Hi! :) I hope you’re doing alright this evening, and that the words when you’re writing come easily.
I’ve just reread what you have posted for your Curls fic (which I absolutely love, it’s so sweet) and had a question:
What coat color or pattern have you been imagining for Frankie?
It’s been mentioned that she has “gooseberry green” eyes, but as far as I could tell you haven’t written on the color of her fur, so I got curious.
(By the way, gooseberry is a wonderful description! I had to look up what color that was, but I think it suits her!)
My mother always called their cat Pooka's eyes gooseberry green so all credit to her <3
Pokka looked like an Egyptian mau. She was this pretty dual coat that could be more silver or more tan. She also had a stupidly short tail. I think I would have to so Frankie is like her.
...and Curls being long is a problem...how? It's a perfect feel-better story?? And you're writing it sweet without dipping into syrup, as an extra bonus???
masterpost please no editing <3
actually wrote this late one night, it's short, but enjoy!
Jason lets his head thunk against his kitchen counter. Frankie, heartlessly, continues to clean herself like it’s nothing.
“Why can’t I talk to him?” Jason bemoans anyways. “You put me in front of a squad of dudes with knives and I can talk their ears off, but put me out there in the world as… as just me and… I guess that’s the problem, huh? Red Hood can talk people’s ears off. I can barely talk. Pretty sure I’m trading one model in for a worse one here.”
Frankie pauses, tongue half stuck out of her mouth, and looks over at Jason with a little ‘merp’ of noise. When Jason doesn’t say anything back. She rolls over and starts to clean Jason’s hair. It makes Jason give a little snort of laughter that Frankie gives him an affronted look for.
“I’m pretty sure you only like me because I’m the one that opens your cat food cans.”
Instantly, Frankie scrambles to sit up with big, wide eyes.
“You aren’t helping my self esteem here any, Frankie,” Jason says with a sigh. “And it’s not even dinner time yet.”
She tilts her head. Somehow, her eyes get even wider.
“…maybe one of your snack packs, but no begging for dinner early!” Jason complains even as he gets up. Frankie falls in line with him, weaving between his feet as he heads to the little linen closet that had been given over to all things cat. “Yeah, yeah, we’re going. What do you think, salmon or chicken.”
“Mew.”
“Good choice, salmon it is. I might pick up some fish myself soon. Could be nice with some couscous, you know?”
“Mew.”
“Of course you know. You’d happily eat fish every meal,” Jason says. He closes the closet door, the cat flap in it swinging with the motion, and sets the bowl down by Frankie’s dry food and water. “There, spoiled brat. I’m going to go read now. Who knows, maybe Danny wasn’t kidding any actually does want to talk about the book. Of course, I’d need to, you know, speak to the guy then.”
“Merft.”
“Yeah, sure I’m ruining your appetite, right? I’ll keep it to myself,” Jason says with a little wave as he heads to the couch. The book really doesn’t look like his usual thing, but he’s willing to give it a shot on recommendation (and the chance to talk to Danny) alone. He just hopes that’s not a mistake.
masterpost, please no editing or concrit. really writing to survive here <3
Danny sighs. The shy hunk is in the shop again. He’s been loyally to the last three book club meetings and in the store two other times, and Danny still doesn’t know the guy’s name. He does, though, know that the shy guy likes happy endings. He likes period pieces and romances and sometimes some adventure. He’ll read fantasy and sci-fi without care, but avoids the mystery section completely. He doesn’t mind if it’s YA. Most of all he likes happy endings.
Danny also, maybe, has been trying figure out books to recommend the guy so that they could talk about the book, just the two of them. He hasn’t found the right one, not yet.
“You could just ask the guy his name,” Mel says. She’s studying the corkboard, removing out of date fliers to make space for new ones.
“Lies,” Danny says. He’s still not an avid reader, not exactly. Like, he reads now, but he doesn’t have the years and years of books as a repertoire, not like Mel, Blanche, Cassie, and Josh do. But there has to be something… “Oh!”
“Oh what, realized I’m right?” Mel asked.
Danny ignores her and slips out from behind the counter and over to the shy hunk. He keeps a few feet between then, of course, but even that close it takes Danny’s brain a moment to reboot over how big the guy is. Like a giant teddy bear.
Giving his head a little shake to clear it, Danny smiles and asks, “Would you like a recommendation?”
Shy hunk opens his mouth to reply and then closes slowly and just nods instead. If Danny didn’t know that the guy could talk, he’d feel bad. As it is, it was just kinda cute and Danny can’t help his widening smile. “Okay. So, I know that this one looks a little fishy. Not mermaid fishy, but like a little tabloid fishy, but trust in the power of alliteration. Legends & Lattes!”
With a curious head tilt, Shy hunk takes it from Danny’s hands and looks at the cover.
“It’s a cute sapphic romance in a fantasy setting. It’s an easy read, but sometimes we need that sort of read, you know?” Danny asks with a little shrug. “Besides… I read it a few weeks ago, so if you want to talk about it at all, I’m, you know, right here.”
“Oh,” Shy hunk whispers with a blink. And then he smiles, just a little, and tilts his head down so that Danny can barely see it. “Yeah… I’ll… thanks.”
“Of course, that’s what I’m here for. We, I mean, that’s what we’re here for,” Danny says as he stumbles through the words to not be so forward. “But, you know, I’d at least like to hear if you liked it?”
The book curls in his large hands before he quickly relaxes them and smooths his palm over the cover to flatten it back out. “Sorry… I, yeah, I’ll let you know. And… maybe talk?”
“Yeah, I’d like that, talking,” Danny says back. And then a long pause later. “Oh, um, I’ll let you keep looking around! And I’ll just be at the counter when you want to check out.”
“Thanks,” Shy whispers
“Sure,” Danny mumbles as he practically scurries back to the counter.
oh look, masterpost prob lots of issues, head fuzzy, but don't need corrections atm, ty <3
Jason flops down onto the bed next to Frankie. He’s careful not to bump her or anything in his fall, but she still makes a little noise of annoyance at him.
“Yeah, yeah, whine all you want but this is my bed first and I just needed to… I don’t know, fall dramatically,” Jason ends with a sigh. He tosses his arm over his eyes for good measure. Frankie starts to clean his fingers before she nips one. “Ow, like you’ve never fallen dramatically! You do it like, six times a day at least.”
She soothes the nipped finger with a lick before she goes back to cleaning her leg.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Jason moves his arm enough to blink up at the dark ceiling. It had been dusky by the time the book club let out and dark by the time Jason got home. He should be getting ready to go out as Red Hood, but…
He doesn’t want to.
Jason doesn’t know what to do with that feeling. Or, he guesses, that lack of feeling. The normal relentless drive to go out and prowl the night was quiet. In it’s place, Jason is left annoyingly aware of the way his hips aches from sitting on that stupid little stool. The way it radiates up his spine and into his shoulders and creeps up the back of his head to settle as a small headache behind his eyes.
He hurts. Sure, he always hurts, it’s not like a stool mortally wounded him, but tonight it’s louder than the need for justice vengeance. Side by side with it is the urge to reread the first chapters of the book with all the new thoughts from the book club. What if he just…
“What if I don’t go out tonight, Frankie?”
She stops cleaning to mew at him. Her gooseberry green eyes are wide.
“We could sit on the couch—” Jason blinks as Frankie perks up at the word, does a big stretch that Jason is jealous of, and hops off the bed. “Okay, I guess that’s a yes. I also guess that means you know the word ‘couch’. Give me a moment to change into sweats and grab something from the fridge.”
Frankie mews back from down the hall.
By the time that Jason has changed and grabbed a yogurt and banana, Frankie is sitting on the one end of the couch, kneading on the folded blanket.
“Eager, aren’t you?” Jason teases. He sets his things down on the coffee table so that he can sit down and spread the blanket over his legs as he stretches out on the couch. Frankie is quick to settle on his lap with a loud purr. He smiles and scratches behind her ear, right where the fur is especially soft. “Yeah, yeah, opinion noted.”
Very carefully, so not to jar Frankie, Jason grabs the banana to start with. When Frankie’s eyes are closed and her purring slows, he feels less guilty about grabbing his yogurt and the two hands it takes to eat that.
She mews at him when he picks up his book and, with a roll of his eyes, he starts petting her again.
“The guy who signed me up for the book club was there,” Jason says, softly. “I didn’t know if he would be. He ran the thing too.”
“Merft?”
“Yeah, he did a really good job. I don’t think he normally leads it, and he was a little nervous, but I think it went well,” Jason says. He chews on his lip before he adds, “He even asked me a question.”
“Murp?”
“Of course I answered… well, I mean, not of course, I didn’t say anything else the whole night like some sort of… person who’s too shy to talk! Me!” Jason sighs. “But I did answer it and he said, well, mouthed ‘good job’, so I think I did alright. Do you want to know something, Frankie?”
“Merw.”
“He has really pretty lips.” Even just admitting that to Frankie makes Jason want to hide his face in his book. Luckily Frankie just mews back. “I don’t know? Maybe? Not like I actually know the guy. And I don’t want to be a creep who hits on someone at their job, even if I could manage to string the words together, but…”
Ship: Danny/Jason
CW: self esteem issues, chronic pain, other tags to be added
It hits Jason while he’s perched on a rooftop. Which… of course it does. He came back from the dead, but did he ever really start to live again?
So he decorates his apartment, accidentally gets a cat, grows out his hair, and joins a book club. A book club lead by a cute guy named Danny.
All things related to this fic can be found in the 'curls fic' tag on @clockwayswrites. Major links are below.
Part 1, Part 2,
Part 3, Part 4
Part 5
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