sluttylyingliar | For Danny

For Danny

"Ow, motherfucker!" Rachel exclaims, waiving her mutliated and burned hand away from the hot oil popping out of the pan. "This is so stupid. I hate homework."

Rachel had signed up for the cooking class because it seemed like a mom should be able to cook meals for her family. Is it her fault that she grew up with a cook? Her mom sure as shit never cooked a thing and she's determined to be different. Yeah, they have people to do that shit around here, but she can't drag her kid up to the compound every time she wants a meal. She's going to learn how to cook and she's going to do it in her own home. Well, once the weird half kitchen thing is finished. God bless Raylan.

Until then, she's using the compound kitchen and cheating a little. Enlisting some help. Stir fry is hard.

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Rachel startles just a bit, although she's getting much better at anticipating Danny's full body hugs. Even lets herself lean against him a little.

"Whatever," she huffs against his neck. "It was my decision to do it. Not like I discouraged the attention. I think my mom was relieved. A chubby, unpopular kid did nothing for her social standing."

"Okay, Rachel, if you don't stop talking about your shitty past, I'm adopting you," Danny warns with a gesture that she ought to zip her lips. "Seriously. You and me need to just move on. And you need to add something to the goddamn fry if you don't want it to dry out."

"You're a terrible therapist," she points out, whirling back around to stare at the slightly burnt vegetables. "Like what? Water? Can't it just be done?"

"You're so terrible at this. Remind me that you're not cooking Thanksgiving dinner," Danny says with a flash of worry over his face when he realizes he's not gonna be able to get a bird the way he usually likes. "This is your class, this is your domain. You tell me when it's done. Also, I am so not eating anything you make. Sorry, babe."

"Fine!" she says, setting the pan firmly to the side. "It's done! Voila. Now let's go to the beach. I need to enjoy wearing a bikini while I still can."

Danny gives her a blank look as he shakes his head. "Babe, still don't like the beach," he reminds her, a little dubious as to whether she's actually heard him. "I don't do sand, I don't do little bathing suits, and I definitely don't do swimming except for special occasions. Mostly, I wanna go home, take off my tie, and relax."

"You are a boring, old man," she accuses, tasting the food and deeming it close enough to edible before shoving the rest in the fridge. "Fine. Go home and be boring. Don't go to the beach with me. I'll go by myself. Me and the fetus."

"How about I compromise with you, now?" Danny offers with a reluctant sigh, like he's signing away his soul with these words. "Like you said, I got a beach by my place. You can come with and I'll sit in the chairs in the shade and relax with a drink while you soak up the sun or whatever. And you can help me spy on my old hut. I think someone new moved in and it's the closest thing Steve and I have to neighbors."

"Sounds like a plan!" she exclaims, winding her arm through his. I've actually got a bra and underwear on for once, so I can just go with that. Besides, I want to know if you can see a bump. Raylan says he can but I can't tell if he's full of it."

"Okay, well, not to disagree with the father-to-be, but at this point, I don't think you're gonna be showing," Danny admits as he guides Rachel down the path. "You're still super-thin, don't get your issues all tied up in a bind."

"I'm not having issues!" she protests, poking at her belly. "If anyone has issues here, it's you. Or both of us. We have equal amounts of issues."

"How am I having issues about you being flat-stomached, huh?" Danny wants to know, heading straight for the bedroom once they get to the hut. He keeps the main door open so that he can talk to her while he changes -- yanking off his tie and hanging it up neatly as he pats Zulu distractedly.

"You have got body image issues!" she insists, leaning against the open door and not even pretending not to watch. "Maybe that's why we get along so well. We're both morons in the same way."

Edited 2011-10-02 03:08 (UTC)

Danny strips off his shirt and folds it neatly beside the tie, unbuttoning his trousers and doing the same with them. It's a sign as to how much he loves Rachel in a platonic way that he's doing this in front of her. "I do not have body issues, not anymore. I know Steve likes this, I know that I bend over and he wants me," he clarifies as he picks up a pair of khaki shorts and a long-sleeved baseball jersey, putting them both on and gesturing to the door. "Come on, I wanna go see the old hut before you start stripping."

"Yeah, but I don't think you believe me when I say that I'd pick you over Steve," she counters, looking him up and down before following him back outside.

"Yeah, because if nothing else, he has that tramp stamp," he says as he hooks his arm in hers, dragging her along to his old destroyed hut which has started to look really good and improved and nice in a way that he wonders who's there.

He peers into the window, wondering who the hell is in there. "I never see anybody coming and going."

Rachel just rolls her eyes at that and pushes up onto her toes to peer in with him. "And you seriously haven't seen anyone going in there? That seems weird. I went and told the council when I moved in with Raylan but I don't think anyone's moved into my old place."

"I do work," he points out with a huff. "I work two jobs and then I come home and do dinner with Steve every night. I am busy, I am run off my ass, I don't have time to sit here and stalk my new neighbors so I can go 'hi, how are you, I hope you don't mind the loud sex we have'."

"You're stalking them enough to notice the house and to notice that no one lives here," she points out, turning and stripping off her shirt. "I'll give you five more minutes and then we're going to the beach. The longer you wait, the more naked I get."

Danny sighs and peers into the window for another moment before easing away, giving Rachel a dubious look. "I cannot wait until you have the kid so that I can play with him or her while you do your stripping act," he says, heading back for his hut and grabbing a Grisham novel before dragging one of the wooden chairs out to the sand (a shade-tree above him).

"Maybe having a kid will get me to tone down the stripping act," she points out as she shimmies out of her shorts. "Maybe I'll be super conservative and wear turtlenecks and shit. I'll be like the girl version of you."

"Actually, the girl version of me wears ties and shirts and pants," Danny corrects as he kicks up his feet and smirks up at her. "Remember? Because I was a girl version of me for like, three days. And you mocked me for it."

"You were a hot girl underneath all those stupid clothes," she remembers with a sigh, marching up to him and pointing at her still relatively flat belly. There's maybe the hint of a curve down low that you'd only catch if you spend a lot of time looking at it. "What do you think?"

"I was pretty hot, if a bit...you know," he says with a gesture to his body to indicate that he'd been a bit heavy in the shoulder and hips -- not that Steve had cared. He leans over and peers at the line of her stomach, shaking his head. "Sorry, babe, but I don't see it yet. One day, it'll come. One day."

She can't help but be a little disappointed at that. As much as she doesn't want to get fat and lose her figure, she thinks maybe if she starts showing, she'll feel like more of a mom. "Okay," she mutters, sitting down in the sand. "Whatever. I don't want to be fat, anyway."

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