Don't Make Love So Hard
Feb. 2nd, 2004 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zarahemlaOne Tree Hill fic. PG. Jake-centric. For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
winter_baby. If you came here looking for The Good Life lyrics, too freakin' bad.
Title: Don't Make Love So Hard
Author: Zara Hemla (shutupmulder@yahoo.com)
Fandom: One Tree Hill
Rating: PG
Summary: Two women -- one man -- and no trouble. No trouble at all.
So if you can sit tight
'till the sun hits the blinds
we can settle everything.
--The Good Life
one.
Darkness when he wakes, darkness and a shrill scream that conveys, without words, exactly the annoyance of the screamer. Jake, who used to be able to sleep through an air raid siren, jerks up onto his elbows, heart beating a mile a minute. Adrenaline surges through his system. He shoves the covers off, shivering in his t-shirt and boxers, and peers at the bedside clock. 3:27 am. Wonderful.
"Mmcoming," he mumbles, staggering out of his bedroom and down the hall with his hands out in front of him (half-asleep, he has walked into doors before). In the kitchen, he squints into the light of the fridge and finds a bottle. Jenny, left back in her own bedroom, is now shrieking at the top of her tiny little lungs.
"Oh, such a cute little cry!" his mother had cooed when she heard Jenny cry. "Little mini-girl, who's the sweetest girl?" Jake had nodded and smiled, knowing what his mother had known but forgotten: at three in the morning, a mini-girl sounds like a freakin' buzz saw.
Fifteen seconds in the microwave. Jake sticks his finger in the milk to test it: hot on the outside, cold on the inside. Perfect. He shakes it, and voila -- instant warm bottle. Now mostly awake but blinded by fridge-light, he sticks another hand out to feel his way into Jenny's room.
She's a small (loud) bundle, light as a loaf of bread, and she makes gurgling noises as she sucks on the bottle. Jake sits in his "rocking chair" -- a modified computer chair that leans back -- and kind of bounces her. Halfway through he changes her diaper to keep her awake and then he burps her when she's done.
It's got its own charm, the way she snuggles into his arm contentedly. Of course he'd rather be asleep, but still. He wouldn't trade this -- not like some people did -- but he won't think about that. Only this, only the darkness and the soft skin against his. This bond, tighter than any rope.
two.
His mom watches Jenny while he goes to school. He'd first thought to quit school and get a job, but his mom had freaked out and put her foot down. And really, he was happy to finish school, because he didn't want one dumb-ass mistake to ruin his life. Not that Jenny was a mistake -- and not that he was gonna be a banker or a lawyer or something.
On the other hand, it wasn't like he was gonna be in the NBA or anything. He had to study so he could go to college or something. The "something" is vague, buried under late-night feedings and studying for history quizzes.
Everyone else knows what they're going to be when they grow up. Haley's going to be a rich nerd, Lukas is going to play b-ball, Brooke will model for the Vicky's Secret catalog, Peyton will be a famous cartoonist, and Nathan ... well, come to think of it, Nathan might surprise everyone, now that he's quit basketball. Go onto the debate team or something. Haley's been good for him.
Makes Jake sad a little that he and Nathan aren't in the same circles any more. Nathan wasn't a bad kid, just mixed up 'cause of his parents. Jake doesn't really know how it feels to be torn between your parents. He prays that Jenny won't know -- it seems to be tearing Nathan in half. Without Haley, Nathan might have gone into the sea already, swum his way to the horizon.
three.
Peyton was Nathan's girl so long that when she stopped, it was hard to notice. Jake just expects her to come down the hall arm in arm with Nathan. And oddly enough it doesn't work that way with Nathan, who is over the moon for Haley. But Peyton -- it was always PeytonAndNathan, NathanAndPeyton. Jake had to remember it all the time so he didn't say something stupid.
All the guys in school went for Brooke. Who, give you that, was as hot and humid as a July day. But Jake had always nursed a crush on Peyton, from the day in fifth grade when she took off running for third base during phys. ed and her hair (in a braid back then) had flown behind her. That's the first time Jake remembers seeing her.
And then they grew up, alongside but never meeting, and she became Nathan's girl in high school. Jake probably never even had a chance. And he moved on, got himself a girl, then another, and another, and then knocked one up and had to stay there for awhile. And it wasn't like some kind of weird stalker crush -- but once in awhile, he would turn and there she'd be, hair caught gold behind her ear, and his whole gut would cramp and he would lose all thought, all motion.
She wears her cheerleader outfit sometimes, but mostly black shirts with funky band names on them. Her hair springs around her face, which is usually serious or creased in thought. She listens to music that Jake has no time for; she spends hours cramped in one position, drawing. And yet, if they speak to one another, on a team bus or in the courtyard, they never run out of things to talk about. They are comfortable together, and Jake values comfort. He hasn't been comfortable in a long time, not outside of a rocking chair with his daughter anyway.
In math or history he wonders what Jenny is doing. Has she smiled for his mom? Did she make a new noise or roll over on her tummy? It's an anxious life, wanting to be normal like his friends and yet, minute to minute, straining an inner ear to hear her tiny cry.
four.
He settles the car-seat on a bench too narrow for it, watching anxiously for it to go over backwards. When it doesn't, he bends over to unlace his shoes. The locker room is pretty much empty. Jenny was hungry after practice and he had to feed her right then -- as Whitey put it, "Stick a bottle in her mouth before she yells the roof down."
She's sleeping now -- she put herself to sleep on the bottle, and Jake's mom had told him a ton of times to not let her do that. And mostly he tries to but now he's glad she's asleep. He is humiliated, broken under the quizzical, aversive stares of his teammates.
Sure, he keeps a cool exterior. What else is a guy gonna do? But even Lukas had looked him over like, dude, you are *never* going to be a good father. You're only seventeen. Not to mention that somehow, some way, you made her cry.
They don't know, as Jake does, that babies cry. They cry for no reason at all, and there's not one damn thing you can do about it. You just try to go as fast as you can with the bottle, and if there's no warm water, you try and give it to her cold, and she doesn't like it, so you finally go to the taps in the guys' bathroom and get the hottest water you can, which is not that hot. And then she decides to let you get away with it, but meanwhile she's yelling it up on one side of the gym and all the guys are huddled at the other like she's some kind of plague.
Only Peyton got near her. Peyton tried to cheer her up, but Jenny didn't stop crying because she was hungry. Jake knows she would have stopped because she likes those keys of Peyton's. But before he could explain it, she gave him a look too and hurried back to the cheerleaders. It was hard to figure out what the look meant, but Jake thinks it was basically helplessness. And why not? She lives by herself most of the time. She doesn't take care of babies.
He shucks out of his shorts and shirt and puts on his jeans. He is digging in his locker for the only shirt -- the elusive black one -- that is clean when he hears Peyton say from the locker room entrance, "Hey."
"Hey," he says, and finally finds the shirt. When he turns back around, dangling it from one finger, she is studying Jenny in her carseat. But he's not fooled -- he could feel the heat of her gaze on his back. He pulls on the shirt. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to check on Jenny. She was so mad out there -- I just wanted to see if you two were okay." The helpless look is back.
"We're fine. She was hungry. She gets, like, desperate -- you know, get that food to me now! Now! Now! Or I shall perish!" It's true, but it's funny, and she smiles that utterly edible Peyton smile.
"All right. Can I walk you out? Carry something?" She motions to his gym bag.
"It makes my arms very strong and manly," he says mock-haughtily, "to have to carry all this weight." Flexing a bicep, he smiles back at her. "I'll be the muscliest man on the team."
"You'll have to move to the football team."
"And throwing those big trees ... like in Scotland...."
"Cabers."
"Those."
He hoists the bag and the carrier and gets to the door before he says, "Dammit."
"What?"
"Can you get the lights? Last one out turns 'em off. I need more hands."
"Sure," she says. Her smile gets kind of wicked, and he wonders what's up, but she leans forward and slides a hand over his shoulder. He feels her reach behind him, the lights flicker off, and there is only this, only the darkness and the soft skin against his. Dimly he reminds himself not to drop the carrier as she chuckles and her hand goes around his neck. She pushes his head down slowly.
He's done this before, obviously -- but something in this slow, breathless moment is minted new, stripped down to its elements. They kiss with his hands full, with his back against the wall, electric in his skin as she licks her way down to his collarbone.
When they separate, his heart is racing a mile a minute and she is breathing very hard (he flatters himself) but smiling in the dim light from the hallway outside.
"Well," she says.
"You said it," replies Jake, feeling like dancing in dandelions or something completely undignified. Amazing how something so familiar can become instantly un - . He wants to try again, try and try until he knows her by heart. But she's smiling and turning away and he feels a weight lift from his left hand -- the baby carrier. That's Peyton for you. Just when you're sure she isn't thinking, she does something to contradict.
Jake loves contradictory women. That's what got him in trouble before. But with Peyton, if she were trouble, he'd stay around to see what she stirred up. Hopefully it would be him, like those storm-crossed lovers or whatever Romeo and Juliet had been. Without the poison or the daggers, of course. They could make, instead, a happy ending.
--end--
consider it an AU if you want, but I bet this will happen (the kiss anyway, maybe not the locker room thing).
winter_baby. If you came here looking for The Good Life lyrics, too freakin' bad.Title: Don't Make Love So Hard
Author: Zara Hemla (shutupmulder@yahoo.com)
Fandom: One Tree Hill
Rating: PG
Summary: Two women -- one man -- and no trouble. No trouble at all.
So if you can sit tight
'till the sun hits the blinds
we can settle everything.
--The Good Life
one.
Darkness when he wakes, darkness and a shrill scream that conveys, without words, exactly the annoyance of the screamer. Jake, who used to be able to sleep through an air raid siren, jerks up onto his elbows, heart beating a mile a minute. Adrenaline surges through his system. He shoves the covers off, shivering in his t-shirt and boxers, and peers at the bedside clock. 3:27 am. Wonderful.
"Mmcoming," he mumbles, staggering out of his bedroom and down the hall with his hands out in front of him (half-asleep, he has walked into doors before). In the kitchen, he squints into the light of the fridge and finds a bottle. Jenny, left back in her own bedroom, is now shrieking at the top of her tiny little lungs.
"Oh, such a cute little cry!" his mother had cooed when she heard Jenny cry. "Little mini-girl, who's the sweetest girl?" Jake had nodded and smiled, knowing what his mother had known but forgotten: at three in the morning, a mini-girl sounds like a freakin' buzz saw.
Fifteen seconds in the microwave. Jake sticks his finger in the milk to test it: hot on the outside, cold on the inside. Perfect. He shakes it, and voila -- instant warm bottle. Now mostly awake but blinded by fridge-light, he sticks another hand out to feel his way into Jenny's room.
She's a small (loud) bundle, light as a loaf of bread, and she makes gurgling noises as she sucks on the bottle. Jake sits in his "rocking chair" -- a modified computer chair that leans back -- and kind of bounces her. Halfway through he changes her diaper to keep her awake and then he burps her when she's done.
It's got its own charm, the way she snuggles into his arm contentedly. Of course he'd rather be asleep, but still. He wouldn't trade this -- not like some people did -- but he won't think about that. Only this, only the darkness and the soft skin against his. This bond, tighter than any rope.
two.
His mom watches Jenny while he goes to school. He'd first thought to quit school and get a job, but his mom had freaked out and put her foot down. And really, he was happy to finish school, because he didn't want one dumb-ass mistake to ruin his life. Not that Jenny was a mistake -- and not that he was gonna be a banker or a lawyer or something.
On the other hand, it wasn't like he was gonna be in the NBA or anything. He had to study so he could go to college or something. The "something" is vague, buried under late-night feedings and studying for history quizzes.
Everyone else knows what they're going to be when they grow up. Haley's going to be a rich nerd, Lukas is going to play b-ball, Brooke will model for the Vicky's Secret catalog, Peyton will be a famous cartoonist, and Nathan ... well, come to think of it, Nathan might surprise everyone, now that he's quit basketball. Go onto the debate team or something. Haley's been good for him.
Makes Jake sad a little that he and Nathan aren't in the same circles any more. Nathan wasn't a bad kid, just mixed up 'cause of his parents. Jake doesn't really know how it feels to be torn between your parents. He prays that Jenny won't know -- it seems to be tearing Nathan in half. Without Haley, Nathan might have gone into the sea already, swum his way to the horizon.
three.
Peyton was Nathan's girl so long that when she stopped, it was hard to notice. Jake just expects her to come down the hall arm in arm with Nathan. And oddly enough it doesn't work that way with Nathan, who is over the moon for Haley. But Peyton -- it was always PeytonAndNathan, NathanAndPeyton. Jake had to remember it all the time so he didn't say something stupid.
All the guys in school went for Brooke. Who, give you that, was as hot and humid as a July day. But Jake had always nursed a crush on Peyton, from the day in fifth grade when she took off running for third base during phys. ed and her hair (in a braid back then) had flown behind her. That's the first time Jake remembers seeing her.
And then they grew up, alongside but never meeting, and she became Nathan's girl in high school. Jake probably never even had a chance. And he moved on, got himself a girl, then another, and another, and then knocked one up and had to stay there for awhile. And it wasn't like some kind of weird stalker crush -- but once in awhile, he would turn and there she'd be, hair caught gold behind her ear, and his whole gut would cramp and he would lose all thought, all motion.
She wears her cheerleader outfit sometimes, but mostly black shirts with funky band names on them. Her hair springs around her face, which is usually serious or creased in thought. She listens to music that Jake has no time for; she spends hours cramped in one position, drawing. And yet, if they speak to one another, on a team bus or in the courtyard, they never run out of things to talk about. They are comfortable together, and Jake values comfort. He hasn't been comfortable in a long time, not outside of a rocking chair with his daughter anyway.
In math or history he wonders what Jenny is doing. Has she smiled for his mom? Did she make a new noise or roll over on her tummy? It's an anxious life, wanting to be normal like his friends and yet, minute to minute, straining an inner ear to hear her tiny cry.
four.
He settles the car-seat on a bench too narrow for it, watching anxiously for it to go over backwards. When it doesn't, he bends over to unlace his shoes. The locker room is pretty much empty. Jenny was hungry after practice and he had to feed her right then -- as Whitey put it, "Stick a bottle in her mouth before she yells the roof down."
She's sleeping now -- she put herself to sleep on the bottle, and Jake's mom had told him a ton of times to not let her do that. And mostly he tries to but now he's glad she's asleep. He is humiliated, broken under the quizzical, aversive stares of his teammates.
Sure, he keeps a cool exterior. What else is a guy gonna do? But even Lukas had looked him over like, dude, you are *never* going to be a good father. You're only seventeen. Not to mention that somehow, some way, you made her cry.
They don't know, as Jake does, that babies cry. They cry for no reason at all, and there's not one damn thing you can do about it. You just try to go as fast as you can with the bottle, and if there's no warm water, you try and give it to her cold, and she doesn't like it, so you finally go to the taps in the guys' bathroom and get the hottest water you can, which is not that hot. And then she decides to let you get away with it, but meanwhile she's yelling it up on one side of the gym and all the guys are huddled at the other like she's some kind of plague.
Only Peyton got near her. Peyton tried to cheer her up, but Jenny didn't stop crying because she was hungry. Jake knows she would have stopped because she likes those keys of Peyton's. But before he could explain it, she gave him a look too and hurried back to the cheerleaders. It was hard to figure out what the look meant, but Jake thinks it was basically helplessness. And why not? She lives by herself most of the time. She doesn't take care of babies.
He shucks out of his shorts and shirt and puts on his jeans. He is digging in his locker for the only shirt -- the elusive black one -- that is clean when he hears Peyton say from the locker room entrance, "Hey."
"Hey," he says, and finally finds the shirt. When he turns back around, dangling it from one finger, she is studying Jenny in her carseat. But he's not fooled -- he could feel the heat of her gaze on his back. He pulls on the shirt. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to check on Jenny. She was so mad out there -- I just wanted to see if you two were okay." The helpless look is back.
"We're fine. She was hungry. She gets, like, desperate -- you know, get that food to me now! Now! Now! Or I shall perish!" It's true, but it's funny, and she smiles that utterly edible Peyton smile.
"All right. Can I walk you out? Carry something?" She motions to his gym bag.
"It makes my arms very strong and manly," he says mock-haughtily, "to have to carry all this weight." Flexing a bicep, he smiles back at her. "I'll be the muscliest man on the team."
"You'll have to move to the football team."
"And throwing those big trees ... like in Scotland...."
"Cabers."
"Those."
He hoists the bag and the carrier and gets to the door before he says, "Dammit."
"What?"
"Can you get the lights? Last one out turns 'em off. I need more hands."
"Sure," she says. Her smile gets kind of wicked, and he wonders what's up, but she leans forward and slides a hand over his shoulder. He feels her reach behind him, the lights flicker off, and there is only this, only the darkness and the soft skin against his. Dimly he reminds himself not to drop the carrier as she chuckles and her hand goes around his neck. She pushes his head down slowly.
He's done this before, obviously -- but something in this slow, breathless moment is minted new, stripped down to its elements. They kiss with his hands full, with his back against the wall, electric in his skin as she licks her way down to his collarbone.
When they separate, his heart is racing a mile a minute and she is breathing very hard (he flatters himself) but smiling in the dim light from the hallway outside.
"Well," she says.
"You said it," replies Jake, feeling like dancing in dandelions or something completely undignified. Amazing how something so familiar can become instantly un - . He wants to try again, try and try until he knows her by heart. But she's smiling and turning away and he feels a weight lift from his left hand -- the baby carrier. That's Peyton for you. Just when you're sure she isn't thinking, she does something to contradict.
Jake loves contradictory women. That's what got him in trouble before. But with Peyton, if she were trouble, he'd stay around to see what she stirred up. Hopefully it would be him, like those storm-crossed lovers or whatever Romeo and Juliet had been. Without the poison or the daggers, of course. They could make, instead, a happy ending.
--end--
consider it an AU if you want, but I bet this will happen (the kiss anyway, maybe not the locker room thing).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-02 03:46 pm (UTC)I love the baby details. I kinda saw Mommy!Zara coming through. *g*
Peyton/Jake! And her T-shirts! And that sweet little bit of Nathan/Haley! I love you so much for this.
*jumps around in circles*
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 09:58 am (UTC)Actually I gave Jake a lot more parental feeling than I ever had. I absolutely HATED those 3am feedings. At the birthing classes they were all, "You'll feel such a bond..." and later I was like, YOU LIARS.
The walking into doors part was all me though. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-20 03:29 am (UTC)