An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
i’m not sure if i’ve recc’d this already, but this is one of the best baby fics i’ve ever read. the dynamic between Red and Liz in this one is fantastic and exactly how i picture them. It’s WIP, but still completely satisfying, imo.
Established relationship Red/Liz domesticity answer fic/meta below. I put a readmore because it rather got away from me! lots of fun, and so wonderfully comforting and cheering to think about our pair this way — esp after that finale… Thanks for that, eliizabethkeen!
send me a ship and I’ll tell you who:
shops for groceries
they get things delivered, Red has a series of people in different locals who pick him out the best produce and fresh bread and such and sometimes the shopping is delivered seamlessly and invisibly, and sometimes he sits and has coffee or a beer with the person who brings it by and catches up with them about their family.
Liz is perfectly happy with this arrangement because the last time she actually had to be a responsible shopper was when she was a teen, with a fresh diver’s license making sure she and Sam had enough food in the house despite how busy they both were, and from college onwards she avoided the who cooking and shopping thing as much as she could. Tom was really into Whole Foods and she kinda went along with it because he had “family money” (and she hates to think where that came from) but the small town girl in her cringed at the pricetags on the Natrual Organic Freetrade this that and the other he brought home, and oh god, the gluten free kick, she was ready to kill him over that — thank god Red is 100% wheat friendly, she’d missed french bread so badly and Red’s got this baker in New York that supplies them when they stay in the Bolt Hole (a misleading name if there ever was one, it was plush and well lit and had started out as parts of two different prewar apartments that had been remodeled around it so the untrained observer couldn’t even tell it was there — and the owner of the other apartments was almost always on vacation.)
kills the spiders
Hudson, because FBI training or no, Liz has a strict not within 3 feet policy when it comes to spiders and Red doesn’t actually think they need disturbing, “But they’re useful little fellows, Lizzy, eating up all the little insects. House spiders don’t survive outside, you know. I’ve never seen the point of *rescuing* them by trapping them under a cup and kicking them out.”
comes home drunk at 3am
Red, at particularly high times and particular low ones. Liz understands why, knows his head is a loud, full place and sometimes he just needs to get up and out and quiet and relaxed. But she still quietly wishes he wouldn’t, not that she’s puritanical, but wishes he didn’t feel the need, hurts that he’s got such a lot to quiet. Plus it sometimes means he’s been up all night matching “business partners” drink for drink and raunchy dangerous story for raunchy dangerous story and he is brilliant at it, he’s the best conman she’s ever seen, but she knows he feels ghastly afterwards, not from the hangover but because he still worries about how easily he blends in with these people. And the longer he’s spent with Liz, the more he wishes it wasn’t so easy.
makes breakfast
either they go out, or they sleep through it altogether, but sometimes Liz does cook breakfast for them — it’s the only food she’s mastered, breakfast and baking, (it’s the cooking savoury things where she has a hard time) and there’s some part of her that likes to try and provide for Red in return, make comfortable homey things for him. She’s good at fluffy sweet omelettes or french toast, or very occasionally oatmeal with sauteed apples, but it takes her a long time, so it’s only if there’s time for a lazy day at home after a late night out. It’s almost always the first day or two their in a new place (they move around a lot less, a LOT less than he used to, but still often enough) and he supposes it’s because she wants it to feel like home, like she’s claimed the place as hers by trying out the stove and having some just them at home time.
remembers to feed the fish
I really can see Red keeping and feeding and collecting fish, can’t you? knowing tons of obscure factoids about them like an enthusiastic 12 year old. Except you can’t really travel with fish. You can’t even really travel with a cat, it’s kind of dog or nothing imo. But they baby Hudson in his twilight years so that’s okay :3
decorates the apartment
Red and Dembe, I’m entirely sure about this. Liz would know just enough to know what she doesn’t want, but not what she does want and there’s nothing like decorating (tromping through flea-markets and furnature stores until your feet go numb and looking at paint chips on the internet until you’re dizzy) to send an otherwise semi-stable relationship between two stubborn, opinionated people into a spate of screaming rows and stony silence or drawn out passive aggressive battles… or at least talking in circles while Red keeps deferring to her preferences saying he doesn’t care even when he *totally obviously does* and should just admit it, when Liz doesn’t want to decide *anyway* because she has no real idea. Better to leave it all to Red and Dembe, who has impeccable, understated taste and knows how to talk Red down from “but that looks *fascinating*” type impulses without Red really noticing… XD
initiates duets
I don’t picture Liz as particularly musical. Perhaps Sam encouraged her to take piano or violin or something for a year or two but I’m guessing it didn’t stick at all. She’d be good at the memorization and theory but not phrasing and musicality. For some reason I’m convinced that Red plays the piano quite well, not formally/classically, but with ease and emotion, slightly jazzy stuff probably some better known, more emotive classical, maybe if much cajoled from the right people. But he doesn’t really do it anymore. Something he had great aptitude for as a kid and young man, and his wife and daughter loved to hear him play. Maybe he would play for Lizzy sometimes, if she asked. Actually he would whenever she asked, if she was brave enough to ask… Liz has an interesting set of boundary issues don’t you think?
falls asleep first
Liz, definitely. She always needs more sleep than Red seems to. But she’s the first one up usually, if there’s nothing pressing calling him away. She creeps around in the mornings trying not to wake him, occupying herself with various work, there’s still cases she tries to solve as intellectual problems, and forwards her results untraceably to those who will see it reaches the right hands. She values her alone time, but she also finds herself impatient for him to wake and join her for coffee and conversation. Because she values that even more than she ever expected, the ways they are quietly *together* the way she finally, finally has someone who understands her so well, and she can say just about anything to, even if it still sometimes takes her a while to get to that point where she feels able to talk about what’s gnawing at her — because at first between them the words didn’t work as well as the other things, the gestures, the physicality, the companionship worked better.
oops that’s all of them from the meme, and I almost with there were more. I needed a little fluff, a little bit of believing we get a happy ending. What do you think? Agree with my characterization? ;)
harrietspecter said: omg yesterday on facebook i was browsing the trending topic things and someone spelled her name so wrong i don’t even think it was a case of bad autocorrect. i was like what the fuck character you are talking/complaining about????
hahahahaha i dont understand why people can't spell it. it's a simple name?!
harrietspecter said: exactly. like why are we killing all the women and in the dumbest ways too. like im sorry she’s fucking cia; she knows better. i hope she finds one, too. forever angry at this episode.
exactly!!!! she's fucking CIA, she could handle an idiot with a knife. And she would have been on guard. Literally it looked like a cheesy horror movie, such bullshit
harrietspecter replied to your post:Or maybe Red was just there I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT...
i think he may be the man holding the bunny. maybe he set the fire. i dont know. i definitely have more what the fuck why meera feels than anything else right now.
SAME. They fucking killed the only other female besides Liz. And then they let Cooper live?! I'm just so furious about Meera, that was absolute shit. I hope Parminder Nagra finds a show that will actually treat her with some damn respect.
harrietspecter replied to your post:I’ve seen quite a few posts regarding Liz being...
As a Liz defender, I’m having some real issues with the way people have been calling her childish and wanted to make a post about it. I love your post and I just want you to know it. Thank you for defending her; much appreciated by a fellow pro-Liz.
Aw thank you for saying this!! I was nervous about posting it because I don't want people to think I'm like singling them out or angry at them, but I just feel the need to defend Liz because she tends to get criticized a lot and some of it (not all, there have been times where I wanted to slap sense into her too) I feel is unfair to her.
I'm glad there are other pro-Liz people out there like me! :D
harrietspecter said: Oh no. Z snap. Liz Keen hate won’t be had on my watch; lemme at ‘em. Fiercely defending Liz forever.
the girl is so rude, bitching because Liz cried and saying she shouldn't have taken the job if she couldn't handle it, as if she had a choice in taking the job ugh
