FIC: Table seats four and a couch seats three [rookie blue, sam/andy]

[threeguesses]

Title: Table seats four and a couch seats three
Word Count: 1500+
Rating: R

AN: I have absolutely no idea why I wrote fic that's going to be Jossed in less than two days.  Title from Joel Plaskett, just to switch it up with the Canadian band theme.


Table seats four and a couch seats three

Sam spends the morning alternating between feeling stupidly pleased and just straight-up stupid.  (Only, when he runs into Brennan on his first shift all he gets is a “well played” and a pat on the back, so. Probably he isn’t going to die over this.)  He works right up until lunch, shifting supplies (not product—legitimate supplies, chairs and tables and chesterfields, antiques for the front business; Brennan doesn’t quite trust him yet), then eats a sandwich in the back of the truck, hands twitching like he’s still touching her.  Like he wants to grab at something, and cold cuts on rye really aren’t doing it for him.

Well.  They really aren’t.

The nervous energy sticks until around three.  Three-thirty, and his body starts to remember the one hour of sleep it got (one fucking hour, because they waited and waited until the last possible minute—Andy shoving herself down onto his cock, half-laughing, half-moaning, “God, Sam, I’m going to be so late”—and then after that they waited some more; kissing in the doorway, the way her mittens felt against his bare chest).  By five, Sam’s yawning at every red light.  Benny, the kid he’s riding with, offers to take the wheel.  Which is saying something—Benny can’t drive.

So. Bottom line: Sam gets back to his crappy flat where the bed sheets are still messed up and everything smells like her, and he’s wondering, just a bit, why he went under in the first place.

(“I miss you,” she says, after Ernie the Zamboni driver but before dawn, head buried in his neck so he can’t see her face. “Not like, all the time, or anything. You just always made the best coffee.”

Sam rubs at the curve of her waist (unexpected; he always thought she was straight up-and-down, coat hanger hips like a runway model).  “Tell Ollie I said to get you some.”

“Ha.  He’d never.”  She brings her head up and Jesus Christ, she may actually be pouting at him.  Sam can’t tell if it’s put-on—if she’s mocking that kind of girl—or if she’s serious.  (Dear god, but she’s young.  Sam wants to feel bad about that.)  A blink and she’s a copper again, that hard set of her mouth.  “Anyways.  I can get my own.”

This girl.  Sam swears she’ll give him whiplash.  “Right.”

A beat. “I like yours better though.”

“Right.”  Then: “Miss you too.”)

So.

Still, mostly he avoids thinking about it.  Tries, anyway.  (What he does do: collapse into bed face-first, sleep for the next ten hours.)

That’s the first day.




The second day, though, that’s his day off.  (And there’s some trouble—idle hands, all that bullshit.)  Sam wakes up feeling like he could run a 5k, no warm up; easy.  Problem is, Sam doesn’t run.

He sits on the edge of the bed for a while, rolling the burn phone back and forth between his palms.  Thinks about calling Boyd.  Not to report the slip-up or anything, just—the way you’d call a sponsor (he needs some sense knocked into him, is the thing).  Except Boyd hates McNally, would probably love to stir up shit for her, so.  That’s out.

Eventually he stops by the grocery store, buys a bunch of fresh produce he doesn’t need for a truly ridiculous price (it’s Toronto, the middle of November; at least the clementines are cheap).  There’s no reason to, it’s just that McNally got up around four in search of food and pronounced his jar of pickles and leftover takeout “sad”; Sam drops a head of lettuce into the crisper, figures it’s a marginal improvement.  Besides which, better nutrition is never a bad idea.  (Although, how furtive he feels picking out those avocadoes—Yeah.)

Come lunchtime, he’s out the door again.

By 1:15, he’s ducking into a public library, hood up and tuque pulled low, ancient dial-up connection creaking away.  He brings up gmail; a tap of the keys and he’s zamboni_37; a tap of a couple more and he’s fired off an email.  Just like that.  Easy.

you make it back in time?

(He’s just—he’s been wondering.  By the time they finally got her out the door and into a cab it was late—like, 5:20 late—McNally bouncing on her heels, “Sam, could you maybe lend me some cash?”, her mittens and her eyes and that stupid hat, the rush of cold air from the hall as she leaned back in to kiss him, and—well.  He’ll be really amused if she wins the contest with $20.01, is all.)

He hangs around for a while, pacing between Personal Growth and the biography section.  There’s absolutely no justification for it, but… there it is.  He doesn’t really have time to feel stupid, thank god—she emails back almost immediately, long and rambling and full of typos.  Some story about Epstein and one hundred-plus dollars in cash.  And it’s not like—she’s working night shifts this week, he knows, Nash working days so she can be with her kid, so. Probably she was just bored.

She doesn’t sound like herself, in writing.

(Tucked away near the end, beside some anecdote about Ollie making bank on Dov’s victory: i had a really great time not winning.)

That’s the second day.




The third day—a Sunday; Irish thugs and their inconvenient refusal to push drugs after church—Sam wakes up to another email from her.

can i see you again?

It’s time-stamped from five a.m.; she must have sent it just after shift ended.  Sam blows on his hands, glances around the empty library.  There’s a kid staring at him from Self Help, but if Sam starts taking signs from the universe now, Andy’s never going to stop laughing.

sure.




(So.  Three days.

Although really—

her head dropping back, messy hair and those long long legs, her skinny knees and the way she got a little selfish, a little insistent, the second time he tried going down on her

—Sam’s not all that surprised.)




They meet at some tiny lakeshore park, forty-five minutes up the 401.  McNally brings shitty coffee; Sam brings Timbits (he remembers the way she used to inhale them on late-night patrols, one by one until she reached the sugar quota required for functionality).  It’s far enough away that it takes her three buses and a cab to get there; Sam has time to psych himself out twice.  He’s leaning against his car, hands in his pockets, when she finally walks up.

The thing about McNally: she has a really killer smile.

“Hi,” she says.  She’s a little breathless, sweating inside her puffy jacket, like she maybe ran the last hundred meters.  Sam stops thinking about calling this off.

“Hi.”

“I backtracked, like, three times, so.”  She gestures behind her, as if to say, see; no stalkers.  “We should be good.”

Sam rubs a hand over his eyes.  Her grin is wide, infectious, like this is some great trick they’re pulling off, them against the universe.  It’s not exactly an unattractive thing to pretend.  “So Epstein beat you out, huh?”

She laughs.  “Everyone beat me out, Sam; I had a twenty.”  She comes closer.  “Would you have bet on me?”

“Sure.”  He gets a finger through her belt loops, pulls her the rest of the way in.  “And been out fifty bucks.”

“Hey!”  She shoves at his shoulders.  Her hair’s in a messy braid down her neck; Sam wants to ask if she’s slept since her shift ended, but he also wants to put her up against the side of the truck, so. “I could’ve won.”

“Not playing pool like that.”  It’s freezing out here; McNally’s all chapped lips and cold nose, shivering under her layers.  Sam tugs her closer, rubs quick and brisk up the sides of her coat (he’s mostly aiming for warmth; still, she shudders, just a bit, when his palm slides over the edge of a breast).

Right before he kisses her, Sam thinks: this is a bad idea.

He doesn’t stop.




She hasn’t slept since shift ended, as it turns out.

Sam gets her in a bed (a motel; he’s stupid, sure, but there are limits), gets her warm and naked, and she immediately starts yawning.  So.  He spends the better part of the morning watching daytime tv with the volume on low, McNally out cold—“just for five minutes, Sam, seriously”—beside him.  She sleeps messily, outflung arms and legs and an alarming amount of twitching.  Sam watches the Mythbusters prove you can’t dodge a bullet and keeps his hands to himself.

(He dozes off twice: 'Sammie-boy, you are one dumb fuck,' Jamie Hyneman says in Oliver's voice, beret titled crazily sideways—

Sam agrees.)

Later, he looks on as she constructs lunch out of a truly odd combination of vending machine snacks (he tells her she’s disgusting and she shows him her tongue, half-chewed Skittles and a Cheeto, and Christ, she has the maturity level of a five-year-old, there is no earthy reason for him to be so—but he is, apparently, he really is, because he kisses her maybe two minutes after that; she tastes like cheese and sugar), and feels stupidly lucky for no reason at all.




(“Last time,” he tells her, hand on her waist. “Andy, sweetheart, this is the last time—”

“What?” She’s got her eyes shut tight, concentrating (she slides the rest of the way onto him and they open again; ta-dah). “No, yeah, totally. Last time.”)




so I lied, the email starts, two days later.  This time around the library’s completely deserted, no kids watching from Self Help; yesterday on the job, Benny said ‘fucking Christ, J.D., what’re you smiling at?’ and nearly dropped an armoire on Sam’s foot.

The universe has a plan.  Sure, McNally.  Okay.

(They’re idiots, they’re idiots, this is the stupidest thing Sam’s ever—)

He cracks his knuckles, starts to type up a reply. 

Comments

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Sam raises his eyebrows; he grins once, quick and gone. "Oh, I'll get you pregnant," he tells her, and it comes out sounding a lot rougher than he means.

(Andy swallows hard, though, throat working--

so.)

He leans down and kisses her, tongue at hers and free hand wandering up and down her body--the fiberglass jut of her hipbones, the pale, familiar curve of a breast. Her nipple pebbles up under his thumb. There's a little knot of scar tissue right at her navel, a belly button ring she had when she was fifteen or sixteen, and every time he feels it Sam spends half a second wondering what she was like back then-- all skinny ribs and bad attitude, probably, some kind of half-broke horse.

Then she whines once, insistent, pulls at his shoulder 'til his full weight's on top of her, and Sam--yeah. Sam stops thinking about anything but this.

THE BELLY BUTTON RING MAKES AN APPEARANCE

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

Andy wraps her arms and legs around him in a hug, pretzeled close. She kisses his ear, messy and quick. "Love you." Then she's swinging a leg up and around, using her toes to shove down his boxers (she's flexible, McNally--the first time she bent herself near in half trying to get him deeper). Sam grunts against her neck, helps her pull them the rest of the way off.

Goal achieved, she plants her feet on the bed, rolls her hips up. Rides him from beneath, nothing but wet cotton between. Some angle hits good for her and she drops her head back, pretty long throat and that sharp chin, but Sam--well. Sam is really done with clothing.

He hooks his thumbs around the waistband of her shorts. Brushes their lips together; once, twice, three times. "Love you."

(The first time he said it: they were standing in his kitchen trying to make dinner, a chicken breast half-thawed on the counter. McNally dropped her water glass. (And then, later, three knives and a spoon. Separately.)

The first time she said it: two weeks later, after playing him hot and cold for days, not calling and then showing up in the middle of the night, out of the blue. They were at work; she blurted it out in the empty meeting room after parade, went to book a witness with Diaz. Sam didn't stop smiling his whole shift.)

YOU REALIZE I AM COUNTING ON YOU FOR SAM SWAREK TATTOO CREATION MYTH.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Sam gets her boxers all the way down, shifts his weight so she can pull her legs up around him. He slides along the whole length of her once, again, gets himself slippery, then--Jesus. Jesus.

(He keeps thinking that at some point he's going to be able to get his cock all the way inside her without having to take that deep, shuddering breath afterward, but--

hasn't happened yet.)

He takes a minute and looks at her underneath him, hair spread out on the pillow like a halo, mouth open, a flash of tongue and bottom teeth. She shifts her hips a little, getting comfortable, getting deep. She rubs one cold foot against the back of his calf.

It's--different. Yeah.

(It's, ah. Fucking intense.)

ASKED AND ANSWERED.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

Sam plants his hands on either side of her head. "So. Google say which position works best?"

"Well." Andy strokes up his arms, pets his shoulders a bit. She has a thing for his tattoo, says it's lucky. (A buddy back in Sam's old Montreal unit had cancer; he got chemo, Sam and some other guys got his name in ink. Now that buddy has a wife and kid out in Brossard, so. She may not be wrong.) "Basically--" She's got her forehead all scrunched, like she's maybe not willing to admit she looked it up. "Basically this one."

Sam grins, rolling his hips into hers. "This one, eh? Can't move, McNally? Gotta lay back and take it?"

She narrows her eyes. "Oh, I can move." Arching her back and clenching on him, as if to prove it. Sam groans; she grins. "You have to get me off too." Tongue peeking out between her teeth (as if he ever doesn't). "Better for conception." She puts a snap on the second 'c', waggles her eyebrows.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

"Oh, well." Sam smirks, angles his hips to hit the one shallow spot that always gets a noise out of her (he found it that first night, pure dumb accident, her eyes flying open in the dark; she gaped at him for half a second, and then she laughed maybe the dirtiest laugh he'd ever heard). "If Google says I need to."

"I'm just telling you." Andy shrugs, arms stretching out above her head, long fingers brushing the headboard. "Can't argue with science."

"Nope," Sam agrees, his teeth at her collarbone. "Definitely can't."

(Only--it's possible she is laying back and taking it, just a little. Letting him do more of the work than she usually does. Letting him--okay.

O-kay.)

Sam shifts his weight back, gets his hands around her wrists, holds her down a little. The rock on her finger bites into his skin.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

"Sam." She wriggles a bit, pushing back against the hold, but not, uh--not as hard as normal. (She's not really still, McNally; the first couple times were more like sparing than sex, her knobby knees and sharp chin, lips and tongue and teeth and how it was all mixed up, him on top then her, again and again until they fell off the bed.)

"Yeah?" He transfers her wrists to one hand, gets the other down between them to trace messy circles over her clit. Andy whines, bucks up. "Uh-uh, McNally--" he brings his face down to hers. "Hold still. It's science."

Her eyes flash at him, but she stills. (And yeah, okay, she is definitely letting him--huh. That's...new.)

OBVIOUSLY THAT'S HOW THEY WOUND UP ON THE FLOOR.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

It's not that this would get him off all the time. Or most of the time, even, but--

(her spread out underneath him like that, wet and open and docile, and she wants him to--)

"Andy," he mutters, mouth against her temple and his fingers still working--a little harder than he usually would, since she's not getting the friction on her own. She's got her bottom lip clamped tight between her teeth. "Andy, Andy, sweetheart--"

There's a sound she makes like clockwork ten or so seconds before she comes, a sharp little hitch in her breath ("I do not," she protested, the first time he pointed it out to her, but she does too and he knows she started paying attention after that), and just as Sam hears it now Andy starts to struggle against his grip.

"Wait," she says urgently, forehead wrinkling. "Wait, can we--" she breaks off, that look back on her face again like there's something she wants but thinks is too lame to say out loud. "I mean, if we both--" She stops, tries again. "How close are you?"

(Close, is the answer to that question.

Like. Close.)

THERE ARE NO OTHER EXPLANATIONS.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

"What, you mean--" His fingers, stalled now, brush against her and she whimpers (and they don't normally pause like this, right in the middle; he can feel her fighting not to go over, the way she's clenching on him, like a warning, and fuck that's--yeah). "Both as in together?"

(They tried that once, actually, just to see if they could--way back in the crappy cover apartment, when they were painfully new. Andy sat on his lap and counted them down, laughing, and they absolutely 100% failed at syncing up anything.)

"Yeah, um." She breathes out through her nose, sharp and desperate. She is close. "It's supposed to, like. Help."

(Pregnant, jesus, they're going to--) Sam lets go of one of her wrists, guides it down between them so she has more control. Andy bucks up into her own touch, and god, okay, they need to do this now. "Alright, McNally." He hitches her up a bit. "Together it is."

IS THAT TRUE, THAT IT HELPS? OR DID YOU JUST MAKE THAT UP?

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take long--not like this, her knees at his rib cage and her fingers at her clit (and, uh. McNally with her hand between her legs--that's something he might actually have a kink for, so). Sam groans, works himself deeper, until--

"Sam," she gets out, around a gasp. "Sam, you gotta--Sam."

Sam laces their fingers together, shoves himself down one more time, and then--

(oh god, oh jesus--)

He keeps his eyes open when it happens, watches her come apart underneath him. He wants to see this happen, if he can.

CERTAIN CORNERS OF THE INTERNET SUGGEST IT IS SO.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

Andy's face is flushed and open. She finally lets go of that bottom lip (gone red and swollen now, teeth marks), whimpers her way through the aftershocks. Her eyes blink open and she grins. "Hi."

Sam touches his nose to her nose. "Hi."

They're silent for a while, catching their breath. Sam's startled out of his post-coital fascination with her neck when she whispers: "It'll be a September baby. You know. If it takes."

"Yeah?" He lifts his head to look at her. "Guess that'll make school easier--like, 'off you go, here's a present'."

She raises her eyebrows. "Bribery? Seriously?"

"Hey, whatever works." Neither of them sound very funny right now. (A baby, a baby, a baby--) "We should have two, play them off each other."

"Divide and conquer parenting, I like it." Only then she tugs him close, hides her face in his neck. "Sam..."

"I know," he says, and he does. "We're gonna be good, McNally. We're gonna be great."

AS ALWAYS, SIR, IT'S BEEN AN HONOR AND A PRIVILEGE

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Google also says she ought to lie still for a while, which for Andy is like trying not to scratch a full-body case of poison ivy. Sam slips the salty tips of her fingers into his mouth. "McNally," he says slowly, getting an arm around her waist, pulling her closer--that works on her sometimes, full-body contact, both of them warm and loose.

"Hm?" She fidgets a little, dark eyes flicking up at him, but Sam doesn't actually have much of a follow-up--he thinks maybe he just wanted to say her name.

("We're gonna be great," he mutters again, as much to himself as to Andy, and he palms the flat expanse of her belly until she falls asleep.)

SIR, YOU ARE A GENTLEMAN AND A SCHOLAR.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

Should we post this bad boy?

ABSOLUTELY WE SHOULD.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Hit me with your Canadian song lyric of choice, please.

THIS WAS TRICKY.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

The Hip do not lend themselves to babies. BUT. Assorted choices: "where the moonshot curtains part", "believing in the country of me and you", "on your everyday nights".

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Hee, I feel like probably I should actually check this band out at some point! I like "on your everyday nights" a lot-- I'll email my half your way in a bit.

Meanwhile, do you have post-finale fic in your back pocket already? Slash do you maybe want to keep playing, possibly in that general direction? I keep waiting to get bored of doing this, AND YET I FIND I AM NOT.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

WELL, CLEARLY THAT'S BECAUSE THIS IS THE MOST FUN GAME OF ALL GAMES.

Post-finale! I keep wanting to write things, but ahem, am kind of used to/spoiled by the commentfic hive-minding. So yes, is what I am saying, WE SHOULD DO THIS.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Well that is amazing news. START US OFF, BROTHER.

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

She's quiet most of the car ride home (home-home, finally, even though it's probably covered in dust, nothing in the fridge, and crap, seriously, what is he even going to feed her?). It's eerie, especially after all that chatter in the cover apartment--no fiddling with the presets, nothing. She keeps looking at him like he shot her dog, or she shot his. (And he gets it, he does. They're--well. It was a pretty monumental fuck-up, all told.) Finally Sam takes her hand at a red light on Dufferin, tells her they're going to be fine.

Oddly enough, that's what makes her burst into tears. Like, big, ugly, all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips sobs.

"Sam--" and he can barely hear her, she's crying so hard. "You could have died." Her nose is all snotty.

And Sam knows he shouldn't be smiling at her--J.D.'s a gentleman, holds my hand, brings me juice in bed--but he's not dead, is the thing. He's not dead, and she's not dead. No one is dead, and he's pretty sure she obliquely agreed to date him in the parking lot.

So.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Sam squeezes her hand, thumb stroking lightly at the inside of her wrist. “McNally,” he says, voice quiet. It’s stupid how much he wants to get his arms around her. He goes for distraction instead. “You hungry?”

Andy blinks at him, snuffles a couple of times. “Yeah,” she says finally--and Christ, she sounds impossibly young. “A little.”

They’re actually not the weirdest-looking people at the twenty-four hour grocery store in the middle of the night, but Sam thinks they probably come close--Andy all red-eyed and splotchy, him with his face beat half to hell.

(She shops in a meandering, counterproductive way, carrots and beer and fruit snax, zigzagging all over the store. Twenty minutes in and there’s nothing in their cart that even remotely resembles dinner.)

“Moving in?” he asks, as she tosses a giant box of Frosted Flakes into the basket, and for a second she looks so completely stricken that Sam laughs.

“Shut up,” she says, when she realizes he’s kidding. Her voice is still a little phlegmy. “I’m trying to be normal.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam takes the cereal out of her hand, throws it in the cart on top of some underripe bananas. “How’s that working out for you so far?”

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

She looks from him to the mess of processed junk in the child seat, makes a face. "I'm getting orange juice," she announces, nose in the air. So. Back they go to the drinks isle then.

(He selects grape, just to piss her off; "Seriously, Sam, only five-year-olds drink that. Plus it like, stains." She's smiling again, thank god; Sam was this close to doing a bit with cucumbers.)

Finally, after their fifth trip down the cereal isle, Sam takes control of the situation, picking up a chicken breast and some stir-fry vegetables in quick succession (for tomorrow--tonight he's making her pancakes, he doesn't even care, it's nearly one in the morning).

"Broccoli?" She wrinkles her nose (only the slightest bit red now).

So.

Probably she'll even prefer the pancakes, then.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

They get the groceries out to the truck (but not before a ridiculous farcical exchange over who's going to carry the bags, Andy loading herself down with them, plastic handles biting into the crook of her elbow: "Sam, your hand--"

Sam rolls his eyes, grabs three of them off her, and leads the way, and if the pain sings up his arm a little, it feels like a small price to pay not to scare her.)

She drops the bags on the floor of the cab, is about to slide into the passenger seat when Sam slips two fingers into her belt loop and yanks, pushes her up against the side of the truck (he just--he thinks it's possible there's a window here, and he's really, really done missing chances). She tastes like a long day and dried-up tears. "Hey," he mutters, wind biting cold at the back of his neck and one knee slipping between hers. "Thanks for, uh. Tracking me down."

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

She screws up her face like she's maybe going to cry again; puts her mouth in a hard line and doesn't. "Don't. Sam, seriously--"

"No, you seriously." His hands are suddenly shaking, here in some 24-hour Metro parking lot, and he's got to tell her--something. "McNally. It could have been either of us." (The dizzying relief is hitting him all over again, that moment when he climbed into the cruiser and realized he hadn't believed Brennan, not really, when he'd said she was fine.)

She's got her hands up under his jacket, cold fingers sliding across his back. "Yeah, okay." Like she doesn't believe him, but desperately wants to be talked into it.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

"What about me?" she asks, muscling him closer--he's got to be crushing her against the car a little bit, but McNally doesn't seem to care. "Would you have found me?"

Sam rolls his eyes, because the actual answer to that question is or gotten myself killed trying, and yeah, not scaring her. "Yeah, sweetheart," he tells her (and the sweetheart, that's new, a J.D. thing he guesses is gonna stick). "I'd have found you."

McNally grins, big like Christmas (and this girl, Sam swears to god, he can't decide if he wants to zip her inside his jacket or get his mouth between her legs or sleep for thirteen hours with her stretched out on the mattress next to him. He thinks it's possible he wants all those things equally). "Good," she says. "That's what I thought."

He kisses her again, good hand curled around the back of her skull--a little sloppier, further into her mouth until he gets a quiet whimper out of her. Then he smiles. "McNally," he mutters, right in her ear. "Get in the car."

[threeguesses.livejournal.com]

This time, the ride isn't so quiet. She's chatty; Best's face when she told him, Brennan down by the docks ("but I stayed in character--god, Sam, I thought for sure he was gonna make me"). The box of Frosted Flakes is clamped between her knees--every few words and she swallows a handful, dry, and Sam would roll his eyes except for the part where she puts a few in his palm and he totally eats them, he's that hungry.

They get the groceries inside (Sam lets her take a few more this time, hand stiff all the way to his wrist; she doesn't mention it), and yeah, he was right, dust on everything. McNally opens up the fridge and laughs, shoves a mostly-empty container of cranberry juice at his chest. She's got this face, good-natured resignation, like she's shoring up for a future of unsatisfactory juice selections, and that--well. Sam rinses it out for the recycling bin, smiling a bit at the tap.

"Don't look at your phone," she says, completely out of the blue. "Or, well, okay, look at it, but like." She makes a face. "Don't check your messages."

GET OUT OF MY BRAIN, YOU ARE MY FAVORITE, THAT CELL PHONE WAS TOTALLY MY NEXT DESTINATION.

[lowriseflare.livejournal.com]

Why?" he asks, grabbing it off the table where it's sitting dead on top of an electric bill that's definitely overdue at this point. He plugs it in (charger right on the counter where he left it, that weird sensation of time passing but also not-- last time he came back from eight months under and found a shit ton of laundry in the hamper he'd forgotten to do before he left) and hits the button for voicemail. "Candice from Appleton a drunk dialer?"

"No, Sam, seriously, I'm not--" And she actually lunges for it, is the thing, like she's going to wrench it clear out of his hand, which--

"What the hell, McNally?" Sam laughs a little, ducks out of her way (too fast, maybe; his ribs are protesting, for sure). Andy looks like she wishes the universe would swallow her whole.

Well. Now he's curious.

It's the first message in the queue, so he must have just missed her: good candy and some reference to champagne he doesn't get and coming over.

Let's make 'em count.

Sam blinks and looks across the kitchen. It is really, really obvious that she wishes she were dead.

"McNally," he says quietly, and he knows he shouldn't grin at her but he just--he's in trouble, is the thing. "Did you come here?"