Work Text:
*
Charlotte has been very quiet, watching the raw video from this afternoon’s taping.
“Hey. Hey!” Lizzie exclaims into the phone. “I’m still here!”
“Shhhh,” Charlotte murmurs, distracted. Lizzie thinks she can hear the faint tones of her and Darcy’s voices in the background.
“Are you watching it again?” Lizzie asks, incredulously.
“It’s fascinating,” Charlotte says crisply. “It’ll be an one-hundred-thousand hit video, for sure.”
Lizzie swallows hard and leans her elbows on the kitchen table. This house, borrowed from friends of Dr. Gardiner, is too big for just her; she finds herself wanting to call for Jane or Lydia, even her mother – she’s never liked living alone. Her fingers pluck at the hem of her dress as it hits her knees, bare toes curling against the cool tile of the floor.
“It really isn’t –well – “
“Lizzie, he likes you still.”
That brings Lizzie up with a start. “Charlotte,” she hisses.
“He’s not talking about Bing and Jane. He’s talking about you.” Charlotte says matter-of-factly. “Also, didn’t you think about why he had a hat and bow tie so easily accessible?”
“I was only – no,” Lizzie groans. “Oh man. Oh man.”
Charlotte’s laugh through the phone is a comfort and a sting. “Have him play Jane the next time. That would be something to see.”
“There won’t be a next time!” Lizzie exclaims. “He just was – well –“
“The head of the company is wandering the halls randomly? Really?”
Lizzie rises to pour herself a glass of wine, tucking her cell phone between her cheek and shoulder. “You’re implying he planned this.”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying he still likes you and is trying to do it right this time,” Charlotte says. “Lizzie, he’s leaning –“
“Stop,” Lizzie says shortly, taking a long swallow of wine, white and dry and tart on her tongue. She leans her hip against the edge of the kitchen counter and looks out across the small grassy lawn, over the hills and dips of the city. She remembers the press of his arm, his shoulder against hers; there’s a tightness in her chest, a lump in her throat.
Sighing, Charlotte hums into the phone. “He’s really comfortable you, too. It’s noticeable.”
“I don’t really know what to say about it,” Lizzie retorts. “I’m more concerned about Bing, and the videos, and Jane – and, you know, finishing my Masters.”
“The bit on your research is very good, by the way – definitely keeping it. I think they’d like to hear more about it,” Charlotte interjects quickly.
Another gulp, and Lizzie’s glass is half-gone. “They meaning…”
Charlotte is quiet again. Groaning, Lizzie shuts her eyes for a moment. “I’m not making these videos for him.”
“I know that. But he clearly is watching, and paying attention. He’s a fan of your work, Lizzie. Not Dr. Gardiner’s.”
“I need to sit down,” Lizzie murmurs.
“It could be that you were a little too harsh on him from the start, you know.”
“And he was still a jackass about Bing and Jane!” Lizzie retorts, slumping onto a barstool next to the small granite-topped island.
“Yeah, but he admits it. Have you?” Lizzie can almost see Charlotte’s face, serious and steady and logical, always so measured and reasoned.
“Yeah, okay,” Lizzie says at last, straightening up. “I have notes from today to type up. Email me your editing recs?”
“Of course” Charlotte says, all business, and that’s that. Lizzie spends the night typing up notes from the day, formulating them into her larger write-up of the company, and toying around with the edits from the shoot today. She wants the video ready to post by tomorrow morning; she feels behind already, feels off-center and skittish.
It’s hard to edit when she can see how he looks at her; how their bodies fit together in the framed shot of the hallway; how his brow furrows and the moment – the moment he sheds the costume of the moment and settles back into reality.
I think – I think you should ask Bing.
Lizzie sips her wine, tapping on the edge of her laptop, and wonders.
*
“That looked awkward.”
Startled, Lizzie looks up from her computer to see Gigi Darcy hovering at the edges of her cubicle walls. She has folders tucked close to her chest, her chin ducked downwards. Lizzie marvels yet again at how sweet, how lovely and warm and socially awkward this girl is. So unlike her brother, and yet.
“I was looking for you yesterday – wait, what did?” Lizzie asks, suddenly panicked. “Was it the meeting earlier? Did I sound like an idiot?”
Gigi gapes, and shakes her head. “Oh, no! Of course not,” she says, sidling into Lizzie’s cubicle and leaning her hip against the edge of the desk. “I mean – Bing.”
Ah. Lizzie swallows hard and wrinkles her nose. “You saw.”
“I’m subscribed to your channel,” Gigi says cheerily.
The video’s been up for five hours, and Charlotte has texted her three times with viewer updates; already past 50k, was her last one, and Lizzie can only wonder if Darcy was one of those views. She knows his sister was, at least.
“I feel weird about this, Gigi,” Lizzie says, wetting her lips nervously. “I think Bing needs to know.”
“No!” Gigi exclaims, eyes wide. Lizzie pauses, stares at her. “I mean – well –“
Mouth thinning, Lizzie rises. “Okay?”
“It would make dinner so awkward!” Gigi says brightly.
“What dinner?” Lizzie asks warily.
“Well,” Gigi drawls, touching Lizzie’s shoulder. “Bing and Caroline are in town, and so is Fitz. Will and I want you to come to dinner tonight, with all of us.”
Mouth drawing thin at the mention of Caroline, Lizzie leans back in her chair. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she says, eyebrows raised.
“I totally see why,” Gigi says, nodding. There’s a sparkle to her eyes that Lizzie doesn’t trust, but fully enjoys. “But Caroline is going to behave herself.”
“Caroline wants Bing to fall in love with you,” Lizzie says bluntly.
Smiling, Gigi shrugs. “Well, it’s not going to happen. He’s a good guy, just trusting. And you’re our friend, so you should come. Will wants you to.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Lizzie sighs. “Okay. Okay. Tonight?”
Gigi clasps her hands together in front of her files, smiling. “Oh, yes! Wonderful. We’ll all go together from work tonight. You can just get a ride with Will and me.”
Before Lizzie can say another word, Gigi is out of her cubicle in a flash, waving and yelling a time at her as she whips out her phone. Lizzie groans to herself, turning back to her desk. On a whim, she opens her laptop and clicks through to her video channel. Sixty thousand hits. She shakes her head, smoothing her dress over her thighs and knees. Jane brought this from her old job for her months ago, black and scoop-necked, just pretty enough not to be deadly nun-ish, as Lydia would say.
He’s seen this dress before, in one of the videos. She wonders if he’ll remember.
*
At five-thirty, she walks out of the lobby into the elevator, hands tucked into her trenchcoat pockets, and sees only Darcy there, standing with his back to her.
“Oh,” she says out loud, catching his attention.
He turns and gives her a small smile. Perhaps he’s unused to smiling, she thinks, not unkindly. It would make sense.
“Lizzie, good evening.”
“Uh, hi. Where’s your sister?” she asks him, for the second time in two days.
He tugs on the ends of his suit jacket. No suspenders today; what if he had worn them only for her? “She and Fitz went on ahead to the loft, to prepare for dinner.”
Diabolical, Lizzie thinks, wrinkling her nose. This girl, I swear. “If your little sister and my little sister teamed up, they could run the world,” she says after a moment, laughing a little bit.
Darcy’s smile remains, even as his gaze darkens. “I do not doubt it. Are you ready?”
“Sure,” she says, shrugging. He leads her out to the car, a hand hovering near the small of her back. It’s a small car, but a nice one, dark blue and shiny in the early evening light; she wonders how he fits in it, given how broad and tall he is. But the backseat is roomy – and why did she even think of that just now?
He opens the passenger-side door for her and waits for her to get settled before he goes around and gets in. Lizzie sits with her hands clasped in her lap, her tote bag at her feet.
“I like your dress,” he says as he starts the car.
Startled, she looks at him. “Oh?”
“I always have,” he says, meeting her eyes for a moment.
The flush starts at her collarbones and rises up. They look at each other for a heavy beat before he turns his gaze to the road and moves out into traffic. She looks ahead through the windshield.
They don’t speak for the rest of the car ride. It’s not uncomfortable. She listens to the sound of her heartbeat in her ears, the even rise and fall of his breathing, the low hum of NPR on the radio.
She doesn’t think of how she could get used to it.
*
When they arrive at the Darcy loft, Gigi is there at the wide tall front door with a glass of white wine in each hand, ebullient in a full-skirted ocean blue sundress.
“Hi,” she trills, handing Lizzie a glass.
Lizzie takes the glass and readjusts her tote bag on her shoulder, blinking. “How did you know?”
“My brother remembered, from a time or two when he deigned to be social with you and your friends,” Gigi says with a laugh, glancing behind Lizzie. “Isn’t that right, Will?”
“If you say, Gigi,” he says, voice low and full of affection.
Lizzie glances back at him, biting her lip. “Well – thanks,” she says.
He doesn’t reply, just holds a hand out. “Let me take your bag and coat, Lizzie.”
Once divested, she’s hurried into the loft for a tour from Gigi – “a quick one, it’s not so exciting, and all the booze is in the kitchen anyway-“ – and by the time she’s expressed marvel over the artwork, the living room, the balcony, and the upstairs guest bathroom, she’s back in the all-granite, all-black-and-white kitchen with Fitz at the stovetop and Gigi sitting on the island counter, sipping a vodka tonic.
“Where are Bing and Caroline?” Lizzie asks, leaning against the counter’s edge, her wine glass nearly empty. She feels light and smiley, each vertebra of her spine relaxed. Still, her eyes search for Darcy. She thinks she can hear him in the back of the loft, moving around.
“Coming,” Gigi says, kicking her bare feet into the air. “They’re not terribly timely.”
“Lizzie B, you need another glass of wine,” Fitz crows from the stove, shifting on his heels as he stirs a red sauce of some kind.
“When don’t I?” Lizzie cracks, smiling a little too wide.
Gigi hands her the cool bottle of pinot grigio, condensation slicking over her fingertips. Tipping her head back against the cabinets, Lizzie sighs. “You two are diabolical, I think,” she says at last.
Gigi and Fitz exchange a grin. “Who, us?” Fitz drawls. “I am affronted!”
Lizzie pours with a light hand; she is a guest, after all. Unsavory comparisons rise between her, her mother, and Lydia; she blinks, and it leaves her. She has always been too good at compartmentalizing, she thinks wryly.
“I have a feeling you two aren’t any further along with dinner now than you would have been had we all left together,” she adds, handing the bottle back to Gigi, who slips it into the ice-topped bucket on the island.
Gigi merely grins around her straw. “We figured you two could listen to your NPR in peace.”
“While we blasted a little Les Mis,” Fitz adds, smile white and broad against his dark skin.
“Yeah, okay,” Lizzie says with a smile, sipping her wine. “Lying through your teeth.”
“If it’s for a righteous cause, I’m not bothered,” Fitz says airily.
“All of your causes are righteous, apparently,” Darcy says as he enters the kitchen. He’s divested of his suit, strangely relaxed in a button-down and cardigan, and – and –
JEANS, Lizzie thinks and nearly shrieks to herself. Her free hand goes to her dress pocket, reaching for her phone to text Charlotte and Jane. Darcy is wearing jeans!!!!!!
(yes, all those exclamation points are necessary.)
“That’s right they are,” Fitz retorts.
Gigi hand her brother a wine glass. “Here. It’s Friday! Enjoy it.”
“You’re going to fall off the counter,” Darcy tells her, mouth soft with a smile. Lizzie watches the two of them as she sends her texts, lips turning upwards into a smile. She thinks of her own sisters, misses them like a limb; growing up means growing apart, but does it really?
The doorbell rings; before Darcy can make a move, Gigi is off the counter and Fitz shoves a wooden spoon into Darcy’s hand, yelling at him to stir as the two of them hurry out of the kitchen, leaving Lizzie and Darcy alone once more.
“This keeps happening, huh,” Lizzie says at last, watching him.
He shrugs and moves to the stove, stirring the sauce gingerly. “When Gigi has an idea, she sticks with it.”
“What’s the idea behind this?” she asks softly.
His gaze flicks to hers, but he says nothing. The silence thickens heavily between them, under the warm lights, just slips of tile separating them.
“I kind of wish I had the costume theatre stuff with me,” she jokes after a quiet moment.
Looking down at the pan, he clears his throat. “Me too.”
She presses her lips together, inhaling sharply through her nose. Okay. “I also kind of wish I was better at just saying stuff without hiding behind a hat,” she adds after a beat.
He looks up at her, eyebrows raised. “I have never known you to have an issue with expressing yourself to anyone, Lizzie,” he says quietly.
A flush rises on her cheeks, but she doesn’t look away. “When I’m mad, sure. Or upset. When it’s – it’s other stuff, I’m not good at,” she stumbles on.
Immediately, she takes a long swallow of wine. He doesn’t move his gaze from hers. “I understand,” he says quietly.
Yeah, she thinks as her phone buzzes in her pocket and voices trail in from the front hall. Yeah, you do.
She pulls out her phone to see a few very triumphant texts from Charlotte and a confused inquiry from Jane, and resolves to answer them later. Bing, Caroline, Gigi, and Fitz flood into the kitchen as she slips her phone back into her pocket, and she smiles, a little cruelly, as Caroline takes the scene in with a twist of her mouth and a widening of her eyes.
“Everyone’s here! We can get out the cheese and crackers!” Gigi says, clapping her hands together.
“Let me help you with that,” Bing offers with a genial smile, waving at Lizzie. “Hi, Lizzie.”
She waves back, smiling slightly as he and Gigi open up the fridge. He really just is a nice guy, and she finds it so hard to hate him as she once did.
Her eyes flicker to Darcy, who is silent and fixed on the pan on the stove. An agoraphobic lobster, huh? Why didn’t she see it before?
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Lizzie,” Caroline says from right at her side, startling her. She has a vodka tonic in her hand and ice in her voice.
Lizzie straightens, tucking her hair back behind her ears. “Well, I was invited. So, surprise,” she says, a little coolly.
Caroline’s gaze travels up and down Lizzie before she smirks, just slightly. “Surprise, indeed.”
“Caroline!” Gigi calls from the kitchen doorway. “Come see the new shoes I got for Christmas!”
With Caroline pulled away by Gigi, and Fitz and Bing busy assembling rows of crackers, vegetables, and cheese on heavy white china platters, Lizzie is at a loss. Therefore, wine in hand, she edges her way along the counter, closer to the stove.
“You cook?” she asks Darcy, voice low, and (she thinks) friendly.
He glances at her, mouth a thin line. “I try,” he says at last. “I am not the best.”
“I don’t know. It looks pretty red sauce-y to me,” she says, peering into the pan, and then back up at him. Shit, he really is tall, she thinks, remembering the still frame of the editing last night, the silhouette of their heights framed in the doorway.
His gaze is fixed on her, on her mouth. She feels her skin prickle into gooseflesh.
“My mother could cook,” he says after a moment. “She liked breakfast the most out of any meal.”
“Breakfast is good,” she says, startled by the revelation. She has hints of a past, from whisperings around the office and Charlotte’s research; a car accident, lost parents, practically raising his little sister. There have always been hints, even if she’s been too blind to take note of them. “I like breakfast.”
“As do I,” he says, still staring at her.
“Dude, you’re going to burn it,” Fitz exclaims, crowding into the stove. He takes the spoon from Darcy and gives him a little shove, right into Lizzie’s shoulder. The touch is electric to her, sends a shiver right down her spine.
“Well, you should not have put me in charge of the stirring, then,” Darcy says after a moment as he straightens up and reaches for his wine glass. Lizzie edges back, but there is a lean of his, a lean right into her shoulder once again. She thinks she can’t blush anymore, but she can.
Oh, she sure can.
*
Dinner is – well, awkward, at best.
Lizzie gets pleasantly tipsy and eats too much ziti and meatballs, while Caroline picks at her plate and directs one too many zingers at her family. Fitz and Gigi carry the conversation, while Bing seems overly quiet and inquisitive still of Jane. Darcy is silent, but it isn’t the same snobbish reticence she would have labeled it before. They eat gathered around the island in the kitchen, because Gigi thinks the formal dining room is too stuffy for friends, and Lizzie leans elbow-to-elbow with Darcy, balancing plates and glasses with ease.
She excuses herself as Bing and Caroline make their goodbyes, torn with a need to tell him that Jane is in LA and respecting whatever strange sort of honor code Darcy is trying to abide by. She takes the steps two at a time and ducks into the guest bathroom for a moment of peace.
Did I meddle as much as Darcy did? She texts Charlotte, sitting on the edge of the tub and stretching out her legs in front of her with room to spare.
Immediately, a reply: In terms of what?
In terms of Jane and Bing. I told her to play it cool, and she did it so much that he thought she didn’t care.
Lizzie taps the toes of her flats as she waits for an answer, playing with the ends of her hair.
Charlotte’s reply is terse but effective: Probably. No offense.
Sighing, Lizzie shuts her eyes for a brief moment. None taken, she texts back. Details later.
Yes please, Charlotte replies. I want to hear about the JEANS.
She slips the phone into her pocket and rubs the heels of her hands into her eyes for a moment. Washing up, she checks her face, her hair in the wide oval mirror before opening the door and walking back out into the hallway. The loft is quiet except for clattering in the kitchen, the soft laughter of Fitz and Gigi. Lizzie smoothes her skirt and walks back towards the top of the stairs.
Darcy is there, two steps from the top. He stops, hand on the railing, and so does she.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hello,” he says back.
Two steps lower than her, and he’s still at least an inch taller. She bites her lip and takes a deep breath, reaching out to touch his arm. His cardigan is warm under her fingertips. “I don’t think I need to ask Bing about Jane,” she says quietly.
Darcy keeps her gaze, face unreadable. “Yes. I think it is plainly obviously how much he still thinks of her,” he says, perhaps a little sadly.
“So, I think I’ll just tell him she’s in LA. Maybe- maybe that’s enough,” she murmurs.
“No,” Darcy says. “I will.”
Her mouth falls open in surprise. He is full of those, lately. “What?”
“I contributed the most to this mess. I should assist in the reconstruction effort,” he says stiffly. “As an apology.”
She’s got to say this now, while she has wine in her fingertips and on her tongue. Her fingers tighten their grip on his forearm.
“But I think you weren’t talking about Bing, at the end of the costume theatre,” she blurts out, cheeks flushed and warm.
His eyes fix on hers, eyebrows raised. “Oh?”
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she inches closer to him. “I made a mistake too. Hell, I make a lot of them. But, I don’t want – What I’m trying to ask is – Well – “
His hand comes up to cup her cheek. She stills and falls silent with the touch of his skin against hers. Her fingers twitch in the light wool of his cardigan. His eyes are very dark, set upon her.
“I was not speaking of Bing. You’re correct,” he says softly, his thumb skating over the curve of her cheek.
Lizzie blinks, still trying to shake the shock out of her tongue. “So – you – I should ask - ?”
“Do you think you need to?”
She tips her head forward, their mouths very close. His pupils widen, blown black against the dark of his eye. “No,” she says quietly before she leans in and kisses him. Her eyes shut and she curls her arms around his neck, her fingers carding through the short hair at the nape of his neck. His hand moves from her cheek to wrap around her waist, his other hand at the small of her back. She feels enveloped by him as her mouth opens over his, all tongues and lips and teeth and wet and warmth.
He steps forward and up and she lets him push her across the hall and against the wall next to a door of some sort, lifting her up with the wall as support. Her legs scramble against his for a moment before her thighs settle as brackets at his hips, and it’s all very un-elegant.
She says so, and he laughs against her mouth. It’s a jarring, lovely sound; she’s heard it so rarely.
“Elegance is not my first priority, Lizzie,” he says against her cheek, the line of her jaw. She pulls at his cardigan, pops open the buttons of his shirt, searching for any slice of bare warm skin.
“And what is?” she teases. One of his hands rests on her thigh, at the hem of her skirt.
His gaze settles on hers, hot and dark. “You,” he says, simply enough.
Somewhere, Charlotte is telling her she’s an idiot for being a jerk to this guy. Somewhere else, Jane is worried about emotional upheaval. In an alternate universe where she and Lydia are still speaking, Lydia is catcalling and telling her to climb him like a tree.
In the here and now, Lizzie curls her grip into his shirt collar and hauls him close for a kiss, biting and sharp and open and everything she’s been in upheaval about for months now. The horrible pit of anxiety and guilt in her stomach melts layer by layer as he breathes her name, skims his broad palms over her waist, her ribs, the curve of her breast under her dress. He likes this dress, she thinks dazedly. He watches the videos, and he likes this dress. He always has.
“Lizzie? Will?” Gigi hollers from the bottom of the stairs.
Lizzie bites his bottom lip in her surprise, and he hisses with it, his fingers tightening their grip. She pulls back and he’s there, flushed and mussed and touching her like he never wants to stop. His lips are still very close to hers; she feels the rise and fall of his chest against hers, ragged breaths in her ear.
“Just had a little spill!” Lizzie calls back at last, her fingers sliding over the length of his throat, the line of his jaw. “Be right down!”
“Good! There’s cake!” Gigi calls. They listen as her steps fade back towards the kitchen.
“There’s cake,” Lizzie repeats, her fingertips near Darcy’s mouth, red and swollen and oh shit.
Gently, he sets her back on her feet. His lips move against the pads of her fingers. “We should go have cake,” he says, voice husky.
She lets her fingers drop, hands fisting at her sides. “Yes,” she says.
He leans in just for a moment, his hand grazing her elbow. “And then, I’m going to give you a ride home, if you would like.”
“Okay,” she says with a small smile.
A grin flickers at the corners of his mouth. Smiles really do change his face, she thinks. “And then, since tomorrow is Saturday, I would like to take you out to breakfast, if I may.”
“You usually work Saturdays,” she says automatically. It’s the third thing his staffers say about him: generous man, great boss, works on Saturdays.
He reaches out and tucks a loose length of hair behind her ear. “I can take a Saturday off every once in a while, Lizzie.”
With that, she lets him have a real smile, bright and true. “Okay,” she says before she heads for the stairs. He’s a minute behind her.
If she looks a mess, Gigi and Fitz say nothing. The cake is chocolate and coconut; Lizzie takes a plate, and smiles.
*