(no subject)
Title: Dream a Little Dream
Author: royal_ivy
Fandom: Private Practice
Pairing: Charlotte/Violet
Summary: Violet is having some pretty inappropriate dreams about a certain Dr. King and at Oceanside Wellness gossip travels fast. Takes place in season 2.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Shonda Rhimes and ABC.
Chapter 11
Charlotte really envied how well Violet could sleep. After two weeks of this friendship or whatever it was Charlotte could describe Violet's sleeping habits perfectly. Violet liked to go to sleep early and get up late. She slept like a baby, all curled up with her hands pillowing her face. She could sleep almost anywhere, at anytime, but particularly when they're watching TV and especially if they're watching something that Charlotte likes. She'd cuddle up with anyone or anything, for that matter. Sometimes Charlotte woke up from one of these little sleepovers (that's what Violet called it when she stayed the night) with Violet's arms wrapped around her tight and refusing to let go. She, unlike the therapist, had a strict early morning routine that she liked to follow. So replaced her body with a pillow and that seemed to do the trick.
Violet always slept well, so it surprised her when the therapist showed up on her doorstep one night. Violet didn't like her house and tried to avoid it as much as possible. The therapist found her house too white and too clean. Sterile, Violet called it. But tonight the therapist was at her house looking at her with the same puppy dog eyes that Cooper used to give her. She wondered if they might be related because, really, the resemblance was uncanny.
"I had a nightmare and Cooper's probably with Julia. Can I sleep over?" Violet asked as she entered the house anyways.
"Was it about the baby," She asked while following the therapist to her bedroom. Violet had told her that in their month apart she had nightmares about losing the baby again and again, but the therapist hadn't had a bad dream since then.
"No. Your pajamas are sexy by the way," Violet teased as she crawled under the covers and settled in.
She made sure that whenever she slept over Violet's house, she had something semi-sexy to sleep in, but at home she wore her old comfortable paisley pajamas.
"Well, I wasn't expectin' company. You want me to change into something else?"
"I didn't say I didn't like them. They're cute. You should wear them at my house."
"Okay." She studied Violet's face carefully. "You wanna tell me about your nightmare?"
"No."
Violet was being rather difficult and she had no clue why. Usually the therapist liked to talk about everything and she did mean everything. They once had a conversation where Violet proceed to tell her why vegetable peelers bothered her. She tried going for a different angle.
"You want me to take my clothes off?"
"No," Violet said again, her voice cracking as she did.
She hated, more than anything, when Violet cried. It broke her heart and she had no clue how to comfort her. And even if she knew how, she probably wouldn't be any good at it. What she was good at was distracting. Sex usually did the trick, but not tonight.
"Do you want to cuddle?"
"No. You should just stay on your side of the bed."
She raised her eyebrow at this. Now this was just truly strange. Violet was a touchy-feely person and always wanted to cuddle or hold her hand or something equally unappealing.
"Did I do something wrong?"
Violet sighed and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "No, no, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm just messed up right now."
"And you don't want to talk about it," she asked again just to make sure.
"No, I don't want to talk about it or think about it or anything. It happened in college. I should be over it by now or at least stop having these nightmares."
She had no idea what Violet was talking about, but she was vaguely aware that it must have been some kind of traumatic event in her life.
They never really talked about Charlotte's issues. Violet had been her therapist sometime last year and knew all about her problems, like her cheating husband, her drug addiction, her alcoholic mother and her tough controlling father. That was probably the best thing about this "friendship." There just wasn't a need for Charlotte to rehash these things. But she realized Violet, with exception of the recent baby incident, had never talked about her past issues and clearly she had some.
"I'm sorry," Violet continued. "I don' know what I'm doing here. I should just go. I'm sorry, I bothered you."
Charlotte sighed. "No, don't. Come on, let's go downstairs and watch some TV till you're ready to go to sleep."
Once they were settled on the couch downstairs, she put on a documentary. One of the many she had stored on her DVR. Half an hour in, the therapist was fast asleep. Apparently, Violet had no interest in the mating rituals of tropical birds. It was ironic that she really wanted to cuddle with Violet right now when usually she didn't want to. She settled for putting a blanket over the therapist and making her way upstairs back to her own bed.
In the morning she found the couch empty, but there was a note scribbled in the therapist's horrible handwriting on the coffee table.
Char,
One day we'll talk about it. Thanks for being such a good friend.
-Vi
She decided to keep the note and put it between the pages of her first copy of 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' because nobody had called her a good friend before.
0oo0oo0
Violet was fighting with Charlotte again, but it didn't have the same intensity as it used to. They didn't actually hate each other anymore, but Violet kind of liked when they argued. It was both a turn on and an intellectual activity. Currently, they were fighting about whether or not men and women could be friends, which was really just Charlotte being jealous of the time she spent with Cooper.
She was quickly learning that the blonde did not like to share. Violet had lots of friends and the blonde would just have to learn how to deal with it.
Addison walked into Violet's office, obviously fed up with their loud argument. "Do I need to separate you two?"
"No," Charlotte said sullenly and Violet echoed her.
Before the redhead had a chance to tell them to keep it down, the blonde walked out of the room and left the practice.
"Do I even want to know what that was about?"
"It's nothing, just Charlotte being Charlotte. She'll come back after lunch."
The redhead chuckled. "I don't know how you put up with her."
"I know she's a little difficult, a little prickly and bossy, but she's pretty great actually."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Charlotte did come back after lunch and they started another argument over a completely different topic, but Violet didn't mind.
0oo0oo0
Violet heard Charlotte sigh behind her and rolled her eyes at the blonde through her dresser mirror. They were running a little late for dinner with Cooper and Julia, but only a little. She couldn't help it. A bolt of inspiration had hit her and instead of getting ready, she finally finished the composition she had been working on for months.
She hummed her finished composition and started applying her make-up. Charlotte flipped the page of the magazine she was reading loudly. Being late was Charlotte's biggest pet peeve, even if it was just a few minutes late.
"Would you stop grumbling already? I'm almost ready."
"You should have been ready ten minutes ago; instead you were fooling around on your piano."
Violet giggled. "You make it sound so dirty."
The blonde threw the magazine at her.
"Ow. I needed to finish that song soon anyways. I'm thinking of playing it in this Jazz Festival next month." She watched the blonde's expression change from annoyed to impressed. "You play at festivals?"
"Yeah, just a few a year."
"Mind if I come to the next one?"
Violet turned around to smile at the blonde. "I'd really like that."
Violet went into her closet to find a pair of shoes that went with the lilac summer dress she was wearing. She was secretly thrilled that the blonde wanted to come. Her piano playing and these festivals were things she usually liked to keep to herself. Occasionally, Cooper might come to a festival, but other than that no one really knew that she played.
"You know," Charlotte began. "I've only heard you play a couple of times, but you're good, like really good."
"Thanks. I've been playing since I was a kid and I started composing when I was in high school. I even got into Julliard."
"Why didn't you go?"
She walked out of her closet with a pair of sandals in her hand. "My parents thought studying piano was a waste of time. They told me that I should do something useful with my life, so I decided to study psychology just like them."
"Your parents are both shrinks?" Charlotte said with disgust clear on her face.
She chuckled. "Yep."
"No, wonder you're so weird."
"I'm going to ignore that. I'm done, so let's get going."
Charlotte stood and came to stand behind her. The blonde pushed aside the spaghetti strap of her dress and pressed a kiss against her shoulder, the one with the tattoo on it.
"You ever regret not going to Julliard?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't really matter. I love being a therapist."
"That's not what I asked, Turner."
"Sometimes."
Charlotte was silent behind her for a few moments. "Would you play something for me when we get home tonight?"
"Of course. And who knows, maybe I'll do something else with my talented fingers."
Charlotte groaned. "We don't have to go."
They did end up going, eventually. Cooper and Julia were already at the table with a bottle of wine for everybody. Cooper stood up and greeted them.
"One day you will show up on time," he whispered in her ear while giving her a hug.
The blonde snorted. "Good luck trying to get that to happen."
"Hey! I can be on time."
"Uh, huh. Sure you can. And you," he said in Charlotte's direction. "Better be on your best behavior."
"I don't think she has a best behavior," Violet quipped.
Before Charlotte could open her mouth and start a fight, Cooper pushed them both over to the table.
Dinner was turning out to be more difficult than she expected. Cooper didn't say too much, instead he let Julia do most of the talking. Violet understood that Cooper was staying back and letting them bond with Julia, but seriously he could at least join in on the conversation and help her out. Julia was being nice, too nice and she wasn't sure if the auburn-haired woman was being entirely sincere. Charlotte was silent beside her choosing to focus on her food instead.
When the blonde finally decided to speak, it was to Cooper.
"Do you want my mushrooms," Charlotte asked while scrunching up her nose in distaste.
"Oh, sure," Cooper answered back happily. The blonde scrapped the mushrooms onto his plate.
This was where dinner took a turn for the worse. Julia frowned at the entire exchange. The auburn-haired woman knew that Charlotte was his ex, but she didn't approve of this familiarity between the two. Julia had tried to be nice to Charlotte because she sounded like a pretty messed up person, but if the blonde was going to throw her past relationship with her boyfriend in her face repeatedly, then Charlotte had another thing coming.
"Cooper just loves his mushrooms," Julia said in an over sweet voice.
Violet cringed as she watched the two share a kiss that wasn't exactly dinner table friendly. She could see Charlotte scowling beside her and reached over to hold the blonde's hand under the table, hoping it would calm her.
0oo0oo0
"So, uh, do you guys want any dessert? I hear the chocolate cake is to die for," Cooper said, trying to dispel the tension at the table.
He was aware of how awkward things were becoming, especially for Charlotte. He knew the blonde was just trying to be nice. They were, after all, trying to be friends. He thought Julia was good when it came to his ex. She had been so sympathetic lately. At least things seemed to be going well with Violet.
He watched Charlotte snark at his girlfriend and sighed. This tentative friendship with Charlotte was definitely going to ruin his sex life. He reached out to pour himself some more wine only knock his fork off the table. He sighed and bent down to pick it up. When he reached out and felt nothing but the ground, he pulled the tablecloth up to see where it had gone.
His eyes widened in surprise at the sight in front of him. They were holding hands. Violet and Charlotte were holding hands. Not in the friendly way, but in the really intimate coupley way, where one would brush their thumb tenderly against the other's hand. No. No, it wasn't possible. There was nothing going on between his best friend and his ex-girlfriend besides friendship. Violet would never violate the bro code like that.
Nope, nothing weird was going on. He was probably just misreading this. He knew from experience that women could be all touchy-feely with their friends. That's probably what this was, but just in case he would keep a close eye on them.
0oo0oo0
"What are you doing tonight?" Charlotte asked her offhandedly.
"The usual," Violet responded. "Hanging out with Cooper, watching cupcake wars."
Charlotte scowled at her, obviously displeased with this answer. "Oh."
"Did you want to do something?" She asked.
"No," replied the blonde stubbornly.
"Cause you can come and hang out with us if you want. I know you and Cooper are on better terms these days."
The blonde paused as if to think and then said, "What time?"
"7ish."
"Fine."
"Don't be mad."
"I'm not. I just want a little alone time with you. That's all."
Violet raised her eyebrow at this. Clearly the blonde had a different idea of what quality time was. "Oh, is that all?"
"Oh, hush. You know you want to do it too."
0oo0oo0
Cooper stared at his best friend incredulously. "So you want all three of us to hang out? That's like an unholy trinity. It's not meant to be."
Violet rolled her eyes at him. "I already told her she could come. Besides she's been good to me Coop." She was referring to just a few weeks ago when his best friend was in a deep funk.
He sighed. "You're right. What do you guys even do together anyways?"
A funny expression showed on her face followed by a slight blush. Okay, something weird was definitely going on. But his best friend and his ex, together? No, not possible. They just got over hating each other. But something was definitely up. The both of them had been acting weird all week. And Charlotte had been kind of nice lately, which meant that something was definitely wrong. It was now his mission to find out what was going on.
Charlotte arrived as promised and all three of them settled on the couch with Violet in the middle. In the middle of the show, Violet elbowed him and pointed in Charlotte's direction where the blonde had fallen asleep on the couch.
He grinned. "She used to do that all the time when we were dating. She doesn't get much sleep."
"Hmmm, she looks so ...sweet."
Cooper sniggered. Charlotte was anything, but sweet.
Violet slapped him. "Stop that."
Now he really couldn't stop laughing.
"You do know I can hear you two numbskulls," the blonde said in a voice thick with sleep.
"Sorry" Violet apologized. "Go back to sleep." His best friend gently brushed blonde hair out of Charlotte's face and squeezed her shoulder.
Another intimate gesture, he thought.
At the end of the episode a pager went off. He looked down at this and thankfully it was inactive. Charlotte's, however, was very active. The blonde groaned a pushed herself up into a sitting position.
"Hospital emergency," the blonde sighed. "I gotta go."
"Okay, I'll walk you out," Violet said quickly.
Once they were outside he got up and ran to the window. He could see them standing too close together from his spot.
"They're just talking. Nothing weird about that."
Of course, he spoke to soon. A second later Charlotte grabbed Violet by the hips and pulled her in for a kiss. His jaw dropped. He couldn't believe this was actually happening and wow, they were really going at it. He knew that Violet was his best friend and almost like a sister to him, but this was seriously the hottest thing he'd ever seen.
He wasn't worried about getting caught until Violet suddenly turned and looked in his direction like she knew he was watching. His best friend's eyes widened for a second before turning back to the blonde. Thankfully Charlotte didn't look his way at all. Clearly Vi hadn't told her. He backed away from the window and waited for Violet to come back in.