saw u had girl dad! tim inspo, what abt a him taking her to a daddy/daughter dance??
Now here’s the thing, the whole time leading up to the dance, Tim is a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. The thought of spending a whole evening with a bunch of middle aged dads and their tiny princesses? Not his ideal Saturday evening. But Jade is so excited. She hasn’t shut up about it since she found out what a daddy daughter dance *was*.
“Me and my daddy are going to a special dinner this weekend!” She’s told just about everyone.
“We’re going to wear fancy clothes like in mommy and daddy’s wedding pictures!”
The night of, Lucy teases him as he fidgets with the suit jacket.
“I can’t believe I’m wearing a tux to hang out with 20 5 year olds…”
“Yes but think about how excited *your* 5 year old is about this! She’s been so mad at us for not inviting her to our ‘fancy party’ for years.”
Tim softens a bit at that. Jade loved his and Lucy’s wedding photos, and threw a fit when she found out she hadn’t been invited—even though she wouldn’t be born for another year or so.
“And she looks *super* cute.” It’s as if the word ‘cute’ spawns the girl.
“Daddy!! Look at me in my dress!” Jade twirls around in her qipao inspired toddler dress; it was in a light blue with navy blossoms covering it. A matching blue to his tie. He smiled; he couldn’t help it. She did look super cute. Like someone put Lucy in the dryer.
“Ooh! Okay let me get a picture!” Lucy pushes them in front of the fireplace, the wedding picture above them.
Tim picks Jade up, and presses a raspberry to her cheek and she squeals, “you look beautiful, Bug.”
“Thank you daddy!” Jade giggles.
Lucy snaps a few pictures before Tim insists it’s time to leave, but Jade insists herself on seeing one of the pictures.
She gasps. “LOOK!” She points at the last one taken. Then she points to the picture above the hearth.
Eric Winter having Asian food for dinner is a reminder that we are celebrating Lucy Chen all month long! Also, it is now canon that Lucy Chen’s birthday falls under AAPI Heritage Month!
Lucy’s sick and she’s run out of tea and asks Tim to pick some up for her. He knows where her favorite tea shop is but he’s never been inside before. They’ve only been dating a few weeks and he’s still hesitant to infiltrate her life. At first, he’s overwhelmed. Lucy gave him a list but there’s so many jars and containers and most of it’s not in English, they all look and sound alike and he doesn’t want to get the wrong thing.
The shop proprietor smiles at him and can tell he’s incredibly lost. He pulls out his phone to bring up the list, a picture of him and Lucy as his Home Screen. Immediately, the owner recognizes Lucy and excitedly points to the picture and nods her head in understanding, she doesn’t speak very much English, but she knows enough to interact with the few English customers that stop by. Quickly, she’s rushing around the shop to collect Lucy’s usual order. Tim’s still flustered, grateful for Lucy’s loyalty to the shop, learns she’s been going there literally her entire life. He pays more than is due and the owner slips in a few extra herbs and good luck trinkets, winking and nudging him with a knowing smirk.
When he gets back, he boils the water for her and brings her a slightly bitter pot of tea with a warm kiss on her feverish forehead. He’ll learn the right ratio of leaves to water soon enough. He loves her so much, he’d do literally anything for her.
Been seeing some gifs from this IG story but they didn’t capture Mel exclaiming very loudly and clearly to Eric, ‘WHERE ARE MY CHOPSTICKS?!’ I thought her comment was cute, chopsticks are a huge part of her culture, and this was one of the main parts of Meleric's exchange, so I thought it important that this doesn't get left out of the caption. Culture is cool and it's cool to see them both engaging with it and talking about it. 🥢
Soooo I made my own gif. With chopsticks. It's the first gif I ever made and I made two versions. Feel free to use :)
Not Mel wearing her hair in a bun with some chopstick/hair sticks in it to the Disney Upfront thing 🙂↕️ a small little cultural nod during this AAPI month!!
While I doubt we’ll ever see this, I’d love to see Lucy celebrating Chinese New Year. Or gifting red pockets. It would have been such a small but lovely thing to see a red envelope tucked away in Lucy’s many gift baskets, like the one she gave with homemade lactation cookies for the birth of Jackson.
Hi there, lovely! Thanks for your message! 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼
That is such a beautiful idea! I thought it was such a sweet gesture for Mel to gift red envelopes her to castmates on Chinese New Year. I definitely wish that art would imitate life and that we'd see this through Lucy ... an envelope in a gift basket among other items is such a small thing but even this would make a world of symbolic difference. Red envelopes aren't just limited to a certain holiday either! It would show us that the props department actually get who Lucy is. Lunar New Year is one of those holidays that, it doesn't matter if your family's been American for ten days or ten generations ... if you're East Asian, it's acknowledged and observed. So yeah, I def think that Lucy would!
An idea I had that was inspired by your comment is Lucy and Tim checking on a Chinese New Year celebration because Karen called in a noise complaint. Lucy would be so giddy about the celebration while telling Karen off as Tim slips into his annoyed TO persona (but secretly loving her giddiness). It wouldn't exactly be Lucy celebrating but it does keep the patrol aspect of the show. Or Alexi could just straight up write a scene where she celebrates it. Maybe take out a Bailan scene so that Lucy gets her flowers. I def think that Aaron and Celina would be all in with that ... Celina would love the superstitions surrounding the holiday and Aaron would have connections and could get everyone a table at a fancy Chinese restaurant up in some skyscraper in LA.
Lucy as a child would've gotten red envelopes from family members. I can imagine her being excited about Chinese New Year every year. I read yesterday that parents place red envelopes underneath their childrens' pillows as a symbol of protection and I do imagine that Lucy's parents or her grandparents would've done the same for her. Maybe even her Aunt Amy. I think that Lucy would carry on this tradition for her Chenford kids as well ... and when she shares about it with Tim, he'd relish in another opportunity to be a fierce protector for his kids 😂. He'd probably even start putting red envelopes underneath Lucy's pillow!
Lucy shows up at Tim’s house after elevator scene to help tend to his wounds
Read on ao3 Rated M w/c: 4,123
“Lucy?” Tim asked, pulling open his front door with his uninjured hand. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to rack up your bill,” Lucy tried to joke though she could tell it didn’t land. “I brought food and gauze.” She pulled up the two grocery bags at her side as proof.
“You don’t have to do this, Lucy,” Tim said, repeating the same words she said to him in the elevator just a few hours ago, not stepping aside to let her in. He didn’t feel he deserved any more of her kindness. He owed her too much already.
“Do you ever think about what I want?” Lucy’s anger poked through the edges of her resolve.
She wasn’t there to fight with him. He had already proved he wasn’t willing to fight with her anymore. Exhausted, she dropped her anger and let it blow away in the breeze.
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair–” Lucy began to apologize, thinking this was a horrible idea and she should have just left it alone.
“No, Lucy. Please,” Tim begged softly, making room for her to enter his house. “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t make up for the hurt he caused.
“Thanks,” she brushed past him, keeping her head down and avoiding his eyes.
Beginning to place the bags on the counter, she looked around trying to find their dog, having expected him to run up to her in greeting by now.
“Where’s Kojo?”
“I don’t know, he’s been hiding from me.”
Tim kept a respectful distance away from Lucy, still trying to size up what she was doing in his house.
“Hmm,” Lucy triumphantly hummed to herself, nodding and fighting the smile breaking on her face. Good boy, she thought.
“What— what are you doing here, Lucy?”
Lucy paused in taking out her ingredients, thoroughly disappointed. She thought he knew her better than this. Since the breakup, she kept having to correct her assumptions about Tim and what goes through his head on a daily basis. Being around him was giving her whiplash. She thought she had him nailed down, but apparently, she nailed down the wrong guy.
“I’m taking care of you. Look, you said it yourself. You didn’t have that guy. He could have killed you. Hell, he stabbed you four times, Tim. I know how you get when you’re injured. That much hasn’t changed since I met you. You’ll do the bare minimum to keep yourself from getting an infection, push yourself to be fine when you’re not, and whether you want me to or not, I still care about you and I’m not letting you suffer just because you think you deserve it.”
“Lucy,” Tim tried to protest.
As much as she thought she didn’t know him anymore, she still knew him better than most. Better than himself some days.
“Fine,” Tim relented, seeing the assortment of ingredients that went into his favorite dish. “You’re taking care of me.”
For one night, he could put his self-deprecation aside and let her take care of him. It was past time he began repaying her kindness.
“Now are you gonna go find Kojo or am I going to have to do everything for you today?” Her mouth turned up in a smile, seeing a matching one on Tim’s face.
During dinner, he admitted his legs were sore and his back hurt. Jumping into the bed of that truck had not done him any favors. The gashes on his arms stung a bit, his long sleeve under armor had done a pisspoor job of stopping the knife. Two stabs to his left leg, one to his right, and the fourth low on his waist, Tim preferred not to take the good drugs the nurse had sent him home with.
Riding only on extra-strength Tylenol, Tim had (tried to) relax on the couch and let Lucy take Kojo for his evening walk alone.
Not long after coming back from the walk, Kojo was snoring on his dog bed in the corner, and Tim was nervously flipping through channels, hoping Lucy would just go home so he didn’t have to deal with the emotions her presence was bringing to the surface. Avoidance tactics were still his go-to method for armor.
Lucy pulled out her bag of first aid supplies and walked them over to his en-suite bathroom, but only after taking a pause and a breath before entering his bedroom.
“I suggest changing the gauze in here so you can go to sleep right after. It’s getting late and you need the rest to heal,” Lucy called out into the living room where Tim was still sitting.
He closed his eyes and recalled his confession to her in the car. Despite his less-than-ideal experience, he needed to get back on the therapy horse and keep riding it until he was in a better place.
So instead of wallowing in self-pity, he chose to shut off the TV and utilize one of the tools Dr. London had armed him with. He put a name to his feelings and acknowledged their presence without judgment.
He started with regret, for pushing Lucy away and shutting her out before he could let her talk him out of his bad decisions.
Outrage, for not appreciating her enough when he still had her.
Anger, at himself, that she was here now, being Lucy, when he knows he broke her heart.
Loss, for the person he was when he was with her.
Hope, for the future he could have, if he keeps working on himself.
Failure, for what he had robbed from Lucy, what he couldn’t give to her.
Remorse, for not getting help sooner.
Frustration, for losing his therapist and needing to find a new one.
Despair, for wanting to fix things but not knowing how.
And finally, guilt, for Lucy, being here, having his back, after all that had happened, for all that he continued to leave unsaid.
Painfully, he stood up and carefully made his way to his bedroom, shocked to see her touches reignited in the room like a beacon on a foggy day.
“Lucy,” He sighed, “What is all this?”
There was a lit candle on his dresser, a mini dehumidifier on his bedside table, the smell of some sort of root or herb in the air, and a bottle of CBD oil in the middle of the bed.
“It’s too much, you don’t have to do all this,” Tim peered around the corner of his bathroom door to find Lucy donning gloves with antiseptic wipes and fresh bandages dominating the counter space formerly occupied by her small collection of toiletries.
“Tim, I’m taking care of you,” her voice was stern, hard, and rigid. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. He could see the determination and pleading in her eyes. “Please,” she added after, softer, more forgiving.
“Okay,” Tim relented with his head down. “You’re taking care of me.”
“Good, now take off your pants, I need to see your wounds.”
“Lucy,” Tim protested weakly, hand on his hip and begging for this to not be as painful as it was.
“What? Not like it’s anything I haven’t seen before,”
Their eyes met in a challenge, eye contact having been fleeting and rare, too hard to face and too agonizing to hold.
Tim broke away first, sighing and moving to take off his shoulder sling.
Seeing him struggle with a simple task, Lucy stepped forward to help him.
He stepped back and held up his good hand in a motion to stop.
“I need to do this on my own,” he stated, his words conveying a message deeper than just undressing himself.
Lucy turned away, busying herself with re-checking her supplies. “Fine, let me know when you’re ready.”
Hearing the grunts from his efforts, Lucy did her best to preoccupy herself with something, anything, other than rushing to his side to take away his pain. That wasn’t her privilege anymore. Being here now was already overstepping an unspoken boundary. But after the height of adrenaline, the rush of almost losing him, stepping over that boundary was a selfish but necessary move on her part. She saw that and acknowledged it, doing it anyway, knowing she’d willingly face the consequences of whatever happened tonight even if it meant ignoring her hurt and anger toward him for shutting her out– just for one night.
“Ready,” he called out after getting settled on the bed. All of his injuries were on his front, easily accessible from his seated position. Sitting was much less intimate than laying down, he thought.
He kept his underwear on, knowing the waistband covered half of one stabbing and the material on his left leg covered the mark on his upper thigh.
She got to work on cleaning the knife scratches on his forearms first, focusing on her task and mentally steeling herself that this was just a body that needed care, not Tim who needed her. The gloves helped desensitize her from the feel of his warm skin.
Finishing up with the ointment on his arms, Lucy quickly looked up at him and away, uncomfortably taking up a familiar position kneeling between his legs.
“Sorry,” Lucy whispered, accidentally knocking her elbow against his knee trying to take off the old gauze from the slash on his right leg.
Tim held his breath, tense and looking far above her head.
He missed Lucy. He fucking missed Lucy a lot. Despite his crass comment in the car earlier, their sexual chemistry had always crackled louder than a raging forest fire. Having her here now, kneeling in between his legs after saving his life, he couldn’t help but be reminded of how good she used to make him feel.
How fucking phenomenal they were together.
How fucking much he missed the comfort of her touch.
“Tim,” Lucy said, forcing him to look down at her.
Fuck, he missed her.
Fuck, he wanted her.
Fuck, he didn’t deserve her.
Not anymore. Not now. Not yet.
“I need you to lay back to get the one on your stomach. And it’ll be easier to clean up the last one on your leg with your um, underwear off.”
“Lucy–” Tim groaned, already starting a list of reasons why he could take care of the last two gashes on his own.
“Let me take care of you, Tim,” Lucy pushed again, frustration rising to the surface having foreseen his resistance.
He rolled his eyes and stood, losing his balance slightly and falling forward, reaching out to steady himself with her shoulder. She bracketed his hips, holding him in place and pushing back slightly against the gravity of his fall.
“Sorry,” he said as both of them regretfully removed their hands from each other.
“You need to drink more water,” Lucy announced, standing up from her kneeling position and practically running to the kitchen.
When she got back, Tim was supine on the mattress, his discarded underwear held over his junk to preserve a modicum of modesty while looking tense and tight and nervous.
He didn’t watch her, as she walked toward him with the water glass. He looked anywhere but at her.
“Sit up,” she instructed, leaning over him to grab the pillow from the other side of the bed to stuff under his back.
They were close enough for Tim to get a hit of pure jasmine, pure Lucy, and he held his breath again, looking up at her with wide eyes of wonderment and taking the outstretched glass.
“Relax, Tim, I won’t bite,” she soothed, resisting the urge to push back his hair like she used to, instead, picking up the ointment and gauze to finish up on the last two scrapes as quickly as possible.
Still, he hadn’t resumed his normal breathing and Lucy decided she had enough of his obsolescence.
“Do some 4-7-8 breathing before you suffocate yourself, Tim,” She snapped off her nitrile gloves and disposed of the dirty bandages, leaving him to breathe. She came back soon after, asking with her eyes if he was okay with her getting on the bed next to him.
He exhaled his breath, closed his eyes, and decided to allow it with a terse nod of his head.
Carefully, Lucy sat on the bed and picked up the bottle of CBD oil.
“What are you doing?” Tim asked, fear apparent on his face.
“I’m going to massage your legs,” she said, shaking the bottle and kneeling beside his hips.
“No, you’re not,” Tim fussed.
“After a serious trauma like you survived today, your muscles are tensing up and will only hurt more if you don’t massage the area to restore normal blood flow. You said your back and legs hurt, you said you’d let me take care of you. You need this, Tim,” her fierce protector emerged, stating her position as non-negotiable. What she didn’t say, was that she needed this too.
Tim gulped, knowing she was right. It's just… the last time he let her give him a massage, the night morning ended much differently from how he expected tonight to go, no matter what his second brain advocated for.
He took another measured breath and settled against the mountain of pillows. “Go ahead,” he consented, closing his eyes and mentally cataloging player stats from decades' worth of Dodgers games. If baseball failed him, he’d move on to football, followed by hockey, police procedure, or fucking golf if it got that bad.
At the first touch of her oil-slicked hands at his fucking knee, he knew not even golf would be enough to keep his erection at bay.
“I’m going to acknowledge the inevitability now, just to get it out of the way,” Tim said after she worked her hands up to his mid-thigh. He still covered himself with his underwear, wishing he wasn’t so damn turned on in her presence.
“What’s that?” Lucy asked, so focused on her task that all she had in her brain was a map of his jīngluò.
“I’m uh, going to, uh, react to your hands on me, um, touching me. Just— just ignore it. I’m going to do my best to pretend it’s not happening, but uh, I just, I don’t know. This is uncharted territory, I feel like I’m in over my head.”
Lucy took her hands off him, giving him a moment to gather his composure.
“It’s okay, Tim. I know what I’m getting myself into. May I?” She shifted further away from his top half, planning to use the distance to pull the energy from his hip down and out through his toes.
He nodded in approval, remembering how indulgent her touch felt.
“Your qi is really blocked, Tim,” Lucy knit her brows together in a frown.
The last time she was here, massaging him, he wasn’t half as tense as he was now. Granted, all they’d been through the last few months had been more than enough to dirty up his rivers of energy, but what Lucy was encountering now, was a serious imbalance in his homeostasis.
“I’d make a quip about what not having you with me does to me, but I don’t think we’re there yet,” there was hope in his statement. A quiet hope that made her pause. His voice was drowsy and husky, a perfect mix for a cocktail of bad decisions.
“It might not take as long as you think to get there, Tim,” Lucy started with his right leg before moving over to his left and repeating the treatment exactly, making sure to be careful around the edges of his bandages.
Her hands pressed into his thigh, sliding around the sides and using all ten of her digits to dig into the taut muscle. She spent time focusing on his calf, massaging away knots and blockages to the flow of blood and energy. Her hands moved back and forth, up and down, inside his leg and up toward his pelvis. She was achingly aware of and avoiding his crotch, only once softly brushing the back of her knuckle against his nutsack on accident. When he flinched and sucked in a breath, she apologized and focused on his outer hip instead. There, he felt himself stretched and loosened, free from the tension of a hellish fight.
Once his legs were sufficiently massaged, Lucy made another selfish decision and began to dig her thumbs into the pressure points in his feet. She had the hot spots memorized, knowing where Tim held his tension and knowing exactly how much pressure to exude to get him to release it. He was still too tense for her to feel comfortable leaving him in such a state. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself as she greedily let her hands roam his body.
When she pressed her knuckle into the sciatic nerve at his heel, she watched as Tim finally let go and rode a wave of energy release, giving in to the sensations of her touch, relaxing his palms at his side, and allowing his underwear to fall off his growing erection, too blissed out to notice or even care. She made sure to rub the inner base of his big toe, hoping to ease the tension in his neck before moving on to the space below his four other toes, targeting the trapezius muscle of his injured arm.
Lucy blushed, (and smirked), hearing the familiar gasps and groans she was eliciting from his throat. Pressing harder, she watched as his back arched and his cock thudded against his belly when his hips hit the mattress on the downfall. She had stayed silent during the massage, though in her head she was coaching him through his releases.
That’s it, Tim. Let go, feel the tension ease, feel your body relaxing. You’re safe.
She hit another pocket of deep tissue in his heel and was rewarded with a shudder and deep guttural groan followed by a whimper. He was putty in her hands, finally relaxed after months of consistent tension.
I’ve got you, Tim. You’re in good hands, let me take care of you.
His eyes snapped open at the first words spoken in over an hour, surprised at how aware he was of the sincerity of her tone and hammering of his heart and of his dick.
Lucy stopped, embarrassed she had spoken the words under her breath instead of in her head. In a room filled with his pants and moans, her whispers were a shout fallen upon desperate ears.
“Lucy,” Tim cried, distress shocking her to crawl back up the bed and kiss him.
“Tim,” Lucy gasped into his mouth. Their kiss was hungry, starving, like he’d been thinking about her every day since he shipped off on tour and he just returned home.
Grabbing his face with both hands, she kept him pressed to her, not letting him go no matter how bad of an idea this was. She needed him, needed to feel he was alive, that he was okay, that he wouldn’t leave her before she was ready to let him go.
“Luce,” Tim slipped, desperate to follow her mouth wherever she led them. With his arm that wasn’t sprained, he lifted his hand and covered one of hers on his face, grasping it like a liferaft meant to keep him afloat. He then pealed it from his cheek, moving it down to settle over his hammering heart, where it should have been the entire time.
“Let me take care of you,” Lucy asked, pressing her hand over his pec and moving it down, down, down, until she brushed past his abs, settling it low on his belly. “Let me take care of you, Tim,” she said again, barely finding the space to speak between pushing her tongue past his lips and sucking his into her mouth.
He reached up to her side, fisting the hem of her shirt in his hand and tugging, tugging her desperately over his body. She spread her legs, swinging one over his hips, and hovered above him, mindful not to settle her weight on his injured thighs. Her hand continued its journey south, finding her treasure with a familiarity only known to those who spent hours studying the map of his body.
Tim groaned into her mouth, feeling her hand close around his head. He released her shirt from his grip and replaced it with a handful of hair rooted to her skull. He held her face close, afraid of letting her go ever again.
Lucy worked her palm up and down his length, using her other hand to support herself on his chest. She couldn’t get enough of him, and as much as she wanted this to last, she knew he was close to a release, having spent the last two hours unintentionally edging him with her attention. She slowed the movement of her hand, taking a few moments to savor his bittersweet kisses while she still had the excuse to take them from him.
“Tim,” Lucy pulled back, checking in with him to see if he was okay with what was happening.
Seeing the raw anguish in his face, her lip began to quiver and she hid it from him by stealing his lips in another life-altering kiss. Throwing all caution out the window, Lucy gripped harder on his cock, moved her hand slower, and arched her back to press her chest against his. There was no stopping what was going to happen tonight. No going back, no remorse, no regret.
She sat up on her knees, still hovered above him, and as fast as she could, whipped off her shirt and threw it somewhere in the room. She leaned back down to taste more of him, arching her fingers down the root of his cock to splay over his tightened ballsack. Tim moaned into her open mouth and flexed his hips up to seek more of her touch.
Silently, Tim cursed the lack of two functioning arms, forced to sideline one and overwork the other. Tenderly, he ran it up and down her back, trying to touch as much of her as he could, not knowing if he’d ever have the chance again after tonight.
Lucy moved her hand off his dick again, earning a verbal protest in the form of a whine from Tim which was quickly withdrawn when he realized it was so she could free her breasts from her bra. Once the garment was also thrown elsewhere in the room, Tim gently used his injured arm to wedge between their chests and pinch and tug at her nipple leisurely. He wished he could do more, but he knew he was beyond lucky to be where he was at all.
“Am I hurting you?” Lucy asked, slowing in her movements.
Tim had begun to only breathe in, huffing in short breaths and barely exhaling at all. That, accompanied by his desperate nips and worried noises gave Lucy pause.
He rapidly blinked open his eyes, gazing up at her and using all his effort to complete a series of 4-7-8 breaths. Once he got himself under control, he slowly blinked his eyes at her, focused enough to respond to her question.
“You can’t possibly hurt me more than I’ve hurt you,”
“Tim,” Lucy sadly gasped, pressing her forehead to his, pulling away to pepper kisses along his face, cradling it, and living in a moment where there was no hurt between them at all.
“Lucy?” Tim asked, breaking the spell only to cast it stronger, “please take care of me,” his request was full of pain, of longing, pure desperation and need.
“Always,” Lucy promised, kissing his lips, “Tim–” She wanted to say the words so badly, I love you, but she knew she shouldn’t.
Instead, she removed the rest of her clothing and carefully mounted him, being mindful of his scars, new and old. She moved on top of him with her knees drawn up at his hips, keeping her chest low and face close to his. They kissed and kissed and kissed, kissing until his finger couldn’t jerk at her clit any longer and they were both coming with open-mouthed gasps into each other’s space. Afterward, she held him, cradled his head in her chest as he drifted to sleep.
In the morning, she was gone before he woke, her scent in the bed the only trace that she had been more than a dream, more than a mirage. A message waited for him on his phone. It was from Lucy and it read: I took Kojo for a sleepover. I’ll bring him back tomorrow evening. Thank you for letting me take care of you, Tim.
