd been enough of a glimmer of self-deprecating humour in his eye for her to discern that he was merely posturing. She'd had a suspicion he wouldn't be able to keep the charade up for very long, and indeed his eyes had flickered over her suggestively when he rumbled, "Always wondered what went on in a Turkish bath-house." Oh, he would be delightful in her bed, when she chose to situate him there.
All she had to do was crook her finger.
*
Jack Robinson was made of sterner stuff than she'd bargained for.
He lectured her and ignored all of her flirtatious overtures - at least Constable Collins in his dear little hat and rather fetchingly tight-fitting uniform went poppy-red with some regularity around her, reassuring her that she hadn't altogether lost her touch - but did not dismiss her logic. That last was enough to keep her from striking him off her list.
Well, that, and the fact that she really needed to personally investigate that ludicrously strong jawline.
He might be repressive, but he caught the spirit of her investigation into the murder plotted out on the Ballarat train; she could see as much from the way the corners of his mouth ticked upward as he traded barbs with her. And, to give credit where it was due, he'd had the sense to call her in when he thought the grubby child who'd coolly pocketed the dead woman's jewellery might speak more readily to a woman with no official standing than to him, who stood with the full weight of masculinity and authority behind him.
Yes, he was clever, her Inspector, but so was dear Lindsay, who brought the unmistakable whiff of enthusiastic, callow youth to his flirtation, for all he believed himself to be the epitome of sophistication. Lindsay was biddable, a most agreeable quality in a man. Lindsay might well prove to be more than a trifle, she thought.
And then Jack Robinson pushed all thoughts of Lindsay Thompson out of her head, simply by sitting in her car.
It wasn't merely that he'd unhesitatingly followed her lead, or that he'd grasped the necessity of urgency, but the way he reacted when he was overwhelmed. His eyes got wide, his jaw dropped open, and his hair grew delightfully rumpled, one thick waving lock falling across his brow. All that just from the velocity she could achieve in her Hispano-Suiza.
Phryne knew she could overwhelm him far more pleasurably than that.
He would be even more responsive than her roadster. It was rather a pity she wouldn't be able to see or hear his responses if she took him up in an aeroplane, though the tight quarters meant she just might be able to feel all of his tremblings and each laboured exhalation.
She could make him gasp and moan and shake in her arms, lying back against the sinful softness of her sheets, and she would, too, just as soon as they'd arrested Alistair Herbert.
*
It wasn't fair to damn Mac for unwittingly playing gooseberry, not when she'd dropped everything to help with Miss Lee's case, so Phryne damned Jack Robinson instead.
First for looking so boyishly gleeful at the thought of Mac's scientific expertise being put to use on his case; Phryne would have wagered a bottle of her best whisky that he'd spent much of his childhood tinkering in a makeshift laboratory, making stains on his clothes that his mother must have despaired of. But mostly for falling into a lovely slumber in a dark corner of the room.
In his sleep, he looked unguarded, the brim of his hat casting his face in shadow and leaving only his delectable mouth and clean jawline in the light. He was utterly defenceless, and Phryne wanted to take the basest advantage of him, but there was something - in the set of his drooping head, perhaps, or in the way the enchanting hollows beneath his cheekbones flirted with the light - that radiated a touch-me-not halo around the whole of his recumbent figure. And so she damned him for looking so bewitching and unwelcoming at once.
She could not climb onto his lap and suck his lower lip between her own, could not unbutton his trousers with nimble fingers and delve past his smalls to find the heat of him and make his head tip back in lust, could not watch his eyes awaken into passion and blaze with the heat of his spending. All because he had said no to her at each of the opportunities she had strewn along his path.
Young Mr. Abrahams would do very nicely in his stead, she decided, willing herself not to be charmed by his lisp - did it grow even more apparent when he was weary? - as he thought aloud about what their next steps should be, neither of them paying much mind to Mac or her bowl of artificial rubber.
*
She supposed it wouldn't be very Jack if he came straight from the divorce court to her bed, but that didn't keep her from fantasising as soon as she'd pieced Hugh's stuttering clues into a narrative. Jack - her Jack - would soon be a free man, and the last of his inhibitions would surely fall away. Stripped of all artifice, he'd be revealed as the explosively passionate man of whom she had only seen the barest hints in all their months of partnership.
Her anxiety about Murdoch Foyle and his possible protégé needed to be allayed, deferred, denied, and she could scarcely imagine a better method than exploring Jack Robinson's leanly muscled body. A bit of a show was in order first, as she'd seen the way Jack's eyes caught fire upon beholding her in her more revealing ensembles. Even as she bared her midriff and accentuated her cleavage, though, she knew he would draw greater pleasure in realising how she treasured the memory of his quoting Shakespeare's paean to the many splendours of the Egyptian queen.
Truly, she had not expected him to breathe such life into what had previously been for her mere marks on a page; she'd never seen Antony and Cleopatra done properly, and a harried Detective Inspector with more cares than leisure had spoken the words so that they seemed to vibrate into her very soul. The only question that remained now was what would please her most about him in the Mark Antony costume - the breadth of his shoulders under the breastplate, the corded muscles of his thighs, or the melodic rasp of his voice as he murmured praise when she drew him close.
No matter. She would be the master-mistress of them all tonight, and the Roman soldier who shared an overdue and frenzied romp with her would wake in her bed as Jack Robinson, still desirous, still seeking, and she would slake his thirst before the dawn broke.
*
Since becoming a Lady Detective, she'd often had cause to bewail the lack of pockets in most ladies' clothes, but had consoled herself with the thought that without pockets, her skirts swirled as prettily as they were meant to and her trousers clung sleekly to her hips. Phryne hadn't really considered the crowning virtue of her attire until she saw Jack taken aback but unmistakably aroused by her fishing the last aubergine pearl out of her blouse.
She was inured by now to his disapproving sternness, so the admonishing look he gave her was easily ignored in favour of thinking through what it would be like to lie back against the yielding softness of her bed with Jack on top of her and savour the sensation of pearls caught between their frantic bodies. She had ropes of champagne, milk, and rose pearls, all of which would lend their lustre to his skin when he inevitably got tangled in them. They would warm from the friction, their slipperiness adding a frisson where none was needed, sending her over the edge all the quicker. And Jack - he would wind a demanding hand in the strands to pull her up to his questing mouth even as she still shook, and he would not let her down until her eyes rolled back in her head, ruthless in the pursuit of his pleasure.
His lips would close around the beads as he sought her nipple, his hands would brush them aside in his fervour to get to her skin, and he would growl and tear them free; she would hear a thousand clicks as they scattered on her floor, but dimly, because Jack would still be moving over her, eager for more, for all she could give him.
She really needed to go to the bank in the morning and liberate her pearls from the safety-deposit box.
*
Phryne had always prided herself on her grace, and so the clumsiness with which she got in her own way with respect to Jack Robinson was enough to make her scream until her larynx ached.
It was not romantic, admittedly, sitting in a room where a dead body had been found, still swinging, and the charm of the room diminished still further when she considered the smell of stale sweat that hung in the air, sweat that she'd played no part in exciting. But Jack was sitting beside her, all buttoned up in his proper clothes, ready to test out her hypothesis, and the steam coming from the shower made her dream - dream of what it would be like to be twined around his bared body, water falling over them, mouths fused desperately together.
She'd had frolics in the sea before, been buoyed up by saltwater, but now felt that she would rather trust to the strength of those knobbly, flat-knuckled hands to bear her up, to position her so that he could touch where he pleased and still swallow all of her moans.
Jack's striding up to her, the last of the Queenscliff sea dripping off him, was one of her most cherished memories, but how much better to touch than to simply see. All of that smooth skin, covering rippling muscle and whipcord tendons, would be hers to discover. The softness of his mouth on hers would be a dizzying counterpoint to the rigidity of his arousal, but matched in the skill both parts evinced. Clouds of steam would rise around them, enveloping them in a private world, and his toes would curl around the wooden slats upon which he stood when she brought him to his glory.
And none of it could happen, because she had asked Dot to join them and bring a hamper of food, knowing that Jack would simply make do with tea and biscuits otherwise. She was not used to being the pursuer, but that, she decided, eyeing his lovely profile, was no excuse for poor planning.
*
There was no planning on her part when Jack finally succumbed.
She was perched on his desk, idly swinging one foot while she considered whether he'd be obliging enough to let her snaffle his second piece of toast; he'd made not a peep when she'd stolen the first, though each was carefully spread with his favourite bitter marmalade.
"Ah," he chided when she decided nothing ventured, nothing gained, and reached for it. His veined hand was suddenly between hers and the plate. "I ought to charge you with stealing my breakfast," he said dryly, wearing that deliciously amused look that always made her heart beat more quickly.
"We've danced this dance before, Inspector, and all your threats came to naught," she reminded him. Perhaps seeking to gain the advantage of speed, he stood. She slid off his desk and planted her feet so that they were toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest, so close she could see the iron-grey shadings like smoke in his dark blue eyes.
He leaned down and she stretched up, their eyes fixed on each other.
There was a moment of hesitation, when he nearly ducked away from her even as his eyes started to close, but then he let it happen and they kissed for uncounted moments, Phryne's hands finding their way up to link behind Jack's neck. The skin above his collar was flushed with warmth. Without warning, he lifted her, bringing their mouths level, and she felt like she was soaring, free even with his arms tightly wrapped around her.
She laughed then, and he pulled back to look tenderly, fondly at her. He set her down on her heels and settled himself at his desk once more. He picked up the second slice of toast and saluted her with it before taking a decisive, hungry bite.
"I believe you owe me breakfast," she said once she was sure her voice was under control.
"I owe? You've got that backwards." He leaned back in his chair, the morning light that filtered through his dingy window enough to illuminate each of his eyelashes individually. He looked like a painting, her beautiful Jack.
"Come by tonight and we'll work it out by morning," she invited, not needing to cast one last demure look at him to know, as she walked out the door, that he was smiling.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As always, I'd love to hear what you think.
This same entry also appears on Dreamwidth, at http://innie-darling.dreamwidth.org/448051.html.
This was her request: Jack/Phryne FTW! I freely admit that I ship Jack and Phryne like BURNING--the pining looks, the friendship, the absolutely INSANE amounts of UST--so if you were to write a fic where they get together at LAST (and have crazy amounts of sex all over Phryne's house) I would love you for all eternity. Alternatively, I also adore the shit out of Dot and Hugh, and if you wanted to write a story about them, or about their separate relationships with their mentors Jack and Phryne, I would be very happy indeed.
This is probably going to be the vaguest of all the requests, for which I apologize, but man, I feel like I'd be happy with almost any fic that involved these four characters. I ship Jack/Phryne like a crazy person, but I also adore Dot and Hugh's more conventional-for-the-time period, and I lovelovelove the found families aspect to the show. So really, any combination of these four characters would be super appreciated! (And if you can find a way to work in Jack's apparent love of poetry, I will love you forever.)
I'd actually had a vague idea for this fic even before I read the request - a sort of series of ep codas, but I didn't want to repeat the work so many others have done. And for my money the sexiest end scene is the end of 1x10, which I'd already covered in the aforementioned earlier fic. So I got to consider what might tip Phryne over into fantasizing about Jack, which was all kinds of fun. My first beta, blithers, got me to reshape the last scene, and ijemanja approved the changes and Oz-picked for me. I picked the title out of Antony and Cleopatra for reasons that should be obvious to any Jack/Phryne shipper, and I have to say I really enjoy the pun of the quote, the sighs of dreaming.
Anyway, on to the fic! (Just in case it's not clear, the cases noted are 1x01, 1x02, 1x05, 1x12, 2x05, and 2x06.)
"The Size of Dreaming"
Phryne had noticed that the Detective Inspector was rather a handsome man the first time she'd clapped eyes on him, of course, though he'd been doing his best to look dour, unimpressed, and authoritative; there'd been enough of a glimmer of self-deprecating humour in his eye for her to discern that he was merely posturing. She'd had a suspicion he wouldn't be able to keep the charade up for very long, and indeed his eyes had flickered over her suggestively when he rumbled, "Always wondered what went on in a Turkish bath-house." Oh, he would be delightful in her bed, when she chose to situate him there.
All she had to do was crook her finger.
*
Jack Robinson was made of sterner stuff than she'd bargained for.
He lectured her and ignored all of her flirtatious overtures - at least Constable Collins in his dear little hat and rather fetchingly tight-fitting uniform went poppy-red with some regularity around her, reassuring her that she hadn't altogether lost her touch - but did not dismiss her logic. That last was enough to keep her from striking him off her list.
Well, that, and the fact that she really needed to personally investigate that ludicrously strong jawline.
He might be repressive, but he caught the spirit of her investigation into the murder plotted out on the Ballarat train; she could see as much from the way the corners of his mouth ticked upward as he traded barbs with her. And, to give credit where it was due, he'd had the sense to call her in when he thought the grubby child who'd coolly pocketed the dead woman's jewellery might speak more readily to a woman with no official standing than to him, who stood with the full weight of masculinity and authority behind him.
Yes, he was clever, her Inspector, but so was dear Lindsay, who brought the unmistakable whiff of enthusiastic, callow youth to his flirtation, for all he believed himself to be the epitome of sophistication. Lindsay was biddable, a most agreeable quality in a man. Lindsay might well prove to be more than a trifle, she thought.
And then Jack Robinson pushed all thoughts of Lindsay Thompson out of her head, simply by sitting in her car.
It wasn't merely that he'd unhesitatingly followed her lead, or that he'd grasped the necessity of urgency, but the way he reacted when he was overwhelmed. His eyes got wide, his jaw dropped open, and his hair grew delightfully rumpled, one thick waving lock falling across his brow. All that just from the velocity she could achieve in her Hispano-Suiza.
Phryne knew she could overwhelm him far more pleasurably than that.
He would be even more responsive than her roadster. It was rather a pity she wouldn't be able to see or hear his responses if she took him up in an aeroplane, though the tight quarters meant she just might be able to feel all of his tremblings and each laboured exhalation.
She could make him gasp and moan and shake in her arms, lying back against the sinful softness of her sheets, and she would, too, just as soon as they'd arrested Alistair Herbert.
*
It wasn't fair to damn Mac for unwittingly playing gooseberry, not when she'd dropped everything to help with Miss Lee's case, so Phryne damned Jack Robinson instead.
First for looking so boyishly gleeful at the thought of Mac's scientific expertise being put to use on his case; Phryne would have wagered a bottle of her best whisky that he'd spent much of his childhood tinkering in a makeshift laboratory, making stains on his clothes that his mother must have despaired of. But mostly for falling into a lovely slumber in a dark corner of the room.
In his sleep, he looked unguarded, the brim of his hat casting his face in shadow and leaving only his delectable mouth and clean jawline in the light. He was utterly defenceless, and Phryne wanted to take the basest advantage of him, but there was something - in the set of his drooping head, perhaps, or in the way the enchanting hollows beneath his cheekbones flirted with the light - that radiated a touch-me-not halo around the whole of his recumbent figure. And so she damned him for looking so bewitching and unwelcoming at once.
She could not climb onto his lap and suck his lower lip between her own, could not unbutton his trousers with nimble fingers and delve past his smalls to find the heat of him and make his head tip back in lust, could not watch his eyes awaken into passion and blaze with the heat of his spending. All because he had said no to her at each of the opportunities she had strewn along his path.
Young Mr. Abrahams would do very nicely in his stead, she decided, willing herself not to be charmed by his lisp - did it grow even more apparent when he was weary? - as he thought aloud about what their next steps should be, neither of them paying much mind to Mac or her bowl of artificial rubber.
*
She supposed it wouldn't be very Jack if he came straight from the divorce court to her bed, but that didn't keep her from fantasising as soon as she'd pieced Hugh's stuttering clues into a narrative. Jack - her Jack - would soon be a free man, and the last of his inhibitions would surely fall away. Stripped of all artifice, he'd be revealed as the explosively passionate man of whom she had only seen the barest hints in all their months of partnership.
Her anxiety about Murdoch Foyle and his possible protégé needed to be allayed, deferred, denied, and she could scarcely imagine a better method than exploring Jack Robinson's leanly muscled body. A bit of a show was in order first, as she'd seen the way Jack's eyes caught fire upon beholding her in her more revealing ensembles. Even as she bared her midriff and accentuated her cleavage, though, she knew he would draw greater pleasure in realising how she treasured the memory of his quoting Shakespeare's paean to the many splendours of the Egyptian queen.
Truly, she had not expected him to breathe such life into what had previously been for her mere marks on a page; she'd never seen Antony and Cleopatra done properly, and a harried Detective Inspector with more cares than leisure had spoken the words so that they seemed to vibrate into her very soul. The only question that remained now was what would please her most about him in the Mark Antony costume - the breadth of his shoulders under the breastplate, the corded muscles of his thighs, or the melodic rasp of his voice as he murmured praise when she drew him close.
No matter. She would be the master-mistress of them all tonight, and the Roman soldier who shared an overdue and frenzied romp with her would wake in her bed as Jack Robinson, still desirous, still seeking, and she would slake his thirst before the dawn broke.
*
Since becoming a Lady Detective, she'd often had cause to bewail the lack of pockets in most ladies' clothes, but had consoled herself with the thought that without pockets, her skirts swirled as prettily as they were meant to and her trousers clung sleekly to her hips. Phryne hadn't really considered the crowning virtue of her attire until she saw Jack taken aback but unmistakably aroused by her fishing the last aubergine pearl out of her blouse.
She was inured by now to his disapproving sternness, so the admonishing look he gave her was easily ignored in favour of thinking through what it would be like to lie back against the yielding softness of her bed with Jack on top of her and savour the sensation of pearls caught between their frantic bodies. She had ropes of champagne, milk, and rose pearls, all of which would lend their lustre to his skin when he inevitably got tangled in them. They would warm from the friction, their slipperiness adding a frisson where none was needed, sending her over the edge all the quicker. And Jack - he would wind a demanding hand in the strands to pull her up to his questing mouth even as she still shook, and he would not let her down until her eyes rolled back in her head, ruthless in the pursuit of his pleasure.
His lips would close around the beads as he sought her nipple, his hands would brush them aside in his fervour to get to her skin, and he would growl and tear them free; she would hear a thousand clicks as they scattered on her floor, but dimly, because Jack would still be moving over her, eager for more, for all she could give him.
She really needed to go to the bank in the morning and liberate her pearls from the safety-deposit box.
*
Phryne had always prided herself on her grace, and so the clumsiness with which she got in her own way with respect to Jack Robinson was enough to make her scream until her larynx ached.
It was not romantic, admittedly, sitting in a room where a dead body had been found, still swinging, and the charm of the room diminished still further when she considered the smell of stale sweat that hung in the air, sweat that she'd played no part in exciting. But Jack was sitting beside her, all buttoned up in his proper clothes, ready to test out her hypothesis, and the steam coming from the shower made her dream - dream of what it would be like to be twined around his bared body, water falling over them, mouths fused desperately together.
She'd had frolics in the sea before, been buoyed up by saltwater, but now felt that she would rather trust to the strength of those knobbly, flat-knuckled hands to bear her up, to position her so that he could touch where he pleased and still swallow all of her moans.
Jack's striding up to her, the last of the Queenscliff sea dripping off him, was one of her most cherished memories, but how much better to touch than to simply see. All of that smooth skin, covering rippling muscle and whipcord tendons, would be hers to discover. The softness of his mouth on hers would be a dizzying counterpoint to the rigidity of his arousal, but matched in the skill both parts evinced. Clouds of steam would rise around them, enveloping them in a private world, and his toes would curl around the wooden slats upon which he stood when she brought him to his glory.
And none of it could happen, because she had asked Dot to join them and bring a hamper of food, knowing that Jack would simply make do with tea and biscuits otherwise. She was not used to being the pursuer, but that, she decided, eyeing his lovely profile, was no excuse for poor planning.
*
There was no planning on her part when Jack finally succumbed.
She was perched on his desk, idly swinging one foot while she considered whether he'd be obliging enough to let her snaffle his second piece of toast; he'd made not a peep when she'd stolen the first, though each was carefully spread with his favourite bitter marmalade.
"Ah," he chided when she decided nothing ventured, nothing gained, and reached for it. His veined hand was suddenly between hers and the plate. "I ought to charge you with stealing my breakfast," he said dryly, wearing that deliciously amused look that always made her heart beat more quickly.
"We've danced this dance before, Inspector, and all your threats came to naught," she reminded him. Perhaps seeking to gain the advantage of speed, he stood. She slid off his desk and planted her feet so that they were toe-to-toe, chest-to-chest, so close she could see the iron-grey shadings like smoke in his dark blue eyes.
He leaned down and she stretched up, their eyes fixed on each other.
There was a moment of hesitation, when he nearly ducked away from her even as his eyes started to close, but then he let it happen and they kissed for uncounted moments, Phryne's hands finding their way up to link behind Jack's neck. The skin above his collar was flushed with warmth. Without warning, he lifted her, bringing their mouths level, and she felt like she was soaring, free even with his arms tightly wrapped around her.
She laughed then, and he pulled back to look tenderly, fondly at her. He set her down on her heels and settled himself at his desk once more. He picked up the second slice of toast and saluted her with it before taking a decisive, hungry bite.
"I believe you owe me breakfast," she said once she was sure her voice was under control.
"I owe? You've got that backwards." He leaned back in his chair, the morning light that filtered through his dingy window enough to illuminate each of his eyelashes individually. He looked like a painting, her beautiful Jack.
"Come by tonight and we'll work it out by morning," she invited, not needing to cast one last demure look at him to know, as she walked out the door, that he was smiling.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As always, I'd love to hear what you think.
This same entry also appears on Dreamwidth, at http://innie-darling.dreamwidth.org/448051.html.