For @flufftober day 30: self love / self worth
500 words, rated T, no warnings
Summary: Loving yourself can be hard for a variety of reasons, and sometimes things aren’t as they seem at first glance.
Set early in the series, and pre-ot3 relationship
Elizabeth MacMillan had to work hard to love herself for who she is.
She knows the world at large does not accept her. Mac had found her way despite it, clawed a path for herself in a world that doesn’t want her, even gained respect by some of her peers…
But she still isn’t sure whether she truly loves herself. Whether, if she could change who she is - truly change, not just act and pretend - she wouldn’t take that option…
It would certainly make life easier, if she could find herself a nice husband and be happy as a housewife.
Her friend Phryne never seems to have such doubts.
Loving herself seems to come easy to Phryne Fisher, much easier than it comes to Mac.
She is vibrant in her clothes and her smile and her entire being, she pulls you in and always seems to know exactly what she is doing.
Where Mac is content to have found a style she isn’t quite so uncomfortable in, Phryne wears any style like it was made for her personally. Where Mac at least doesn’t hate herself anymore for whom she loves, Phryne never cared what society might think about her lovers.
Captain Jack Robinson has similar thoughts about the enigmatic Miss Fisher.
She used to unnerve him, but it didn’t take long until he was caught in her light, in the way she seems to make the entire world love her.
She doesn’t seem to ever doubt herself - in fact, often thinks she can do his job better than him (not that she is wrong, most times).
Phryne does whatever she likes, and instead of second-guessing herself, she expects the world to adapt to her and her eccentricities. He never wants her to change, and thinks she wouldn’t want to, either.
Jack sees Phryne, and he sees a kind of confidence he never had.
Not to say he is lacking confidence entirely, he knows he is good at his job, and he likes to think of himself as a good person… but all of this is only while sticking to what is expected, fitting to the mold of a man in his position, and when he finds himself desiring more, desiring otherwise, he pushes it away.
He isn’t sure he loves every part of himself. Isn’t even certain he knows who he truly could be, if he let himself choose freely.
Phryne is very aware of how the world perceives her.
She knows she isn’t what most would call normal, and she has long made peace with this fact. She had her own demons haunting her, and life can be too short not to live it at the fullest.
Besides, she needs the distractions sometimes, danger and excitement and a string of lovers to forget the dark thoughts of the past.
She isn’t sure whether she is a good person, not like Jack or Elizbeth are. But she is alive, this is her life, and she is damn well living it.
Cross-posted to Ao3 | more Miss Fisher by me
