fic: this is my coat of arms
Title: this is my coat of arms
Author: poeelektra
Fandom/ Pairing: Rookie Blue, Swarek/McNally
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1174
Summary: She opens the door to find Sam, standing there looking like he’d rather be anywhere but on her front porch at nine o’clock on a Thursday night.
Author's Note: For lowriseflare, who requested Andy-in-peril, Luke indisposed.
She opens the door to find Sam standing there, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but on her front porch at nine o’clock on a Thursday night. It’s the far end of twilight, everything on the street gone grey with it, the only spot of color the shiny yellow mailbox she bought and installed on a whim last weekend. Luke had rolled his eyes.
“Swarek. What are you, uh-what are you doing here?”
She hates how dumb she sounds when she’s . . . okay, playing dumb. Too bad there wasn’t a class on lying at the academy. The stupidity makes her aware of her bare feet, the messy ponytail on her head, and the cut-off sweats that have something scrawled across the butt and weren’t meant for company. But whatever, Sam isn’t company.
“I heard someone wanted you dead, McNally.”
He says it with a shrug and she takes a second to be annoyed that he can appear to be slouching while standing upright. She doesn’t take time to notice his hair (bedhead, like he was somewhere doing something else before he showed up on her stoop to slouch).
“I can’t believe he- Did he actually call you? I told him it was--.”
Sam makes a face, the one that says he can’t be bothered to deal with the world if it’s going to be this moronic. He wears that face a lot.
“Calm down, it wasn’t your boyfriend.”
And of course; of course Luke wouldn’t call Swarek of all people to come watch her back. Not that he’d have had to call anyone if he hadn’t taken off for a prison interview at the first text message from work, nevermind the psychopath drug-runner who’s got a hard-on for her right now. She doesn’t want to ask but it doesn’t look like Swarek’s going to offer, and Jesus this is weird, and it’s gotta be weird for him, too, and he could at least have the decency to show it.
She breaks first; probably she always will.
“How’d you know? And it’s not a big deal, I’m fine.”
She’d said the same thing to Luke, who’d looked both concerned and grateful before ultimately leaving her in the kitchen with a spray bottle of countertop cleanser in her hand.
Sam glances down the street and squints, pausing before he answers her, which is a thing that puts her on edge lately-all that empty space that he owns in their conversations. (Lately, a lot of things about Swarek have been putting her on edge.)
“Luke texted Traci. Traci was worried but couldn’t leave Leo. Called Dov, who was picking up an on-call shift with vice; Dov texted me. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
A teenage girl on a skateboard rolls by, deftly avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. This is the kind of neighborhood she lives in now: the kind where kids can be out after dark and people do things like have buttercream yellow mailboxes.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the concern, but it’s really not a huge thing. I don’t know why one nut job seems to be making everyone forget that I went to cop school, just like the rest of you.”
She tries to sound blasé and competent, and thinks she at least manages something south of completely freaked.
Sam rubs the back of his neck and looks pained. (With dimples. He’s really the only person she knows who can do that.) There’s a strap of brown leather cuffing his right wrist that Andy recognizes as the one she removed when she collared him that day. She’d handed it back later, after they were friends. Or, maybe not friends-after he stopped being openly hostile. She’s still not sure if they’re friends.
“Yeah yeah, I get it, you’re a big girl, big girls don’t cry.” Then his voice gets intense the way she hasn’t heard in awhile. “But this is for real, McNally. You don’t mess around with guys like this. This time, you don’t get to play your Girl Power card.”
It’s his Training Officer voice, the one that nudges a tumbler somewhere down deep and simultaneously makes her want to snap to attention and scratch an itch. That voice has been confusing the shit out of her since the beginning, and if she didn’t trust it so absolutely (so ridiculously), Andy would slam the door in his face just to shut out the bizarre unrest it unfurls in her chest.
She picks at a section of peeling paint on the doorframe to stall for time, because she knows what he’s saying is true. And she’s scared--more scared than she’s okay with being, so scared they’d take her Girl Power card away if she admitted it.
“It’s . . ..”
Andy trails off, lost, then remembers she’s a full-fledged grown-up with a badge. She makes herself look at him, straightening her back when she also remembers: ponytail, word-butt sweats, bare feet. She still doesn’t know what to say. Sam holds her gaze as a breeze rushes in. The days are getting shorter, the nights colder.
“Sam.”
She hates how she sounds, hates worse how she feels (like she’ll never know as much as him no matter how much she knows; like she can’t protect herself, much less the greater population of Toronto; like maybe she’s grateful for his reluctant presence here).
“Just tell me you’ve got coffee and ESPN in there.”
She feels something release at his wry request. A smile nudges one corner of her mouth, and she tries her hand at lying again.
“We’ve only got basic cable and I’m watching Degrassi re-runs. If that surpasses your dedication to protect and serve….”
Sam steps forward, interrupts her. He’s softer now, a Grade 2 on the Sam Swarek Seriousness Scale.
“Invite me in, McNally.”
Memories flit at the edge of her brain: a flashlight skewing shadows on the wall; thighs hitched high on jeans-clad hips; the electricity in his apartment coming on like a klaxon, blaring an ironic warning at them. (At her.)
Inviting him in is dangerous in its own way. But this fear is a dancing tease, a welcome distraction from the fear that’s been plaguing her, black and suffocating, all week long.
“I mean, I guess you could-if you don’t have anything better to do.”
Sam steps closer, unwilling to cede this ground, encroaching on hers. His body heat diffuses in the space between them so that she’s warmer than she was three seconds ago, but goosebumps pop across the bare skin of her legs.
“Invite me in.”
Another click of the tumblers, and on her next inhale, the air has to fight for space in her chest with the familiar and terrifying blend of trepidation, anticipation, and acceptance that she’s come to associate with Sam.
She steps back, careful to keep her butt angled toward the door. Then, like it’s all about politeness and nothing to do with stepping off a ledge:
“Hey Swarek. Would you like to come in?”
Author: poeelektra
Fandom/ Pairing: Rookie Blue, Swarek/McNally
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1174
Summary: She opens the door to find Sam, standing there looking like he’d rather be anywhere but on her front porch at nine o’clock on a Thursday night.
Author's Note: For lowriseflare, who requested Andy-in-peril, Luke indisposed.
She opens the door to find Sam standing there, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but on her front porch at nine o’clock on a Thursday night. It’s the far end of twilight, everything on the street gone grey with it, the only spot of color the shiny yellow mailbox she bought and installed on a whim last weekend. Luke had rolled his eyes.
“Swarek. What are you, uh-what are you doing here?”
She hates how dumb she sounds when she’s . . . okay, playing dumb. Too bad there wasn’t a class on lying at the academy. The stupidity makes her aware of her bare feet, the messy ponytail on her head, and the cut-off sweats that have something scrawled across the butt and weren’t meant for company. But whatever, Sam isn’t company.
“I heard someone wanted you dead, McNally.”
He says it with a shrug and she takes a second to be annoyed that he can appear to be slouching while standing upright. She doesn’t take time to notice his hair (bedhead, like he was somewhere doing something else before he showed up on her stoop to slouch).
“I can’t believe he- Did he actually call you? I told him it was--.”
Sam makes a face, the one that says he can’t be bothered to deal with the world if it’s going to be this moronic. He wears that face a lot.
“Calm down, it wasn’t your boyfriend.”
And of course; of course Luke wouldn’t call Swarek of all people to come watch her back. Not that he’d have had to call anyone if he hadn’t taken off for a prison interview at the first text message from work, nevermind the psychopath drug-runner who’s got a hard-on for her right now. She doesn’t want to ask but it doesn’t look like Swarek’s going to offer, and Jesus this is weird, and it’s gotta be weird for him, too, and he could at least have the decency to show it.
She breaks first; probably she always will.
“How’d you know? And it’s not a big deal, I’m fine.”
She’d said the same thing to Luke, who’d looked both concerned and grateful before ultimately leaving her in the kitchen with a spray bottle of countertop cleanser in her hand.
Sam glances down the street and squints, pausing before he answers her, which is a thing that puts her on edge lately-all that empty space that he owns in their conversations. (Lately, a lot of things about Swarek have been putting her on edge.)
“Luke texted Traci. Traci was worried but couldn’t leave Leo. Called Dov, who was picking up an on-call shift with vice; Dov texted me. Don’t shoot the messenger.”
A teenage girl on a skateboard rolls by, deftly avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. This is the kind of neighborhood she lives in now: the kind where kids can be out after dark and people do things like have buttercream yellow mailboxes.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the concern, but it’s really not a huge thing. I don’t know why one nut job seems to be making everyone forget that I went to cop school, just like the rest of you.”
She tries to sound blasé and competent, and thinks she at least manages something south of completely freaked.
Sam rubs the back of his neck and looks pained. (With dimples. He’s really the only person she knows who can do that.) There’s a strap of brown leather cuffing his right wrist that Andy recognizes as the one she removed when she collared him that day. She’d handed it back later, after they were friends. Or, maybe not friends-after he stopped being openly hostile. She’s still not sure if they’re friends.
“Yeah yeah, I get it, you’re a big girl, big girls don’t cry.” Then his voice gets intense the way she hasn’t heard in awhile. “But this is for real, McNally. You don’t mess around with guys like this. This time, you don’t get to play your Girl Power card.”
It’s his Training Officer voice, the one that nudges a tumbler somewhere down deep and simultaneously makes her want to snap to attention and scratch an itch. That voice has been confusing the shit out of her since the beginning, and if she didn’t trust it so absolutely (so ridiculously), Andy would slam the door in his face just to shut out the bizarre unrest it unfurls in her chest.
She picks at a section of peeling paint on the doorframe to stall for time, because she knows what he’s saying is true. And she’s scared--more scared than she’s okay with being, so scared they’d take her Girl Power card away if she admitted it.
“It’s . . ..”
Andy trails off, lost, then remembers she’s a full-fledged grown-up with a badge. She makes herself look at him, straightening her back when she also remembers: ponytail, word-butt sweats, bare feet. She still doesn’t know what to say. Sam holds her gaze as a breeze rushes in. The days are getting shorter, the nights colder.
“Sam.”
She hates how she sounds, hates worse how she feels (like she’ll never know as much as him no matter how much she knows; like she can’t protect herself, much less the greater population of Toronto; like maybe she’s grateful for his reluctant presence here).
“Just tell me you’ve got coffee and ESPN in there.”
She feels something release at his wry request. A smile nudges one corner of her mouth, and she tries her hand at lying again.
“We’ve only got basic cable and I’m watching Degrassi re-runs. If that surpasses your dedication to protect and serve….”
Sam steps forward, interrupts her. He’s softer now, a Grade 2 on the Sam Swarek Seriousness Scale.
“Invite me in, McNally.”
Memories flit at the edge of her brain: a flashlight skewing shadows on the wall; thighs hitched high on jeans-clad hips; the electricity in his apartment coming on like a klaxon, blaring an ironic warning at them. (At her.)
Inviting him in is dangerous in its own way. But this fear is a dancing tease, a welcome distraction from the fear that’s been plaguing her, black and suffocating, all week long.
“I mean, I guess you could-if you don’t have anything better to do.”
Sam steps closer, unwilling to cede this ground, encroaching on hers. His body heat diffuses in the space between them so that she’s warmer than she was three seconds ago, but goosebumps pop across the bare skin of her legs.
“Invite me in.”
Another click of the tumblers, and on her next inhale, the air has to fight for space in her chest with the familiar and terrifying blend of trepidation, anticipation, and acceptance that she’s come to associate with Sam.
She steps back, careful to keep her butt angled toward the door. Then, like it’s all about politeness and nothing to do with stepping off a ledge:
“Hey Swarek. Would you like to come in?”