for Mark

[sluttylyingliar]

Rachel hates it when Raylan is right.

It's even worse because Raylan is almost always right. But in this case, he was really, really right. He'd suggested as gently as possible (as he very well knows the best way to get Rachel to do something is to tell her she can't) that she wait for him to get home before going out for food. His reasoning was sound. Her balance is for shit with her big belly, these stupid Victorian clothes are heavy and the shoes are weird and slippery. Plus, you know, ice. 

But, dammit, she doesn't want to stay in their weird, dark, cold house being pregnant and cold. She hates this Raylan hates this. They bitch and hate it together and what she needs is to find someone to bitch and hate with her. She twists her hair up onto the top of her head and puts the heavy, brocade coat over the high necked gown that she insists on wearing unbuttoned as far as it will go.

She only makes it about a half a mile before her feet go right out from under her, the weight of her belly pulling her forward. She manages to fling her hands out before her stomach hits the ground as as the wet slush soaks through her gloves and her dress, she remembers again how much she hates it when Raylan is right.

 Dammit.

Comments

[zuckered]

Mark hates this month. Hates the snow, hates the changed terrain, hates the overly complicated clothing and the changes made to his belongings, hates how difficult the Compound was to find and how their number has suddenly doubled with the addition of natives of Victorian London. Even breathing the outside air causes him no end of grief, the soot and the stench of overflowing sewage enough to make him wish he could spend the rest of December with his nose pressed close to his elbow, if only because it might alleviate the coughing just a touch. After years of living on the shores of California, with trees planted judiciously all over campus, this particular change is nothing short of hell.

Again, Mark hates it.

But a man needs to eat. And no matter how many times he tries to haul someone into the household, some random kid who's probably otherwise freezing in the streets anyway, have them manage some kind of stew while Mark works on obtaining a store of food from the newly transformed Compound, it hasn't worked. The natives of London seem fully keen on avoiding him at every turn, and Mark supposes he can't begrudge them that— they're the ones whose home is suddenly being intruded on, after all.

The only problem is that it forces him outside. Forces him to make that trek to the Compound practically every day, unable to find anyone closer who'll let him bunk with them for the remainder of the calendar month.

Only when he stumbles across Rachel does he finally acknowledge that being forced to walk the streets may not always be such a bad thing.

"Jesus," he huffs, breath fogging in the air as he struggles with the tight fit of his jacket, bending down to give her a hand. "What exactly made you think that this was a good idea?"

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Absolutely nothing," she mutters, taking his hand and carefully trying to stand. "My actions are rarely the result of good ideas." She huffs and pushes strands of hair off her face. "I hate this shit."

[zuckered]

Whatever amount of anger, doused in fear, rose in him at the sight of Rachel on the ground manages to dissipate as soon as she starts caving in on herself with a great deal of self-directed criticisms. The fact that Rachel, who he so often finds to be one of the most positive people around in spite of all that cynicism, also hates the changes in the island leaves Mark feeling almost vindicated as the tension in his shoulders wears away long enough for him to get a better grip on her.

"Believe me," he says, breath slipping between his teeth in a hiss. "I hate this shit, too. Unlike you, though, I've spent a great deal of my life holed indoors for extended periods of time, so that doesn't leave me half as inclined to brave the horrible weather. Were you just going for a walk?"

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," she admits, wiping the slush off her stupid, ridiculous dress before tugging on the lapel of his jacket with a grin. He looks even more pissed than she does. "But don't tell Raylan. I implied that I wouldn't but I'm bored and I want some food. Come with me?"

[zuckered]

The sudden pull on his jacket is unexpected, and draws Mark's gaze down to the lapel and the buttons alike, giving them another disgruntled look. Personally, he thinks that Rachel's somehow managed to make herself look more than decent in her attire, while Mark's sure that he looks more like a fish out of water, or like he's found a way to dive right into an endless pile of buttons and moth-eaten cloth, never to emerge in anything remotely comfortable again. (He gives her a second glance, too, when he remembers that women of this age typically wear corsets; he hopes that there's no such whalebone underneath her dress.)

"I'll do you better, take you to the kitchen and back again," Mark offers, holding out an arm for her to cling to. Hoping that he has enough in him to keep them both upright. "I've been kind of hungry myself, anyway. Keep on meaning to take a bag of groceries back to the place to hole up for a month, but it's hard to find stuff that'll keep for that long."

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

Mark looks uncomfortable, but not nearly as awkward as he thinks. It's actually kind of cute.

She gives his coat a final tweak before grasping his arm tightly. "You're a godsend. I'm starving. God, shit you can't even plug your laptop in here, huh? Are you bored shitless?"

[zuckered]

"Laptop?" Mark scoffs, glancing over at Rachel with a highly skeptical look, even as his hand automatically drops on hers to anchor it further in place, worried as he is that he'll still let her down somehow, the both of them quite possibly fated to fall in a pile of snow in the few blocks they've still yet to go. "You're kidding, right? The laptop changed to some kind of weird typewriter. Completely useless to me. Even if I can manage to get the same characters on paper, there's no way to run a program or to make the language meaningful at all. I've had to cancel classes until I figure out whether or not it's even worth having people try to find programming texts from that abominable bookshelf."

He glances down at Rachel, shaking his head. "But hey, now at least we can be bored shitless together."

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, babe I hate to break it to you, but a lot of people are going to look at the it as a month long vacation," she says, threading her fingers through his. "Now, I certainly don't because sliding around in maternity dresses in the slush is not my idea of fun at all but I feel like you should be warned. And yes, we will be brothers in arms against a sea of boredom and super sketchy air pollution."

[zuckered]

"Then let them have their vacation," he decides with a snort. "If attendance starts taking a nosedive, I'll even allow it. It's the time for winter break, anyway, if we're looking to American standards. And it's not exactly like any of them have the pressure of exams upon them to keep them to the curriculum. The range of skill and knowledge of my student base varies far too much for me to test them as a group on much of anything." The tone of his voice makes it infinitely clear that he doesn't think too much of that, but there's resignation laced there as well, with the knowledge that the population is just too small to manage anything far better than what they've already arranged.

"Should I have you wear a mask?" he asks suddenly, thinking of pollution and the adverse effects it could have on her kid. "For, you know."

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Do you really think you could convince me to wear a mask?" she says, eyebrow raised. "You can say for the baby, I won't get weird. Or you can call it fetus. Or Jess. I still go back and forth between fetus and Jess."

[zuckered]

Being the first time that he's heard a name dropped, Mark can't help but focus on that. While not really sure what kind of process it takes to pick out a name for a kid, Mark certainly knows that the decision must be a fairly big one for any parent. Names aren't easily changed, after all. (And if people are to believe the studies that show correlation between chosen names and personality traits, that opens up another can of worms entirely.)

"Jess? You guys are set on a name?" He pauses. "Jess like Jessica, right? Or Jesse?"

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Jess like Jess Davis Givens," she confirms with a very firm nod, patting her stomach. "It's a boy, actually, just found out. I guess Raylan always liked the name and God knows I've never given two shits about baby names so I had zero problem with Jess. It's better to give it a name now, I think. Less like it's just some alien looking thing."

[zuckered]

It sounds rather country, Mark thinks to himself, although he manages to keep from blurting out the thought right away. He's seen that partner of Rachel's before, mostly in passing. Never sat down to talk to the guy. Something about his appearance and demeanor make Mark suspect that he and Raylan Givens wouldn't get along all too well, and rather than putting Rachel in the middle, Mark's just enough of a non-confrontational person that he'd rather sweep things away and under the rug. And hope, he thinks to himself, that some day none of this will matter at all.

"Giving it a name now is good," he agrees. "Makes it more personal. Makes it less of a growth in there and more a goal that you're working towards, I guess. Though a name stays with the kid for pretty long, too, so. Might want to call it beta mode for now."

[sluttylyingliar.livejournal.com]

"Is that your way of saying you don't like the name?" she snorts, raising an eyebrow as she continues to walk. "I mean, if so, that's totally your right but I feel like Raylan's not going to hop on board with calling his son beta mode. Just a warning. He's a touch more sentimental than that, and he's really not very sentimental."

[zuckered]

"I meant beta mode in the sense that you could change it later, if you decide that, I don't know, the baby comes out looking like an— a Chris, or a Dustin," Mark suggests with a shrug. "I hear that that sort of thing happens, where a parent looks at a kid and decides that the originally picked name doesn't fit or something. Not that I really know anything about naming kids or pets or anything like that, considering I don't exactly plan on having any of my own." He shoves a hand into his pocket, still making sure to keep his hold on Rachel secure.